[Osmf-talk] Budget for 2016

[martin wass]

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On 08/05/16 13:35, Christoph Hormann wrote:
> On Sunday 08 May 2016, Frederik Ramm wrote:
>>> While it is true that many OSM-data users never get to see the
>>> osm.org site, the most motivated and likely to donate ones
>>> definitely visit it regularly.
>>
>> Those are most likely our mappers (as opposed to those who only "use"
>> OSM and don't otherwise participate).
>>
>> Our mappers are already doing very important work for us. I would
>> like to avoid milking them for cash in addition to the countless
>> hours of their spare time they're already giving to OSM. If ways can
>> be found that make the users of OSM pay the bill, rather than the
>> makers, I would be very much in favour.
> 
> Not sure if i have already made this suggestion here in the past or on
ly
> elsewhere but one possible approach to putting finances on a solid yet

> broad basis would be to offer a 'supporting membership' for normal 
> people to provide support for the project in financial form on a 
> regular basis.
> 
> My idea would be to reduce the basic membership fee (to something like

> 5-10 GBP) and thereby broadining participation in the OSMF (which as 
> likely everyone will agree would be desirable) and at the same time 
> offer a supporting membership for something like 50 GBP.  This would b
e
> without any formal benefits but it would be clear that anyone who can 
> afford it and who benefits from what OSM offers is expected to sign up

> for this type of membership, especially if they do not actively 
> participate in the project (i.e. are mere users).
> 
> IMO having 500 supporting members each contributing 50 GBP would be mu
ch
> more desirable than having 5 corporate members each with 5000 GBP - 
> furthermore having corporate members with significant contributions 
> seems much less problematic to me if there is also a solid basis from 
> other sources.
> 
> Yes, getting these 500 would not be easy but there are ways to encoura
ge
> people, even without being overly annoying.  And if ultimately most of

> the supporting members turn out to be active mappers that would IMO no
t
> be a problem - if active community members want to finance the OSMF wh
o
> would seriously want to tell them they should not?
> 
> The most important measure to get more financial contributions from an
y
> side is to show the money is well spent of course - publishing and 
> openly discussing the budget is well working in that direction.
> 
> Another completely different approach would be based on the quite comm
on
> practice of companies to donate a certain percentage of their earnings

> to charity and to advertise this as an incentive to buy from them or d
o
> business with them.  It would not be unreasonable to expect companies 
> making use of OSM in their work to regularly donate a certain 
> percentage of their earnings to support the project.  This approach 
> would be different from a corporate memebership in a number of ways:
> 
> - it would not be a fixed upfront payment but an afterwards donation 
> that dynamically adjusts to how the business goes.
> - the incentive to do this would not be benefits received by the OSMF 
> but to be able to advertise this as an advantage to customers and to 
> comply with the expectations of the customer base in this regard.  So 
> the OSMF would not primarily try to convince corporations to sign up 
> for a memebership but to convince customers of OSM based services in 
> general that pledging a certain percentage of earning to the OSMF can 
> be expected from a company offering such services or that higher price
s
> for OSM related services should be accepted if the company offering 
> them does such a pledge.
> 

Hope I've got this email list thingy right.
Anyway,

Folk donate/support things like OSM because they want to feel good, eg
in the UK, the National Trust, the British Mountaineering Council etc,
not because of any purported benefits, which in many cases are not taken
up anyway. What is important, I think, is for people to be know that OSM
exists as an organisation that deserves and needs financial support from
the public and that there is an easy way to make payments. Visibility is
key. At the moment most of the people who would want to support OSM do
not understand what it is or how it is currently funded. The map is
'just there', like so much of the Web. I think public understanding is
the key issue which faces any large scale fund raising.

Martin W
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