The following are areas of LA Drupal activity (see the larger agenda) that would be helped by funding provided by sponsorships and direct donations. Any budget would essentially cover production, administration, and marketing. In essence it will provide support for those wanting to learn, learn about, and learn the Drupal way.
Currently this is in a very rough outline. We'd need to add detail regarding costs as well as specifics of any sponsorship packages and how the money would be handled. In terms of 'who' could/would head this up, I (gusaus) have laid a lot of groundwork and would love to move this forward.
Key issue is to decide if LA Drupal would benefit from a budget/sponsors and then start filling out the details.
Production
Produced under the 'LA Drupal' brand
- educational resources (audio, video, interactive, etc.)
- case studies and documentation
- Drupal elevator pitches (related post here)
- LA Drupal t-shirts, stickers, and other swag
Whats the cost
- time to plan, budget, coordinate, and produce the content
- recruiting and paying the teachers
- any music and art that is produced or licensed
- cost to purchase/produce swag
Who would get paid
- Production manager to plan, budget, and coordinate
- producers, editors, teachers, designers, musicians
Business model(s):
- can sell NPR/PBS style sponsors on multimedia content (ideal would be to pre-sell sponsorships)
- sponsor credit on LA Drupal
- ads in written content/posts
- produce for another company (and get paid direct)
- sales of educational, training, and marketing
Related issues
Technical Project Management and administration
- create/facilitate a process for open collaborative development and learning
- open up channels of communication/collaboration with Drupal, and the Drupal learning groups (Drupal Dojo, GHOP); ensure the efforts are complimentary
- administer tasks, collaborative workshops, and training (this is a good point of reference)
- actively seek out projects/tasks important to the community
Cost
- time to document, manage and administer the project
Who would get paid
- whomever can fulfill these duties
Business model
- sell sponsors and collect donations for each individual project
FAQ
Who would collect and distribute the money?
If we decide it's a good idea, we should figure out the quickest way to implement
- possibly the company/individual who would/could be doing the bulk of the work
- potential future support/affiliation Drupal Association (i.e. potentially a conduit for sponsorship funds)
- an affiliated non-profit?
Who would benefit?
Anyone (local and worldwide) who may derive value from both the coursework, the completed tasks/projects/products, and a steady source of qualified talent.
- Technology and service providers
- sponsorships will enable multiple marketing/promotional opportunities
- could sponsor tasks, projects important to them
- opportunites to connect with and train up local talent
- The Drupal community
- Individual developers
- End users and consumers
What about non-monetary sponsorship and support?
The folks already hooking us up with hosting, meeting, and production facilities will get sponsor credit when we figure out a system.
Comments
What's the incentive to sponsor?
If I decided today that I think there ought to be better training materials in the community, there are two options available to me:
But there is no option 3: Give money to a group who has lots of big ideas but hasn't actually managed to produce anything tangible with them yet.
So my advice would be for you all to band together and produce something awesome /first/, and then use that to ask for money to continue doing so after. Otherwise, I don't think you'll be met with much success.
Another thing to bear in mind too is that there are a whole bunch of people in the Drupal community producing this kind of stuff for /free/, because they're earning money with Drupal, and want to give something back for the millions of hours' worth of other peoples' time that they've managed to benefit from. Another uphill battle you'll have is justifying why your efforts deserve sponsorship, and other peoples' don't.
Great advice - we're still exploring the concept...
First off, I'm 100% in agreement with webchicks comments (and feel honored that she's visiting our group!). Asking for folks to sponsor isn't an easy sell before anything is produced. We also need to give potential sponsors a more tangible idea of what they'd be sponsoring. The intent behind this post is to 1) explore the concept (i.e. what's the general feeling behind sponsorships); and 2) clearly define what the sponsorships would be as well as the incentives.
Secondly, per a quick convo in the IRC w/ webchick and some previous comments, I need to clarify the wordage I'm using when mentioning the Drupal Association...
Based on conversations I've had with Amazon and other association types I'm somewhat aware how the Association may/may not be involved (in the future). Here's what I 'think' I know (clarity from those who actually know will be much appreciated):
Once again, I could be totally off in my interpretation, but by no means are we gearing up to ask for financial support from the Association. Webchick's comments still hold true for any type of sponsorship. It's a hard sell until there's some clarity, action, and real incentives. That's something we're working to define.
Gus Austin
PepperAlley Productions
Gus Austin
My (belated) comments...
I tried posting this a few weeks back but had errors when I tried. I´ve updated stuff in the ´Edit´ section @ bottom>
While all of this is true, I'd venture to say that there's one last avenue that hasn't been explored: drupal group members collaborating on a company's site (even better if the company is local to the group...more on this later) & that company pays the group. It's a Win/Win/WIn/Win!!!
1) Drupal gets more exposure.
2) Drupal community gets more exposure & modules to play with
3) The local drupal group gets payed & can use that money for training for their members, etc.
4) The individual members get exposure & future jobs from that exposure!
I thought of this because I'm spearheading a project & we KNOW we want drupal (the presentation at SCALE reaffirmed that). I heard about drupal a while back but just recently realized how powerful it truly is. So I thought I could just learn it myself & do it myself. But why not give back to the current community & indirectly give back to all future Drupallers? We have a budget (nothing like what Sony had, though). I was going to talk to Lullabot but then saw this thread & came up with an "aha" moment. ;)
Downsides- Scheduling conflicts w/various collaborators
The only problem i would foresee would be the whole "who gets credit" thing but I think i have a solution for that too (you could credit the drupal group who collaborated- a link to it on the built site would bring up ALL users of a particular group anyway & so everyone would kinda be getting credit. Besides, who we really want to give credit to is drupal & the drupal community & the folks who worked on the project.
The Creative Director & myself are both local to Los Angeles.
What do you folks think?
:::::EDIT::::
Due to time constraints, the Creative Director of the company went with another CMS solution (bah humbug!). However, the idea still stands, imho. I´m, personally, still committed to Drupal & plan to learn it more & use it a LOT this year. It might not be a bad way to accomplish a LOT of goals at once (fundraising, exposure for drupal & its great community, more modules, and individual members of the Drupal group getting credit for collaborating on a project which will, hopefully, lead to job offers for said collaborators). Then again, you Drupal vets might see lots of chinks in the armor.
Additionally, it hadn´t registered that you were actually mentioning working with a non-profit. Ironically, I´m starting a tech-based non-profit & also had some ideas on great ways to collaborate w/the Drupal community. Matter of fact, I´m teaching myself Drupal specifically to build the site (& even my own, personal webspace) with it. I am a little afraid my skills aren´t up to par with what I have in mind for the non-profit but I guess that´ll make it all the more fun. I´ll be at this month´s meeting & we can discuss it further then. I´m excited for all of the possibilities. :)
Interesting idea
This has been discussed numerous times. The issue that comes up is always the same: who does the "client" write the check to? We need more than a "group", we need a legal entity.
--
Markus Sandy
http://apperceive.com
http://ourmedia.org
whoops, forgot a line (boy I´m tired)
Sorry. I forgot to mention @ the beginning of my previous post that I´d tried posting this on Feb. 17th but got a few errors. Some things changed but any changes since then are @ the bottom in the ´Edit´ section. I sure hope this all helps.