Appropedia:Fundraising/2012-13 fundraiser

This page is archived.It's no longer active but it's preserved for historical reasons. Please do not edit it unless you intend to revive it.Read more...

Planning page: Fundraising for Appropedia in 2012 & 2013.

The general idea: Run a holiday fundraiser for the end of 2012 & Jan 2013, to raise money for a server that will enable expansion of the site and a rollout of our cool new semantic tools. We don't have a lot of time & resources, so we'll keep this campaign simple.

If you want to help, add your name below and leave a message for Chriswaterguy.

• Lizkimbrough (talk · contribs)
• Kili (talk · contribs)
• Chriswaterguy (talk · contribs) (away from Dec 26th to ~Jan 5 - can help set things up, schedule a blog post...)
• Nikki (talk · contribs)

Material:

• Brief spiels (see #The story below) - a set of messages we can use without being too repetitive.
  • Including: as a family or as friends, give to something you believe in at Christmas, rather than (or as well as) giving presents.
  • What we're asking for and why it matters.
  • Make a nice readable update of the year, to post on our blog and share around. Notes to work from here: 2012 in Review. (Chriswaterguy, Lizkimbrough?)
• Select stories to use.
  • (incl our own, our service learning partners, Jean's post on Facebook. Ask other FB & Twitter followers.)

Awareness:

• Contact supporters - people who like us already, who don't need a fancy message.
• Promote:
  • on social media
  • on blog (Chriswaterguy to lead - help with writing or copyediting is welcome.)
  • on front page and with a site notice.
  • among friendly communities & networkers - Ben, Jean, Doug, Michel, Vinay, Lucas... (maybe save the big push for a bit later, as these networks are not always very familiar with us.
  • among our personal friends - with an inspiring message rather than a high pressure one.

Extra - good if possible:

• Platform:
  • Extra funding channels and options. (Curt will look into regular payments.)
  • Less distractions on donation page (Chriswaterguy)
  • Highly visible funding request on each page - Wikipedia style.
• Video messages
• Progress bar, showing how much has been donated relative to the target. As we're not using a fancy funding platform, this will presumably need to be manually updated - but it will still be a good visual.

A flexible ask, so that we can declare success in January even if we're short of the server cost; also making it clear that we can make use of money beyond the ~$7400.

Mainly for:

New server: Around $7400 more to get an awesome server.

The following are old notes - most are not relevant and I need to move them elsewhere. --Chriswaterguy 01:35, 20 December 2012 (PST)

Something we can launch with little or no effort on video production? E.g.:

• Developer costs to do X, Y and Z. Focus on...
  • Ease of editing:
    • Category tools, or other editing tools? Great but not very sexy. (Don't specifically mention the Semantic Forms - we might be funding that another way.)
    • Expand (and simplify) Appropedia's implicit invitation to request users to post content-related questions ("articles they want to see")
    • Expand (and simplify) Appropedia's implicit invitation to provide feedback on articles
  • Spam-fighting tools. Frame them as tools for openness and quality improvement.
  • Communication & social tools for the wiki. (What can we realistically do at this point?)
  • Look at our list of top requests on BetterMeans for other ideas (I'll do this --Chriswaterguy 20:32, 30 November 2012 (PST))
• Expanding our base and our content:
  • Expand our service learning program, to create more awesomeness.
  • Expand awareness of Appropedia? (No, it's hard to ask for donations for advertising.) Recruit knowledgeable people? (Sounds better. We need a plan for this, if someone asks.)
• But keep it broad enough that we can use the money for the server.

(What we've done - what difference this will make. How it changes the world. Our community...

Individual stories. Each of us on the fundraising team write or speak a testimonial?

Giving for holidays...

• Choose a platform.
• Create draft of our ask and story or stories.
• Some of these are still relevant: Appropedia:Fundraising/Tasks

Sometime in early 2013: Run a more polished campaign for a wider audience, maybe on a crowdfunding site like Indiegogo or StartSomeGood, to expand Appropedia's programs and impact - including employing people, doing tech development... See Appropedia:Fundraising/2013 crowdfunding campaign.

The messages worked out for this campaign can be adapted for birthdays - donate instead of giving a present - or other fundraising efforts by supporters. "Sponsor our permablitz and support Appropedia", "Come to our human-powered concert - proceeds to Appropedia"...