Fundraising

This is the wiki for the now defunct OSGeo Fundraising Committee, dissolved Sept 2007 with fundraising responsibility devolving to the OSGeo board. Most non-meeting communication is via the fundraising mailing list.

Oct 2007: New Finance Committee (see there)

Meetings

• First Meeting
• Second Meeting
• Third Meeting
• Fourth Meeting

Documents

• Foundation Sponsorship proposal.
• Project Sponsorship proposal.
• Budget 2006-2007
• Income Projection
• Income Review
• EDRC BAA Proposal - Proposal in support of packaged binary and some other project improvements that are of use to ERDC (US Army Research Centers)
• Local Chapter Sponsorship proposal.

Fundraising Approaches

Sponsorship Programs

This is covered in detail in the Foundation Sponsorship and Project Sponsorship proposals.

A draft document that will become the OSGeo Sponsorship Page is under development.

Conference

The foundation will operate an annual conference starting in 2007, following up on the FOSS4G conference. Conferences can be money making ventures, but putting on a broad and well attended conference is also seen as one of the primary goals of the foundation for it's community building, and promotional benefits. So current plans are that the foundation should aim for a roughly revenue neutral conference.

Note that the conferences have traditionally solicited conference sponsors, and are expected to continue doing so.

Profits from conferences are directed into general OSGeo funds or to help build up a conference reserve account to support cost overruns with future events. Likewise It Because the revenue (and expenses) associated with the conference can be quite large (2007 = USD$300,000+, but varying from year to year) - it is the primary source of revenue. This is important for retaining our 501(c)(3) status (when approved) as it helps show diverse revenue from more than one sponsor.

Grants

Submitting grant applications to other charitable foundations or governments will be essential for OSGeo's long-term ability to operate as a non-profit, charitable, organization. The US charitable (501c3) status is interested in seeing organizations have broad levels of support, not only from a handful of private sponsors, but also from grants. The conference event will help diversify our revenue, but grants will be required to help deliver more services and support through OSGeo in the future.

Other

A few other ideas that have been suggested.

• Selling swag like tee-shirts, mugs, etc (now in place at http://cafepress.com/osgeo)
• Selling CDs with pre-built software.
• Charging membership fees (we plan to offer a $50USD "supporting membership").
• Submitting grant applications to other charitable foundations or governments.
• Providing contract development services (care required to avoid competing with supporters, and sticking to our charitable goals) eg. EDRC BAA Proposal