Re: RFC: Grants

On Tue, 05 Aug 2008 14:58:38 -0700
"Josh Berkus" <josh(at)agliodbs(dot)com> wrote:

> Josh,
>
> > I have had a phone call with our general counsel and he does not see
> > a
> > problem with limiting grants to eligible members.
>
> great, so that's out of the way.
>
> I'm noting, though, that this scheme -- my members, for members --
> would mean that we would still need SPI for "general fundraising".
> For example, some corporate donors would not be comfortable donating
> to an organization where only paid members were eligible for grants.

That may be true but on the flip side I could see some corporate donors
not being comfortable with the fact that their money is being used to
sponsor events that do nothing for their marketable presence.

An excellent example would be CMD. It provides CMD absolutely zero
capital return to sponsor PgCon.EU. It certainly makes us feel good
that we are helping our brothers across the pond, but from a business
perspective it is a bad investment. That is likely not true for EDB or
2ndQuandrant, both of who have more presence in Europe than CMD does.

With EDB who has Europe and U.S. based offices, I would assume they
would sponsor PgEU and PgUS for their respective regions. Where,
2ndQuandrant would only sponsor PgEU.

> Was that your plan ... to continue to use both, actively?

It isn't up to me to determine if SPI is still a legitimate
source for fund raising. There are some advantages to SPI that our other
non profits don't have. That is a discussion for PGFG and Core I would
suspect.

I think a more important distinction between the SPI and PgUS is that
PostgreSQL.us is all about PostgreSQL in the U.S. E.g; it is likely we
wouldn't send money to PgEU for their upcoming conference. Where SPI
will, because SPI is all about funding "PostgreSQL" efforts as a whole.

Also, grants are only one way for money being spent to be allocated.
E.g; A specific way to request money to perform "something" that
provides a educational benefit to the public without charge that is
based on PostgreSQL. One of the strategic ideas behind this is to help
fund free curriculum, howtos and other documentation that becomes
available. Try and find a decent HOWTO on PITR, or Slony, pl/proxy or a
best practices document on using RoR and PostgreSQL.

Technically speaking, Travel would not need a grant. I was just using
that as an example. What might need a grant in comparison would be the
development of the talk (which would actually be a HOWTO that is
scaled down to a talk) and secondarily through the grant they are able
to pay for the travel. Also, LAPUG would not need a grant to request
money for printing costs of flyers. That just falls under cost of doing
business for PostgreSQL in the U.S. The same is true for the plans to
offer PUG leaders a phone number. It is just cost of delivering the
service.

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake

>
>
> Josh Berkus
> PostgreSQL
> San Francisco 415-752-2500
>

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