[Imc-finance] FW: IMC NETWORK - RAISING AND SPENDING MONEY, IMC-FINANCE, GLOBAL GRANTS

[Sheri Herndon]

hi everyone,

you will see a series of emails that started off as a smaller discussion
list about sustaining the network.  there has been a suggestion to change
the name of this list from imc-finance to imc-sustain....that's the smallest
of discussion topics that will come up.

peace,
sheri

----------
From: Sheri Herndon <sheri@indymedia.org>
Date: Sun, 24 Jun 2001 15:18:39 -0700
Subject: IMC NETWORK - RAISING AND SPENDING MONEY, IMC-FINANCE, GLOBAL
GRANTS

hi friends,

this is not a formal proposal, just the beginning of a discussion that needs
to happen.  it is long.  there's alot to discuss.

i think we would all agree that some financial support for projects and
equipment and individual imcs and conferences and emergencies and legal fund
and travel for possible encuentros and other things would be a good idea.
we've seen some of the potential and we could see more.  in reality, money
helps.  we don't want to do things according to the old paradigm, capitalist
hierarchical, power-over model, so we have to be creative.  being creative
doesn't mean we throw out the baby with the bath water.  i believe we need
to be developing steps toward the alternative, or better yet, the
appropriate economy, even within our various organizations and networks and
network of networks.  it's something this organization needs to start
dealing with in order to be sustainable (in the most beautiful sense of the
word).  just like we focus on our processes and our appropriate technology,
so we must deal with the money equation.

and, what's cool and interesting is that people *want* to give us money.  we
just don't have a way to spend it at the moment.  we want to use money
appropriately but we don't have a global decision-making structure in place
yet, so what to do in the interim?  how to develop a strategy and process
*now* that will be leading us toward a model of a structure down the road
that we would all support.  a model that is inspiring and empowering and
creative and international.

in this long email, you'll find thoughts about:

1.  general fundraising strategy
2.  paypal account for network and individual imcs (it's long cause there's
the freenet example included)
3.  scholarships/stipends list
4.  imc global grant group

1.  GENERAL FUNDRAISING STRATEGY

some questions to ask ourselves:

1.  how do we raise money during this interim stage of not having a
network-wide decision-making structure (DMS) in place?

2.  what kind of interim process can we put in place until we have a DMS?

3.  are we losing opportunities for grants this year, this cycle?  can we
find a way to write a grant *now* to go after this money, and better yet
maybe even find ways to *use* that money?

4.  what about paypal for global and the locals?  see #2 below.

5.  what about a steering committee for the network?  reps from all the
various regions?  regional spokescouncils?  slightly off topic, but the idea
is interesting to me.

6.  can we start up imc-finance to discuss these issues?  a liaison from
every imc?

7.  how do we use this fundraising discussion as a catalyst for spurring on
the decision-making process for the membership criteria and principles of
unity?

8.  what about setting up the IMC foundation rather than different imcs
getting nonprofit status?  money funnels through this org that is
responsible to the global spokescouncil?

these are questions that several of us have been asking ourselves.  i raise
them because they need to be asked, not because i have answer to them.  my
hope is that by raising them, we can start thinking about them creatively
and see what steps *are possible* to take without a formal structure in
place.  and this perhaps we can lead the way to a model that works for
everyone....i think this is possible.

i've been thinking about this for a while.  and i've been talking about this
with several of you over the past year.  jay and i most recently, and since
susan is here in seattle and interested in these global topics and is on the
spoke for the grants working group, we've been talking about this alot
recently.  we have a proposal being drafted that might offer some short-term
interim solutions. not answers to the questions i wrote above, just some
ideas.

as you all know, 

(1) we have money in the bank (11K) that is for the network, and a trickle
coming in through the donate@indymedia.org address;
(2) we have foundations eager and interested in giving us more funding if
they knew we had a decent structure for making decisions;
(3) we also have upcoming grants that could be applied for - for individual
imcs as well as for the network.

** i have been spending some time carefully going through the National
Network of Grantmakers Grantmakers Directory.....we could be accessing some
of these grants.  Seattle IMC used the NNG format and this information could
be shared with other IMCs to make it easier for writing a grant (see #4).

the specific grants that are for regions, cities or countries (like brasil,
mexico, middle east) could be gone after by the nearby individual imcs.
however, because of our lack of DMS, the ones for the network are a
different question.  how can we apply for these grants in the name of the
network, raise money and distribute it to the network?  see below for
scholarship ideas for where the money could go (ala matthew).

this email is just to see if we can get the conversation started, spur some
interest, and maybe inspire people to understand why having a global
spokescouncil would be a good thing. there are proposals out there for
liaisons/spokes/facilitators/representative lists, etc.  all of this leading
in a good direction.

2.  PAYPAL ACCOUNT

we could start a paypal account immediately for the global site (after
sending out a notice to the lists about why this is a good idea).  i've been
talking to steven starr with imc-la and freenet.  when freenet first put a
donate button and a link to paypal, they raised 900 in 5 days.  passively.
without doing anything.  we could set up individual paypals for all the
various imcs as well as for the network.  make it easy for people to donate.

as jay and i have discussed, the folks who are coming to the site and seeing
donate, email us and say they want to donate, and we give them mailing
instructions and who to make the check out to, etc.  most of them never send
a check.  compare that to freenet where without doing a thing, they raised
900 in 5 days.  the testiment to make it easy for folks to financially
support our project.  the way we're doing donations to the network now, it's
alot of hassle for the 21st century when most people are used to using a
debit or credit card.

let's make it easy for people to donate!!!  especially when they are
concerned because the organization is being hassled by the fbi or our
servers are crashing and they want to do something.

from my conversation with steven, i think we could set it up so that we can
have people donate to the imc of their choice or to the
global.....individual imcs can spend the money as they like; the network
will have to wait until we get a DMS (decision-making structure) in place.

ACTION PLAN FOR GETTING PAYPAL ON WWW.INDYMEDIA.ORG:

1.  we could announce the intention/proposal/pros and cons to start an
account on the global lists; give people a week to discuss/consense, then
push the button a week from today to start accepting donations, with the
caveat that no funds will be spent until decisionmaking has been
formalized...

2.  we could use freenet as a model:

first go to www.freenetproject.org and look at their groovy donations
section, particularly the "find out more" link.... which says:

We have set-up a non-profit corporation to advance
the interests of the Freenet project. The mission statement of
Freenet Project Inc is as follows:

(insert IMC network mission statement)

We are now able to accept donations via PayPal.
Monies received will only be utilized to advance our Mission
Statement, and are administered at the direction of
the soon to be happening IMC global spokescouncil. Monies received may be
used to do alot of cool stuff (see scholarships....), if should it become
necessary, to fund legal defense (we could do this right away).
We have set up a PayPal account through which you can
conveniently make donations to the non-profit of your choice.

Anonymous Donations

All donations will be listed below in the "Recent
Donations" section. If you prefer to make an anonymous donation,
please include the word "anon" in the "Item" field.
Please click on this button to donate:

Mailing Donations

Alternatively you can make donations by mail. Checks
should be made payable to "Indymedia". The
address for donations is:

(insert appropriate address)

Current Funding Status

All amounts expressed in US dollars
Current Paypal account balance: $4332.42
This value is automatically updated, and does not
include the expenditures outlined below.

Expenditures

March 2001 - New Server - $800
We spent $800 on a new server,
hawk.freenetproject.org, which is currently running our mailing lists
and a number of other utility functions for the
project. Uprizer inc has generously donated an internet
connection which hawk is presently using.
June 2001 - Our first employee! - $2500
Oskar Sandberg, one of Freenet's core
developers, has agreed to work on the project full-time for the
Summer of 2001, provided that the project can
cover his living expenses. Oskar estimated these at $2500.

Target

We are currently raising funds which will be used to
enable additional developers to work on Freenet full-time, thus
further accelerating the Freenet development effort.

Recent donations

Name
Amount
Date
    
If you are listed here, and would rather not be,
please email Ian Clarke.

Contact

Please direct any questions regarding donations to
Steven Starr.

3.  check out https://www.paypal.com and explore the marvels of modern
technology....

(info courtesy of steven - thanks steven!  you are wonderful!)


3.  SCHOLARSHIPS/STIPENDS

during a lengthy email discussion with matthew back when jay first announced
the imc-finance list and alot of passionate emails were flying around on the
lists about money, how to deal with it, where does it go, 100% volunteer or
paying people to do the most important work on the planet, matthew proposed
in lieu of paying people (something i personally have been advocating when
it was doable), that we could do scholarships/stipends.  here is the core of
that email.  i include it cause i think it's really helpful in setting out
some concrete examples:

it's probably the phd student in me, but what about offering indymedia
scholarships instead of paying people.

it would still kind of suck :) but might suck less. (and we still don't
have near enough money anyway.)

idea is we would offer $5000 for a 3 month scholarship (and maybe 1 year
scholarships?).

aplicants would need to propose why they are worth investing in, what
they would do with it. what skills would be transferred, how employing
them meets the goals of diversity, decentralisation, democracy.

but once they get the money, it's a scholarship, so they can do what they
like with it. the funders can't coerce them to do anything. except maybe
write a report at the end or something.

some small percentage of people will be a writeoff of course.

and the applicants, and the judging of them is highly dependent on our
personal networks and all the potential problems and bias that entails.

but people could write scholarships to:

* add some much requested feature to the code

* work on co-ordinating indymedia network structure

* write a weekly indymedia network news (debian weekly news style)

* do network admin

* setup a new server in Seoul

* train people in Kerala how to publish on india.indymedia.org

anyway, an idea to think about for the future (end matthew).

i think having different imcs write up their projects that are specifically
needing funding at the local level, and then different network working
groups write up project descriptions and/or proposed budgets, etc. (like we
do at the local level), we could create some kind of orientation for where
money might go.  we also might be able to look at priorities as well.


4.  IMC GLOBAL GRANTWRITING GROUP

nearing the end of the long email...i'll make this short.

i think we could start up a global grantwriting list where we could support
folks/imcs who are writing grants.  in seattle we have done alot of work on
this front and have templates and information we can share.  some of the
discussion raised in this email (some, not all) could take place there.

in my study of the grantmakers directory as i mentioned above, there are a
number of grants that we could apply for easily (relatively speaking) as a
network (if we figure out a workable strategy - more on that).  there are
also a number of grants that individual imcs could apply for because they
are from foundations based in certain regions or cities or have a particular
geographic focus.  this list could help facilitate that process and it could
be a place for sharing resources, tips, etc.

so much more to say, but the day is fast going by.

con solidaridad y amor,
sheri