[CSL board] DRAFT mvhub business plan partner LTC / nscap fragment

[Dan MacNeil]

Eventually, this message will probably be part of a MOU with LTC 
and/or NSCAP

My goals for you (the board) in this DRAFT DRAFT message

	1) review for feasibility, strategy or morality problems
	2) understand issues
	3) Ask stupid questions.

FYI, Previous business plan FRAGMENT at:
	
http://lists.thecsl.org/pipermail/divinerightofkings/2008-June/000656.html

My assumption is that CSL and our partners (ltc? and nscap) will:

   1) cooperate on making the mvhub software and
      data more useful and more used.

   2) cooperate on raising money to cover
      expenses.

   3) Share most of our data and code
      with the world.

Q: How much does the CSL partner pay?

   $2,000 for every 100,000 people in
   coverage area.

   I got to this figure from looking at
   existing payments.

   Lowell has about 100,000 people.
   LTC now pays $2,000 per year for
   hosting, bug fixes and data
   maintenance.

Q: What's in it for CSL partner?
Q: What does $2,000 buy?

   The glory of providing a useful
   service to the community.

   Half of the MVHUb sponsorship money.
   Something between $0 and $6K per
   100,000 people. A loss or gain
   of between -2,000 and +4,000 per
   100K people.

   A guarantee that 80% of the information
   in the database has been updated within
   8 months and a goal to do much better
   than that.

   $2,000 pays for 2 hours a week @ $15/hr
   of phone calling to follow up with
   agencies that didn't respond to the
   automated emails and 12 hours of
   programmer / system administrator time
   to keep the system running and to improve
   the system.

Q: How will guarantee of data quality be meet?

   We define "out of date" as "last update was
   more than 6 months ago"

   The mvhub software sends program automatically
   sends agency and program contacts an email
   asking them to click a link and update their records

   If after 3 automated emails or if the email
   bounces, CSL calls the agency or program
   contact, asks them to update their record
   and follows up with a manual email with
   the update link.

   If after 7 emails, three phone calls and 2
   months of effort, we haven't gotten the record
   updated, we remove it.  --If we can't reach the
   agency the public is unlikely to reach it either.


Q: Going forward, who would own the domain name ?

   The local partner owns the local
   domain name. For example, LTC
   owns mvhub.com

   NSCAP would own the domain for their
   local site nsportal.org (?)

   CSL owns other domains like mahub.us
   ushub.us and nyhub.us.

   CSL and local partners would have right
   to use shared data on any domain they
   control

Q: What data is public and what is proprietary.

   Much of the data in mvhub is in the public
   domain. You can no legally copyright a
   collection of facts. It is legal to take
   the phone book, re-type it and sell your
   own version of the phone book.

   People can search mvhub or download the .pdf
   printable directories to get most of the data
   that is on mvhub.

  Some important data is not shared with the
  public.

  Most important is the private contact
  information for each program and agency:

     "We wil not share your private
       email with other entities"

   ...is the promise we make when people sign up.

  info at organization.org is published world wide
  betty_contact_person at organization.org is not.

  Right now, this proprietary data is owned
  by LTC

Q: What happens if we want to go our separate ways?

   The local partner could take the a copy of
   the local public and private data, a copy
   of the software and their domain name and
   proceed as they wished.

Q: Who gets what data in a separation?

   The local partner would get a copy
   of all data for the cities they
   are partnering for. For example,
   If nscap is partnering for
   Peabody, Lynn, Salem and Beverley.
   and there was a separation, NSCAP
   would get the complete data
   for those cites.

Q: How does the sponsorship work?

   The local partner and CSL identify,
   businesses and other funders who
   are willing to pay more than
   market rate to have sponsor recognition
   on mvhub pages and a tax deduction for
   their donation above market rates for
   advertising.

Q: How will sponsorship categories work?

  Real Estate Agents, Lawyers,  Bankers,
  Retailers, Foundations & Rich people
  don't compete with each other. For
  $2,000 per 100,000 people A sponsor
  can be sure that no other entity in
  their category will appear as
  a category sponsor.

Q: Who gets the sponsorship money?

  CSL and local partner split it
  to cover their expenses related
  to mvhub.

Q: What if somebody doesn't want to buy the full category.

   As long as they buy a minimum share ($500)
   they can share the category. If (4) banks
   want to share that is fine.

Q: What if somebody can't contribute $500?

   We will accept any donation in support of
   mvhub and list the donor in the "Donors"
   page. Contributions of less than
   $500 don't get recognized on every page.

Q: What if more than one entity in a sponsorship
   category wants in ?

     1) Priority to previous year's sponsor
     2) After 30 days from start of year, first come first served
     3) Donations w/o expectation of return are always welcome.

Q: What are the goals for sponsorship ?

   We'd like to get 2  sponsorships (@ $2k each)
   by January and the next parker foundation
   application.

   We'd like to raise $40,000 in sponsorship money
   in 2009 (20K to CSL , 20K to local partners)

   ---Maybe this is realistic, maybe not.

Q: What about local partners in the Merrimack
   Valley outside Lowell ?

   We haven't figured that out yet.

   Maybe we can identify local partners for
   Lawrence/Haverall/Methuen.

   Maybe LTC wants to partner for entire valley.

Q: Who owns the data?

   Right now, LTC and Advancement Plus own
   mvhub data.

   North shore data would be owned jointly
   by CSL and NSCAP

   We'd like CSL to use data
   on other sites like MAhub.us
   and ushub.us

   We'd like to (continue) publishing
   **most** of the data in a form that
   will let other people use and
   improve it.

Q: Who is Advancement Plus?

	http://www.advancementplus.org/

   This group, run and funded by Harry Howell
   paid LTC to develop mvhub. CSL was part of LTC
   at the time.

   Informally, Advancement Plus assigned partial
   copyright to LTC when AP stopped working in Lowell.

Q: Who owns the code?

   Various pieces are owned by Advancement Plus,
   LTC and CSL.

   It is currently licensed under the Affero GPL
   and legally considered "published"

   Simplifying somewhat, anyone else can use the
   code for whatever they want as long as
   they contribute changes back.

   This does not mean it is in the public domain
   Code in the public domain can be hidden or
   horded.

Q: What are CSL responsibilities?

    1) Keep the website running and usable
    2) Make improvements to website on best effort basis.
    3) Keep data up to date
    4) Add data on best effort / good faith basis.
    5) Seek sponsorship on best effort / good faith basis.
    6) Split mvhub sponsorship money with local partners

Q: What are local partner responsibilities
    1) Add data on best effort / good faith basis.
    2) Pay $2K per year per 100K people in cities covered
    3) Seek sponsorship on best effort / good faith basis.
    4) Split mvhub sponsorship money with CSL