[CSL board] 23 year goals

[Melissa Carino]

I think this is a great start, Dan!  Thanks for emailing out.

So just a quick recap from me on our meeting with Phil / Parker
Foundation last month...

* Phil / Parker will entertain the idea of funding CSL and will accept a
proposal in early Fall; However, there is still a lot of work we all
need to do...

* We need to have a strategic plan / business plan for the next 5 years.
Dan has offered up some goals for the next 23 years, but I think we need
to really refine and be concise about the organizational goals and
vision for CSL in 5 years then flesh out HOW to achieve these goals.  

This should include what goals we have internally (youth development
programs, paid staff people, marketing plan, etc), not just how we want
CSL to impact the local community.  A SWOT (strengths,
weaknesses/challenges, opportunities, and threats) analysis could be
very helpful for us in fleshing this out.  A technology needs assessment
of the Lowell orgs/community will be helpful too.

This also needs to have a planned budget for each year, illustrating
growth.  Our budgets should also highlight any in-kind support (i.e.
Jericho).

We also need to emphasize the need to sustain CSL beyond any of us, esp
those involved in founding the organization.  Foundations tend to not
look favorably with orgs that have the "founder complex."

* Our Board recruitment should now focus on specialists that we need
(i.e. IT & .com folks, accountant, lawyer, business management, donors).
Financial records is needed now and will be necessary as CSL grows.

Let me emphasize that this is just what I got...Dan, Eric, and Karen ---
feel free to chime in too!

My $0.02 --- I think we already started doing some strategic planning
with Jericho, and we now need to just clarify everything or flesh things
out THEN develop a strategic business plan.  This plan will easily feed
into the grant-writing too.  I almost think once we develop a plan (and
before submitting a grant for Parker) that we check in with Phil and
present the plan.

Then (or simultaneously) we really need to be strategic and intentional
in our Board recruitment.

Could we get a Jericho volunteer to help us with this?

Ok, sorry for the long email.  

Hope we can get this ball rollin'...
In peace,
~melissa

-----Original Message-----
From:
divinerightofkings-bounces+melissa=bostonwomensfund.org at lists.thecsl.org
[mailto:divinerightofkings-bounces+melissa=bostonwomensfund.org at lists.th
ecsl.org] On Behalf Of Dan MacNeil
Sent: Friday, July 06, 2007 12:12 PM
To: CSL Board
Cc: Eric Bryant
Subject: [CSL board] 23 year goals


Thanks Melissa for gentle reminders on this.

Here's a first draft, scrawled on a napkin. Re-write it as you will.

Assumptions:

	We should have a big picture plan before going
	for Parker money.

	The melting ice caps will effect only the people in Boston

	Moore's law will not be broken.

	Only evolutionary improvements in UI are possible.

---
In 2030 (23 years)
---

Free software will be the norm. Software will be part of the permanent
public infrastructure.  People will be as comfortable using unfree
software as they are peeing in the public swimming pools.

The stylish minority who live light and owe loyalty to the gift culture
will grow.

There will be 7 independent community software labs associated with
universities, vocational schools and coffee shops. Our work will attract
people to our partner institutions. At least 3 of the CSLs will be
outside North America.

---
In 2023 (16 years)
---

Repeat Lowell/MA scoped goals for MA or other wider area.

---
In 2014 (7 years)
---

All Lowell non profits will have reliable, optional cost email, shared
calendars, web content management, file servers and contact management
software and service. These services will be state of the art in ease of
use.  We will provide high quality training to non-profits

The CSL will make significant improvements to 2-4 software projects of
particular use to non-profit organizations.

mvhub.org software will be used statewide

We will train other LPI (http://www.lpi.org/) trainers

---
In 2010 (3 years)
---

We will have figured out how to lower total cost of ownership for PCs
from $1500 per year to $500. Some of this will be figuring out how to
get other people to pay for stuff.

mvhub.org software will scale to state wide use.

A successful software engineering/service learning class will provide us
a steady stream of recruits and will increase the world's usage and
knowledge of free software.

We will be part of a community of developers working on mvhub.org.

A successful A+/LPI internship program will provide us a steady stream
of recruits and will increase the world's usage and knowledge of free
software.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------
###To unsubscribe send blank email to:
Divinerightofkings-leave at lists.thecsl.org ###