Review the current proposal of fundraising Working Group

[sabderemane]

Hi there, according the issue #9, I took the lead of starting a draft proposal on it, happy to have any feedback create discussion in the forum or elsewhere if needed.

Special thanks to @tim-schilling and @StephanieAG for the initial review.

[priyapahwa]

Hey @sabderemane, This looks fantastic. I have a couple of following queries in mind. Please feel free to point me out if I am wrong.

• I believe we should include a standard statement for the value proposition highlighting how WG’s mission resonates with the donors’ values or needs. In fact, keeping the roots intact, we can elaborate on the statement “The web framework for perfectionists with deadlines” itself but organized in a detailed sponsorship deck for easy access.
• Secondly, IMO to achieve milestones, we should gather more ideas on strategies to implement defining some pre-conditions and code of conduct to follow.

[thibaudcolas]

@sabderemane the proposal seems to me like it’s in a good state, since you already have lots of members signed up. I see this is currently in draft state technically, is it ready for further review? Or if not is there anything further you’d need to add?

What’s your plan to select the Chair, Co-Chair, Board Liaison? Do you think we can get this fully completed in time for a board vote in the April meeting?

[jacobian]

By and large this is super-fantastic, thanks to everyone for working on this!

I do have several broader comments, none of which necessarily need to be worked into the charter, per se, but are worth writing down and thinking about for a minute.

• First off, cards on the table: broadly speaking, I don't love making volunteers responsible for fundraising. It's just so much work! I'm hella grateful to everyone who wants to help here, but there's super big burnout potential here and I don't love it. So in the long-term, I hope to see the DSF hire a paid fundraiser and/or executive director. If that happens the goals and activities of this group would change substantially, but more importantly this context really colors a lot of my more general comments and goals for this group.

• One major addition I'd like to see added to the charter: I'd like the group to be responsible for documenting its operations and fundraising efforts! Having a written record of "hey we tried this strategy and here's what happened", and "here are all the ideas we've had and haven't tried" would be super useful. In fact, I think developing and maintaining strategy is potentially the way this group could have the most long-term impact.

• Along those lines, one way this group could operate would be to make recommendations to the board about things to pursue. We're resource constrained too but we do have some firepower! And we can do things like hire consultants/contractors if they'd help raise money. I'm thinking specifically of grant-writing here, but that's probably just one example of ways we could leverage money to make money. I think the board would super-welcome recommendations about which strategies to peruse and how. This may not need to be written explicitly into the charter, but it could.

• Speaking of writing things into the charter: my recommendation to go with a "less is more" approach. Don't worry too much about encoding specific activities etc., those should land in the operating documents I mentioned a couple of bullet points ago.

I think that's it. Thanks again for all y'all's work, this rocks and I'm very excited.

[sabderemane]

Hi here, thank you so much to everyone who participate in the review of the PR, it's really helping a lot! I'm really glad some of you have already done a meeting together 💟 (too bad I was travelling)

I'll see to update the PR ASAP.

the proposal seems to me like it’s in a good state, since you already have lots of members signed up. I see this is currently in draft state technically, is it ready for further review? Or if not is there anything further you’d need to add?

@thibaudcolas I didn't put it ready for review as I considered it's ready to review when it's also ready for board approval, but I can change this if necessary

What’s your plan to select the Chair, Co-Chair, Board Liaison? Do you think we can get this fully completed in time for a board vote in the April meeting?

@thibaudcolas I didn't planned something yet, I guess I would create a form to allow people to present themselves for the position they want and see to make a vote after that to make sure everyone agree. Board of liaison I think it's mostly a discussion between me, you and @jacobian . finger crossed for April but not fully sure.

[sabderemane]

@priyapahwa @thibaudcolas @jacobian @StephanieAG @knyghty for the chair and co-chair https://forms.gle/D7TcgaZpYvbo9TyLA

[StephanieAG]

@priyapahwa @thibaudcolas @jacobian @StephanieAG @knyghty for the chair and co-chair https://forms.gle/D7TcgaZpYvbo9TyLA

What are the responsibilities of a "chair" and "co-chair"?

I'm not clamoring to fill either of these roles, however if others are not interested in filling the roles and the roles need to be filled in order to get this group up and running, I would consider helping just to get us started (depending on the responsibilities).

[thibaudcolas]

Good question @StephanieAG 😄 For all groups, I’d expect the Chair & Co-Chair to be responsible for:

1. Animating the group’s discussions, particularly in the context of any meetings
2. Managing the logistics of group membership – when someone joins or leaves the group, they’d make sure any access is updated accordingly, handover / onboarding happens, etc
3. Make sure the group’s reporting to the board is working
4. Any other responsibilities defined by the charter (none currently)

None of those tasks have to be done by the Chair / Co-Chair if other group members are keen to help, the Chair/Co-Chair just need to make sure they get done.

[sabderemane]

Adding informations from DjangoCon Europe:

• @thibaudcolas proposed to be chair of the working group
• @priyapahwa wanted to be co-chair of the working group
• @mrchrisadams interested to be a member

I would like to move forward having chair and co-chair defined so we can starting discuss about ideas and kickstarting the working group. Everyone is happy with having @thibaudcolas as chair and @priyapahwa as co-chair? Any suggestion?

[thibaudcolas]

@sabderemane I’d like to add this to the agenda for tomorrow’s board meeting, so I’ve updated the PR based on your comment and people’s thumbs up. And marked it as ready for review. I hope that’s ok.

[jacobian]

This looks fantastic to me as well, thanks for all the effort here!

Two tactical notes:

• I've been working on some fundraising work behind the scenes, so once this group is up and running I should sorta debrief on what I've done so far and see what the WG wants to have handed over to the team.
• Catherine (the DSF's board assistant) has often handled most of the communication and tracking of current sponsors, and is a wealth of knowledge. I think it'd be a good idea for the WG to meet with her as well, get some info, and figure out how to leverage her time/skill.

So I think I'd suggest that once this group is fully operational we set up some time for an initial synchronous call to talk through some of this stuff and lay the groundwork for future work.

Super excited about all this!

[thibaudcolas]

As of today’s board meeting, our working group is approved! 😊 Great work @sabderemane @tim-schilling @StephanieAG @priyapahwa @knyghty @cgl @jacobian!

I’ll merge this now, and get back to you in a few days with initial steps to get the group up and running.