Re: [Debconf-team] How many Swiss sponsors are expected?
On 25/10/12 08:38, Richard Darst wrote:
> Hi,
>
> We've spent a lot of time panicking over the budget, but one thing we
> haven't done is learned just how much we can get from Swiss
> organizations. (Two hypotheses being: global sponsorship is somewhat
> constant, but perhaps we can get more local sponsorship from having
> the conf somewhere).
>
> The local team has a _lot_ of possible sponsors (and we really haven't
> given enough credit for this...). There are ~20 listing "support type
> is monetary" and ~10 listing "support type is finances" (does this
> mean giving money?). A lot of these are small companies, some are
> larger organizations (academic, in some cases).
>
> So, what I think we should think about is "how much is expected from
> Swiss-companies"? Here are some thought questions to get this
> started. None of these have known answers, all that I am looking for
> is gut feelings.
>
> - How many "small" (swiss) companies do you think could give 500 CHF?
> From the sponsors-table list, how many have been informally talked to
> and they have said "sure, we could probably give a bit". Will we get
> closer to 5 or to 25 or 100 donating this amount?
>
>
Even for small companies, 500 CHF is not so much, and they may simply
give this money because they get more than that value out of Debian (who
doesn't?) - but even if we find 100 of them, it is only 50,000 CHF.
For planning purposes, I think it reasonable to guess between 20 - 100
companies like that will be found.
In budget terms, that is 10k - 50k
> - How many "big" (swiss) sponsors do you have in mind, 10 kCHF or
> more? How many can be actually acquired? How many have been
> informally talked to and you think have a high likelihood of donating?
>
> (Note: I see some academic institutions listed as "monetary"... do
> you think they will give money, as opposed to giving free facilities
> that are too far away to use?)
>
>
I would not like to guess so much about this as it will depend a lot
more on one of three things:
a) someone has a very good contact in a firm,
b) a firm has a dedicated budget to support such events (maybe through a
foundation),
c) we offer some value in return - any rational firm that sees an
opportunity to make 20k by donating 10k, for example, will do so very
quickly.
Point (b) is something that could be supported globally, to scour the
web looking for evidence of companies systematically making such grants
(e.g. who sponsors other conferences?)
Point (c) is also something that the global team can help with, thinking
about ideas to suggest `investment' value of sponsorship
Another way to support the Swiss effort in this area would be to
evaluate the gold and platinum sponsors from previous 3-5 years and work
out whether each one was in category (a), (b) or (c), knowing how we won
sponsors in the past will help repeat the same approach in future.
> - I have heard about "Swiss foundations" which could possibly give a
> lot. Also, I've heard that we may be too late to get money from
> here. Do we know anything concrete? How much would we expect to get
> from a foundation? (500 CHF or 50 kCHF?) Are foundations identified
> already? Have we given up (by being too late) yet?
>
>
Here are examples of some Swiss foundations run by a well known Swiss
company:
http://www.ubs.com/global/en/about_ubs/stiftungen.html
Looking at other corporate web sites (Credit Suisse, Nestle) will no
doubt find more examples.
Also add Swiss tourism authorities to the list. Each canton operates
independently for many things, including tourism. Cantons may compete
against each other to `win' a prestigious event for their region. These
are the links I already posted on the wiki:
http://wiki.debconf.org/wiki/DebConf13/Fundraising
(and I'm quite happy for gismo or somebody else to move some of that material to the private space if that what was meant in the earlier email about this wiki page, but it would be nice to leave a link to it from the public space so people know where to look)
> So, these aren't designed to get final, definitive answers (that's
> impossible), but just get the general feeling of the local team to see
> how positive or gloomy sponsorship things are there. I hope we will
> be pleasantly surprised.
>
> Thanks,
>
> - Richard
>
>
Reply to: