[Chapter-delegates] Day-to-day funding

Wed Mar 13 01:58:23 PDT 2013

Thank you Elver.

ISOC Lebanon is somewhat a new chapter in a turbulent region. We definitely
suffered from the lack of funding during the association phase, initiation
phase and currently the operation and development phase. 

As expressed by many, membership fees are not a viable option. According to
the Lebanese NGO regulatory framework voting rights are restricted to
members who paid a yearly membership fee at least 90 days before the ballot.
We have 408 ISOC Lebanon members out of those 18 paid the nominal 20,000 LBP
($17) yearly membership fee.

We offer trainings thanks to the support of RIPE NCC, MENOG, ICANN, NCRS,
ISOC and Berytech (local incubator who supports our activities by providing
us with meeting and training facilities as we cannot afford office space)
and charge $100 per participant per day to participants from the private
sector while we waiver the fees to participants from Government, NGOs and
Academics. The excess money is help us organize a celebration activity at
the end of training to invite the media, officials, participants and their
managers and members to promote the specific activity (IPv6, DNSSEC,
RPKI-BGP, etc.), ISOC, Multistakeholderism and recruit new ISOC-LB members.
But again this is not sustainable unless if we have at least one full time
staff member to organize and follow up.

I don't want to divert the discussion from the importance of yearly
systematic operation funding from ISOC to sustain the chapters' operation,
staff and provide adequate office space. I believe that it is very important
and I add ISOC-LB voice to the group.

On the other hand I would like to share with the group a different
experience that we are currently undertaking. We decided to try a different
approach and try to bring our corporate experience into ISOC-LB (not new to
NGOs at all but nonetheless the approach is new to us). We started by a
strategic planning retreat and developed a 3 years draft strategic plan
(http://www.isoc.org.lb/events/isoc-lb-strategic-plan-2013---2015) .
Published the plan for public comments and we are currently assessing the
comments that we received to incorporate them into the final plan. The
exercise identified a number of opportunities that we might be able to
convert into projects with clearly defined scopes, budgets, timetables,
deliverables and partners. We hope that the Lebanese government, private
sector and international organization ISOC, RIPE NCC, MENOG, ICANN, NCRS,
Google, Microsoft, Facebook, etc. will identify benefit and perceive value
in the strategic plan and elicited projects to fund them. The first reaction
is that reviewers of the strategic plan felt the relevance of ISOC mission,
objective and activities to their interests and they suggested initiatives
and projects that we did not think of.  

I believe that such an approach brings: clarity to what we are trying to
accomplish; transparency to how we plan to accomplish it; visibility to who
are the sponsors, partners, beneficiaries, etc.; accountability as the
objectives, deliverables, budget, timeframe and partners are clearly defined
and measured; and last but not least funding by the sponsors and partners -
ISOC Global and other ISOC chapters included. i.e. ISOC chapters might have
adequate capacity in a certain area to barter with other ISOC chapters.

Best regards,
Nabil

-----
Nabil Bukhalid
President
ISOC Lebanon
P.O.Box 113-6596
Hamra, Lebanon 

M: +961 (0)3 779116
E: nabil.bukhalid at isoc.org.lb 

W . Fb . T

-----Original Message-----
From: chapter-delegates-bounces at elists.isoc.org
[mailto:chapter-delegates-bounces at elists.isoc.org] On Behalf Of Elver Loho
Sent: Tuesday, March 12, 2013 8:52 PM
To: Ted Mooney
Cc: Chapter Delegates
Subject: Re: [Chapter-delegates] Day-to-day funding

How quickly could ISOC global roll out various low-cost pilot projects
in this field to see what works in an agile "let's try things" manner?
For example:

- 10 grants of $1000 to spend on local advertising and fundraising
(not salaries) over 3 months and then report back to this mailing list
with the exact measurements on the increase or decrease in donations
and what exactly was done. Followed by another report 6 months later.

- Finding 10 active chapters with very few donations and offering to
match every dollar they raise in donations over 3 months up to $1000.
Followed by another report 6 months later.

- Picking 10 active, but underfunded chapters and having a 10-day
drive on the front page of the ISOC global website, showcasing each
chapter's people and accomplishments for a single day, and asking for
donations for that particular chapter. ISOC global would need to take
care of payment processing and such. This would be by far the easiest
to measure.

- Something like the previous, but an "adopt-a-chapter" approach,
where ISOC uses its publicity muscle to sell the idea that wealthy
individuals could adopt a foreign chapter that's doing something good
and get regular updates via e-mail.

- ISOC global providing funds to 10 active, underfunded chapters to
hire a student journalist or student PR person for the summer as a
paid intern, whose responsibility would be to write about what the
chapter is doing, tweet, blog, facebook, publicize, etc.

- ISOC global sends an ambassador to the governments of a few local
chapters urging the head of state to finance the chapter from the
state budget. Bonus points if you can get a respected elected
politician of a major country to go around doing this.

- ISOC global negotiates with a multinational civil society funding
network (e.g. Open Society Foundations) to make it easier for local
chapters to get regular funding via these means.

- etc.

The focus should be on experimental projects, which cost very little
for ISOC, deal with active, but underfunded chapters, and provide
rapidly measurable results. The aim is to find strategies, which help
chapters become self-sufficient. I have no interest in relying on ISOC
global's fat wallet in the long term, but it would be great to be able
to measure the effectiveness of various fundraising ideas without
having to spend what little cash we have at the moment.

We don't need a corporate approach here, nor a redistribution of
existing funds. We need a skunkworks approach. We need a scientific
approach, based on experiments and data. We're all in it together and
we're in it to learn what works and doesn't work, so that we can make
smarter decisions later.

Best,
Elver
Vice Chair
Estonia Chapter

elver.loho at gmail.com
+372 5661 6933
skype: elver.loho

On 12 March 2013 19:41, Ted Mooney <mooney at isoc.org> wrote:
> True, Veni,
>
> We would all favor more direct and immediate action.  And there is acute
> awareness of the situation among many staff as well as chapter leaders.
My
> point in the discussion is not just to vent, but to catalog and come back
to
> Chapters with the opportunity to prioritize a list of upgraded support
> opportunities.  And that is still my intent.  Nevertheless if more
> discussion and seeding of ideas is not what you would like at this point,
> what advise to do you have for Chapter Support?
>
> Best,
>
> Ted
>
>
> Ted Mooney
> Sr. Director, Membership & Services
> Cell: 301-980-6446
> Skype: ted.mooney3
>
> www.internetsociety.org
>
>
>
>
>
> On Mar 12, 2013, at 1:29 PM, Veni Markovski <veni at veni.com> wrote:
>
> I am not so supportive of the discussion.
> Every once in a while there's a discussion on that topic, and every once
in
> a while there are some great ideas, which are being shelved "for
> consideration" by staff.
> And nothing happens.
> We discuss, over and over, and over - the same issues. More or less since
> 2002, by the way. At least that's what I remember, when several of us,
ISOC
> Trustees, discussed that in Minneapolis at a Board meeting.
>
> v.
>
> On 03/12/2013 11:53, Ted Mooney wrote:
>
> I support Eric's call for a the views and discussion on this list.  While
it
> will surprise no one to say that nothing will be done quickly, I would
like
> to work with Chapter leaders to develop a long term support plan for the
> Internet Society that takes these needs and ideas into consideration,
indeed
> as a foundation.  I'm making no commitment that once a plan is developed
it
> will be fully implemented.  Such a decision is at the highest levels.
> However, without a proposal that is complete and well thought-out, the
> likely outcome is quite diminished.  So I am collecting these ideas for
the
> moment and will discuss alternatives for moving forward with ISOC Execs.
>
> All the best,
>
> Ted
> oc.org
>
>
> --
>
> Best,
> Veni Markovski
> http://www.veni.com
> https://www.facebook.com/venimarkovski
> https://twitter.com/veni
>
> The opinions expressed above are those of the
> author, not of any organizations, associated
> with or related to him in any given way.
>
>
>
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