[okfn-coord] Meeting in/around Cambridge in May

[Jonathan Gray]

On Fri, May 1, 2009 at 4:54 PM, Becky Hogge <becky.hogge at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hopefully you can attend virtually, but just in case not, could you
> drop us a line about what we need to be focussing on from your
> perspective?

I'll think about it! Off the top of my head, it would be good to have two things

  1. A funding strategy document for financial year 2009-2010, including:
    * specific targets for supporters (I guess pledge does this?)
    * a *big* list of people to write to individually and a list of
people to write to them
      - this could include going through mailing list, social
networking sites, etc.
      - we could also consider asking people in different communities
(science, geodata, psi, ..) to think of people we could write to, and
even to send a template email themselves
    * a number of meetings to review funding/grant schemes and to
decide which to apply to
    * rough plan on how to involve advisory board more in funding stuff
    * plans for contracting (e.g. rates, process, cut to go to okf, ...)
    * plans to include other people in funding applications on a case
by case basis (e.g. inviting people to apply for funding with okf?
joining other applications)
    * ideas for directly asking for sponsorship from companies
    * a plan about token things we could give supporters (stickers,
tshirts, pens, usb sticks?)
    * plans for incentives people to sign up to become a supporters,
e.g., signed books - as ORG did very successfully!

  2. Information for prospective supporters and current supporters
    * material on main site
    * information on how money will be spent
    * short periodic email to supporters with info on how their money
has been spent - different from newsletter in that it might have an
explicit financial focus, and perhaps even personalised with their
name
    * generic letters to prospective supporters, e.g. with a slightly
different focus

Beyond fundraising (if there is time for anything else!) I know I keep
banging on about it but I think it would be great to have a more
detailed roadmap.

We already have:

  * http://okfn.org/roadmap

But I'd really like to see something with a longer terms strategy
regarding funding, the OKF community, projects, etc.

Specifically my own hope is that the OKF will have a number of working
groups responsible for different areas of its activity, each with a
chair and its own set of objectives and somebody responsible for
following them up. Also it would be wonderful if these WGs could be
responsible for investigating project funding - much as the science WG
has done with CKAN. Perhaps they could have someone responsible for
posting relevant news items from the community, or about the
activities of the WG to the OKF blog.

Though its maybe too early in the day to start articulating this - I
think in the longer term it would be good to have a set of 'roles'
with associated tasks and responsibilities, rough time commitments, or
commitments to attend a certain amount of meetings, etc.

The W3C has quite a strong model for this which we could look at.
Also, as I think I mentioned, we could have a go at using one of the
draft constitutions from oneclickorgs with one of the WGs futher down
the line.

Basically I get the feeling that the OKF has always had a strong sense
of being community driven, democratic, meritocratic, etc. I'd really
like to look at how these values can be translated into day to day
workings of OKF, and to make a plan with some specific targets
regarding how we can get there. Ultimately this would mean that a lot
more could get done, and it would be less heavily dependent on the
time/effort of a few critical people.

Eventually it would be good to have a
community/organisational/volunteer strategy document with specific
targets as well as one for fundraising.

> Is it worth us having a chat on the phone next week to
> catch up on the 4IP proposal?

Yes - that would be great! I'm in Brussels until Thursday - so perhaps
on Friday?

-- 
Jonathan Gray

Community Coordinator
The Open Knowledge Foundation
http://www.okfn.org