[Cadre-politics] From Felicia RE: status: Parker 2007

[Dan MacNeil]

Felicia's note got discarded as she's not a subscriber to 
cadre-politics.

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Subject: RE: status: Parker 2007
From: "Sullivan, Felicia" <Felicia_Sullivan at uml.edu>


Dan,

Sorry to hear the disappointing news.  I'm cc'ing everyone (who 
may or may not be intersted), because as someone who also runs a 
small, shoestring tech-related NPO 
(www.organizerscollaborative.org), I (andour founder) too have 
had many conversations with funders like this.
Questions of sustainability and impact always seem to be of concern.

Even after nearly a decade of doing the work we do, serving 
thousands of individuals and hundreds of organizations, our 
operating budget is still under $75K.  We only have a 1/2 time ED 
and yet there is passion for our work and we accomplish a lot 
with little.

The CSL seems in a similar place and I think some of the 
disconnect is that for those who fund techie projects something 
like the MVHub may not be sexy or hip enough (I know we have that 
problem at OC).  And for those who fund community-based programs, 
it is often difficult to truly understand what really is required 
in terms of talent and resources to make something like the MVHub 
thrive on the technical side. As you know, software development 
is extremely expensive and in a market like this, the ability to 
get someone like Josh at $50K is a steal.  I also think
the kind of philosophy that pushes forth the open source software
community is not understood well within the general culture.  

What I suggest, is that you perhaps talk to some folks who seem 
to have high visibility in doing this work and may be able to 
help (along with Jericho Road) in fleshing out your plans.  I am 
thinking of folks like Michelle Murrian (www.nosi.net), Laura 
Quinn (www.idealware.org), and Alan Gunn 
(www.aspirationtech.org).  Yet still, none of them actually
develop software that they are trying to get support for.  Given 
that the MVHub does not benefit from having a large open source 
community working on the code, the ability to get the development 
paid for I think will continue to prove to be difficult.  OC has 
been struggling with this for over seven years and the CivicLab 
folks (who are much bigger with a larger OS community are still 
struggling).  

At OC we have also run into funders who don't want to fund our 
software development because we only have the one project.  You 
might want to talk to David Guilhefe
and pick his brain about the frustration of financially 
supporting a project like CiviCRM. I'm sure Rich Cowan (OC 
founder) would have much to share as well.

It also seems to me that you are missing an opportunity to have 
folks who have benefited from the MVHub to kick in support via a 
grassroots fundraising campaign.  OC generates about 20% of its 
budget each year from fundraising appeals.  You might also want 
to think about what sorts of real value consulting services you 
think you could offer that might generate enough money to cover 
both the consulting time and contribute to overhead.  For 
instance, Emily (whose cc'd here) is in conversations
with Rich about customizing the Organizers' Database for CBA.

 While the software is free, these consulting gigs each 
contribute at least 15% to 25% of their profit back to the 
organization.  Organizations are willing to pay for things they 
believe have value.  Also, David Kronenberg was helpful this past 
summer at the OC conference in suggesting a way to identify a big 
ticket donor / patron / angel who would provide significant funds 
to support your work.  The Progressive Technology Project 
(www.progressivetech.org), Grassroots.org, and the Tech
Foundation (http://www.techfoundation.org) all are supported in 
this way.  This may be where a combination of the GLCF and 
Jericho Road may assist too.

So, apologies for this long post.  Just wanted to share my 
perspective with you (and others who may be intersted).  For my 
own selfish reason,

I too am intersted in figuring these sorts of questions out as well.

Later,

- Felicia