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Appropedia:Fundraising/2013 crowdfunding campaign
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== The need == Our opportunities to do awesome things with a modest amount of money. (We don't need a budget, but we need to know what the money is for.) This is for our decision making, and the ''Value'' on each item helps us describe it to donors. '''Decision 1''': Set the "tipping point" (on StartSomeGood, the point at which we will receive the funds raised - if we don't reach the tipping point, donations are refunded). It should stretch us somewhat (so we have a reason for rallying support) but be an amount we can definitely reach. It should be an amount that will make a big difference to Appropedia. $12,000? $15,000? If we reach the tipping point, we can pay for: * Server costs for a year (faster, more reliable). $5000 for 6 months, but let's say $10,000 so we've got it confirmed for the year. '''''Value'': Help us to continue to share solutions to sustainability from around the world.''' (Stats and stories about the people sharing and using Appropedia.) * Perform the merger with Ekopedia? Tech work of making Appropedia multilingual. Spam clearance work, including setting up spam-removal bots (that can check history, so spammed pages can be reverted to their non-spammy form). (Note additional difficulty of spam cleanup in other languages.) Possibly hire a part-time community manager fluent in French and Italian (and Spanish, but we can help with that). Get help with the Polish Ekopedia. Big job - ballpark figure of $10,000? '''''Value'': Bring together contributors from around the world, in different languages. Revive the awesome Ekopedia project.''' * Resurrect the lost wiki resource at permaculture.info. Small job, once other work is done. '''''Value'': Platform for sharing permaculture knowledge, starting by recovering the corrupted database of the dead permaculture.info wiki.''' (''clearly distinguish our role from ''[http://practicalplants.org/wiki/Practical_Plants Practical Plants]'' and ''[http://growstuff.org Growstuff]''.) '''Decision 2''': Set a funding target: An amount that will let us go beyond this minimum and do really awesome things. Can be up to 4 times the tipping point. ($35,000 might be a good amount?) If we reach our funding target, we can: * Make our content accessible using Semantic MediaWiki. We have a great collection of how-tos, projects, case-studies and info from around the world, but it's hard to navigate. Add an ability to filter and find what you're looking for. (Lonny to describe this better.) '''''Value'': Make our content more accessible and searchable, so you can find the solution that you're looking for, that suits your context.''' * Have an on-call tech person to coordinate our site development efforts and troubleshoot problems, one day per week on average, at $10,000<ref name="ONGOING TECH COST">Ongoing tech cost guesstimate: Competent tech people start at about $80-100k per year, more as consultants, so 1 day/week for 6 months will be $10,000(?)</ref> for 6 months<ref name="FUNDING PERIOD">We should expect to have major fundraisers once or twice per year (and smaller requests in the interim - including recruiting donors to give monthly. Suggestion: we raise enough to pay people for around 6 months, then fundraise again every 6 months. We'll want to fundraise ahead of time in future, so we either make the first amount stretch longer than 6 months, or we hold the 2nd fundraiser 4-5 months after the start of the first.</ref> is at least $10,000.<ref name="TOTAL COST OF STAFF">What are the additional costs to Appropedia for managing staff/consultants? It is sometimes estimated that total cost of staff for a business is around twice the actual salary - what's the ratio for a small foundation hiring a contractor?</ref>Is that accurate? '''''Value'': keep improving the usability and functionality of the site''' [in what other specific ways, beyond the semantic work? Adding to the book functionality, or will that be already restored? Also emphasize ongoing costs.] '''Stretch goals''' Once we get to around our target, we can start to talk about what we could do with an extra amount. If we reach $X, or $Y, or $Z, we can: * Make it much easier to add projects, to share knowledge, using semantic forms. (Lonny has a better way of describing this.) '''''Value'': Improve the way we gather knowledge, to let more people share their experience and expertise.''' * Staff... (frame this in terms of what it will let us do, which is more helpful and more inspiring than "hire staff"). Amount: 2 part-time positions at one day per week, depending on skill level might cost in the order of $10,000-$15,000<ref name="TOTAL COST OF STAFF" /> for 6 months.<ref name="FUNDING PERIOD" /> ** Part-time paid position to develop partnerships, e.g. with academic programs. '''''Value'': Get students creating and sharing value, getting inspired, learning to participate and contribute in a peer-to-peer world.''' ** Part-time community manager & volunteer coordinator. '''''Value'': Support and grow the community of Appropedians, assist people in contributing, inspire and grow the effort.''' Thoughts: * Set specific goals, so we're not making exactly the same request next time. * Avoid underestimating costs. We serve a lot of people and do a lot of work - it's okay to ask for what we need. Make realistic promises and use realistic costings.
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