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.
The team
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)
Key tasks for holiday fundraiser
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.
The ask
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.
The story
(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...
Tasks
- Choose a platform.
- Create draft of our ask and story or stories.
- Some of these are still relevant: Appropedia:Fundraising/Tasks
After this campaign
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"...