[Chapter-delegates] Day-to-day funding

[Jordi Iparraguirre]

Dear Elver,

first of all I'd like to show my respect and admiration for you've done 
voluntering!

The situation you mention is unfortunately quite common, many chapters 
have to live with very low resources, if any. Not too many members 
volunteer, so if we focus on looking for sponsors, we cannot focus on 
mission or proper chapter management. It's like trying to balance cost, 
time and quality, you can get 2 of them, never 3. And it is not easy at 
all to ask members to pay a fee or companies to sponsor the chapter if 
we cannot bring some value to them, which is difficult without engaged 
members. Deadlock.

Chapter financing topic was raised in the last European chapters' 
meeting in Frankfurt (18 dec.2012). Let's ensure it stays on ISOC's 
agenda and continue working to find a solution.

rgds
jordi


Al 11/03/13 15:48, En/na Elver Loho ha escrit:
> Hi everyone,
>
> Dealing with everyday chapter issues takes a lot of time and effort.
> Last week I was sitting on the council of the Data Protection
> Inspectorate discussing legislation regarding personal data. Today I
> was at the parliament's constitutional commission discussing Open Data
> implementation. Preparing for these meetings, taking part, and later
> reporting to the board and members takes a full day's work for each
> event. And we haven't yet figured out how to fund such activities.
>
> Can anyone shed some light on how day-to-day funding has been resolved
> at your chapter?
>
> I'd like to hear about workable funding models, which would let us
> keep 2-3 salaried positions. Running all of this for no salary for
> over two years has been highly successful (NGO of the year 2012,
> prevented ACTA from being signed, biggest peaceful public protest in
> the country's history, helped create the best law of 2012 bringing
> Open Data into Estonian legislation, etc.), but I'm also broke right
> now and have no medical insurance, so, yeah... It's probably not a
> sustainable model of getting things done. And donations simply don't
> work in a small country like Estonia.
>
> Best,
> Elver Loho
> Estonia Chapter
>
> elver.loho at gmail.com
> +372 5661 6933
> skype: elver.loho
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-- 
Jordi Iparraguirre
ISOC-CAT chair
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