SCN: Re: OPS: w3m ...

[Doug Schuler]

Moments after I had resolved NOT to muddy this conversation with any of
my comments I ran across a comment that *needed* a response.

Rod's comments (below) that CPSR set up SCN in such a way that we
wouldn't get substantial corporate, foundation, or govenment support
doesn't square with my recollections.  One of the main reasons that we
didn't get any support was that we didn't ASK.  I can remember only one
previous time when we submitted a grant proposal (to the Bullitt
Foundation to help environmental groups).  The main reason (in my
recollection) we didn't seek grants is that seeking grants is hard work
and we didn't seem to be able to find the time.  I don't think it was
ever an explicit POLICY decision that forbade making proposals.

I am in favor of developing innovative community technology projects
and finding funds for them.  What I think we need to resist is reliance
on one or two resources for all of our revenues, fees for services, and
(especially?) advertising.

-- Doug

PS.  Just in case anybody finds it useful I'll mention my
article (now four years old) on how to kill community networks...
http://www.scn.org/ip/commnet/kill-commnets.html.



> Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2000 23:37:35 -0800 (PST)
> From: Rod Clark <bb615 at scn.org>
> To: AH <bb156 at scn.org>
> cc: Gianni Truzzi <gtruzzi at scn.org>, scn at scn.org
> Subject: Re: SCN: Re: OPS: w3m ...
> 
> Andrew Higgins wrote:
> > 2¢ Joe Mabel wrote:
> > 2¢ > If SCN's decision not to fundraise from corporations and to focus on a
> > 2¢ > volunteer
> > 2¢ > staff leads directly to this sort of consequence, I think this consequence
> > 2¢ > calls that decision into question.
> > 
> > On Wed, 23 Feb 2000, Gianni Truzzi wrote:
> > 2¢ Allow me to correct this mistaken belief. The Board of SCNA has NOT made
> > 2¢ any such decision. In fact, we expect to begin soliciting corporate and
> > 2¢ foundation funding rather vigorously in the coming months. However, that
> > 2¢ kind of fundraising effort has taken a back seat to other efforts for
> > 2¢ which it would be prerequisite. It's simply been a matter of allocating
> > 
> > This "mistaken" belief was first espoused by a member of the Board, and
> > made to sound like a policy decision. 
> > 
> > http://www.scn.org/volunteers/scn-l/msg00022.html
> > 
> > Perhaps if we had published minutes it could be made more clear how this
> > confusion arose...
> 
> Andrew, 
> 
>    There's never been any confusion that (until the very recent
> City education grant) almost all of SCN's revenues have come
> from small personal contributions to CPSR and then to SCNA, and
> from small contributions by users for new accounts.
> 
>    The City grant was a big departure for SCN, but still we
> don't depend on it for providing core services. Those still come
> from the sum of all the small personal contributions.
> 
>    This is not accidental, and CPSR set it up that way for a
> reason. That reason was to avoid any possibility of anything
> other than a competely free and independent viewpoint that would
> take into account only the interests of the membership and not
> of any partner organizations, government agencies, underwriting
> businesses or any other entities at all.
> 
>    There is a proposal for SCN, called SCN II, that Gianni
> drafted recently and that he mentioned during the Annual
> Meeting, that would add greatly to the range of possible funding
> sources. In the process, it would make membership contributions
> relatively much less important because they could not reasonably
> be expected to rise to meet the funding levels necessary to
> provide greatly improved services to underserved consituencies
> and otherwise greatly increase SCN's activities.
> 
>    The SCN II proposal has been circulated in draft form and I
> hope that you'll soon have a chance to study and comment on it.
> Since this is an important new initiative, we all should be
> interested in shaping it to provide the best chance for SCN to
> grow and at the same time to keep a stable, dependable funding
> base and keep its independence. I believe the SCN II proposal
> can adequately addresses these concerns, and also believe that
> everyone in the Association who is concerned should have the
> chance to contribute something to this discusion as we go
> forward.
> 
> Rod Clark
> 
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