[Chapter-delegates] Issues facing Chapters

Tue May 20 23:14:28 PDT 2014

+1

From: Chapter-delegates [mailto:chapter-delegates-bounces at elists.isoc.org] On Behalf Of Gabriel Ramokotjo
Sent: Wednesday, May 21, 2014 7:30 AM
To: Alejandro Pisanty
Cc: Chapter Delegates
Subject: Re: [Chapter-delegates] Issues facing Chapters

I'm gonna agree with Chris on this one.

Chapters in developing countries need further assistance both financially and strengthening working relations with their respective Governments. 

Yes ISOC HQ leadership and staff are always there to provide support and I can speak from our position as ISOC-Gauteng, but a bit of financial assistance for new chapters to cover administration costs, will go a long way in helping the chapters to achieve their mandate.

Regards,
Gabriel
ISOC - Gauteng

G.M Ramokotjo

On May 20, 2014 7:28 PM, "Alejandro Pisanty" <apisanty at gmail.com> wrote:

Gihan,

the $2,000 USD that Chris Mulola is mentioning are conditional upon events organized by the Chapter.

I am sure the chapters community will be happy to engage, as we have always done, in providing you all sorts of information that is well known within and across the organization, but maybe it is more efficient that you collect it from staff, sitting Trustees and other sources?

Yours,

Alejandro Pisanty

On Tue, May 20, 2014 at 12:21 PM, Gihan Dias <gihan at uom.lk> wrote:

Chris,

Let me give our experience in Sri Lanka, which may - of course - differ from Rwanda or any other country.

On 2014/05/18 ප.ව. 5:11, Chris Mulola wrote:

-A chapter in a developed world whereby there is presence of these IT company giants.

- And a chapter in a developing country whereby there is no such thing like Google's presence etc. and that all the other international organizations, present in those countries, have only the mandate to help governments that host them.

Google (and other similar companies) now have offices in many countries. Even if they have no office in Rwanda, they probably have local companies marketing their products (such as mail) and usually part of their budgets are earmarked for education, etc. We have got assistance from Intel and Microsoft for projects. Of course, ISoc, and the chapter leaders, need to establish a track record before people will give large amounts of money, but it has not been difficult to get like $500-$1000.

Those organizations will have a mission to please these governments because that is what their job is - diplomacy and international affairs. And chapters will not get significant support from them like they are most of the times politically-oriented.

One strategy may be to tap into some existing programme, and try to get your work done under that banner (but may not always work).

I have been raising funds and fighting for support for more than 3 years and i know what i am talking about.

Yes. I can understand your point.

Just recently, i was challenged by a question following some reports of what ISOC global pays as taxes on salaries to i dont know remember which organization.. and the question was like this:

"I wonder how your organization can be ignoring you by giving you $2000 annual support and spend more than 12millions US dollars (please  check ISOC tax reports for the exact figure, it is about that) on taxes? The money you are given cannot even cover your administration needs let alone raise your visibility."

Could you let me have more details on this? I am not familiar with ISoc's accounts.

If given the power there is something that i would like to change in the way that isoc operates, i mean the working relationships between governments-isocChapters-isocGlobal.

I hope that together we can achieve this.

I guess the situation will be slightly different in countries whereby the Isoc people are the ones that  built the internet up along with their gover ments, here they will continue to have a strong say. Case for Older chapters i must say. 

Even if the chapter is new, we should try to get some of the people who have built, and are running, the networks, services, etc. in the ISoc chapter. It is only then that people will take the chapter seriously.

I believe this will change one day, but it will not, if we continue to put these chapters in the same basket and treat them the same way, forgetting that they should be categorized, and given different kinds of support. Just as an example.....  Not $2000 for a chapter in New York or Colorado or Tokyo and the same $2000 for another one in Uganda or Burundi. 

Actually, $2000 will not go far in New York, but may pay for a full time person for a year in a developing country. So it's not too bad.
My suggestion is to first spend the $2000, show some very good results, and then keep going.

Regards,

Gihan

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