[consulting] Proposal: Generate Revenue for the Drupal Association/Infrastructure Costs

[Bill Fitzgerald]

Working with the Drupal Association, create a group of people with the 
responsibility of launching and publicizing the Donor Recognition 
Program. FWIW, I'd gladly volunteer to be part of this group as someone 
who publicizes the program and solicits donations.

As an initial step, create a handbook section on d.o entitled "Donors 
and Sponsors" -- This page can be mirrored on association.drupal.org. 
This page will contain a breakdown of donors to the Drupal Association 
by year. So, this year we'll have the 2007 page(s); next year we'll have 
the 2008 page(s); etc. These pages will give a tiered breakdown by 
amount of contribution (in euros? dollars? both?); ie, 0-300; 301-500; 
501-750; 751-1000; etc. These pages will also contain a list of events 
where Drupal had a presence, with names of sponsors/supporters of those 
events.

These pages will be linked to off the front page of d.o, g.d.o, and 
a.d.o, and off the footer of every page on d.o, g.d.o, and a.d.o.

Implementing the donor system would need to be coupled with more 
extensive outreach to companies using Drupal, and consulting shops 
providing Drupal-based solutions. In particular, a set of talking points 
for approaching corporate donors could be prepared to help people make 
the ask to companies using Drupal.
 
After 3 months (6 months? 12 months?) of the donor system, we can see 
how the community has stepped up. If, at that point, more money is 
needed to meet the needs of the community, then we can look to expand 
our publicity and fundraising efforts in additional ways, and this could 
include ads.

The one thing we'd need to really support the Donor Recognition Program 
would be some type of software system -- maybe even something web-based 
-- that would let us track constituents, contacts, geographical info, 
and donation records. Man, that would be sweet! ;)

Cheers,

Bill

-- 
Bill Fitzgerald
http://www.funnymonkey.com
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