brainstorming

[Tony Rose]

So far more like a drizzle.

I want us to host a conference and publish a proceedings volume.  But that's not a financial goal.  But it will cost money and require the creation of a fund.

I'd also like to create a fund for awarding travel stipends to comics scholars, allowing travel to the National Archives or to Michigan State.  That's not a financial goal, either.  But it would require the creation of a fund.

Would we like to consider setting a fund-raising goal?  $30,000 by 2014?  That's a stretch but not utterly unrealistic.

Other ideas?  Questions?  Arguments?





tony

[Lionel English]

Just as an FYI, the GCD is on the advisory board of the International Comics Studies program.  I need to post an update to the board list; I met with Pete Coogan (the ICS director) at the San Diego con this year and talked with a bit about the ICS.  I think that the goals you outline below are actually served by the ICS, and we might, instead, set a goal of contributing some amount of money to the ICS (and the CBLDF and the Heroes Initiative and possibly some non-American centered organization).

 

But we also need to focus on some basics.  What are our current costs and current income?  Are there ways to reduce any of our costs?  How can we increase our income?

 

We're a non-profit.  What does that mean?  Obviously it means, in part, that none of our "employees" or "members" make any extra money when the GCD makes money--that is to say, no one personally benefits from the money raised by the GCD.  Is that all that it means?  Are we obligated not to make money, or not to make more than a certain amount of money?  If we budget to maintain a reserve, is that profit or not?

 

There are probably other questions that could be addressed.  But I think we have to answer a few questions like these before we can start the goal creation process, so we all know where we're coming from, and what limits shape the goals that are available to us.

--
Lionel English
lio...@beanmar.net

[Tony Rose]

----- "Lionel English" <lio...@beanmar.net> wrote:

But we also need to focus on some basics.  What are our current costs and current income?  Are there ways to reduce any of our costs?  How can we increase our income?

TONY:  our current costs vary with the strength of the dollar but our hosting is in the neighborhood of $70 a month.  That's $840 a year.  Let's call it $900 for now.  We'll have a better feel for that further down the road.  Our income from our Google AdSense revenues have averaged $115.63 a month over the last year.  We have also received donations totaling:  $2704.21 in the last 12 months.

 

We're a non-profit.  What does that mean?  Obviously it means, in part, that none of our "employees" or "members" make any extra money when the GCD makes money--that is to say, no one personally benefits from the money raised by the GCD.  Is that all that it means?  Are we obligated not to make money, or not to make more than a certain amount of money?  If we budget to maintain a reserve, is that profit or not?

TONY:  A non-profit corporation doesn't pay dividends to the incorporators or to shareholders -- all of its money is used to further the chartered purpsoe.  We could have paid employees --they would further our mission.  We can raise all the money we want and invest it -- any revenue would be used to further the mission.  We can sell stuff as long as we use the proceeds to further the mission.  We are limited to expenditures that further our mission, as described in our incorporation documents:  we maintain a database of all published comics and further comics scholarship and education.  Ordinary operating expenses (postage, office supplies, office rent, etc) would also be legitimate expenses.  We are obligated to give any funds we have on the dissolution of the corporation to a non-profit that has the same goals as ours (education and scholarship) or to the State of Arkansas.

tony

[Lou Mazzella]

Should we look at some sort of regular fund-raising event? An online auction or something at a convention? -Lou --- On Tue, 8/10/10, Tony Rose <tonyr...@comcast.net> wrote:

[Jochen Garcke]

Am 10.08.2010 20:21, schrieb Tony Rose:
> TONY: our current costs vary with the strength of the dollar but
> our hosting is in the neighborhood of $70 a month. That's $840 a
> year. Let's call it $900 for now. We'll have a better feel for
> that further down the road. Our income from our Google AdSense
> revenues have averaged $115.63 a month over the last year. We have
> also received donations totaling: $2704.21 in the last 12 months.

We have two servers from hetzner, one of them costs 50 Euro a month if I
am not mistaken, so two should be 100 Euro which would be more like 130
$ (current rate is 1 Euro = 1.27 $).

Jochen

[Lionel English]

NOTE: Cross posted to the board list

Tony, can you clarify this?  Is the second server still under Andres's name?  If so, where do we stand on the transfer, and what will our expenses look like when this is taken into account?

--
Lionel English
lio...@beanmar.net

[Lionel English]

One thing that springs to mind is increasing the presence of our PayPal donation button on our site.  Maybe a "Help Support the GCD!" link on the footer of all our pages?

Actually, I just found that the Donate buttons don't work.  Was that known and I forgot about it?  Or is that new?  Definitely need to get that fixed.

In the future, what about GCD swag?  T-Shirts, Polos, coffee mugs, etc  That would mostly appeal to members, though.

--
Lionel English
lio...@beanmar.net

[Jochen Garcke]

Am 16.08.2010 05:17, schrieb Lionel English:
> One thing that springs to mind is increasing the presence of our PayPal
> donation button on our site. Maybe a "Help Support the GCD!" link on
> the footer of all our pages?
>
> Actually, I just found that the Donate buttons don't work. Was that
> known and I forgot about it? Or is that new? Definitely need to get
> that fixed.

I think it is new. Must be on the paypal account side, since the link
ends up at the Grand Comicbook Database Foundation.

> In the future, what about GCD swag? T-Shirts, Polos, coffee mugs, etc
> That would mostly appeal to members, though.

Easy to do with spreadshirt, but probably more a service for members
than an income stream.

Jochen

[Tony Rose]

I'll see what's up with Paypal.  The problem seems to be there.




tony

[Lionel English]

OK, so it sounds like our steady income currently trails our expenses, but we have a three year reserve in the bank.

 

So one of our goals (or two or three, if you want to break the following down into separate goals) should be increasing revenue, which can be done by increasing traffic to the site and thereby increasing ad revenue (hopefully a side effect of continual improvements to the site and perhaps pushes from social media), and by fixing the PayPal problem and expanding the placement of the donate links to more pages (such as making them visible on all pages instead of just the front), and perhaps by occasional pushes via social media as well.

On Sun, Aug 15, 2010 at 2:04 AM, Jochen Garcke <gcd...@garcke.de> wrote:

--
Lionel English
lio...@beanmar.net

[Jochen Garcke]

Am 10.08.2010 16:27, schrieb Tony Rose:
> Other ideas? Questions? Arguments?

One could think about different ad networks. From google we often get
public service ads, e.g. for kiva or grameen foundation (which I do find
very worthwhile organisation, I do use kiva.org to fund microcredits). I
assume for these we don't get money. There might be others more suited
for our comic/entertainment audience.

We could think about language dependent ad networks, for Germany I know
about one (due to my involvement with comicradioshow.com) which focuses
work in the comic/entertainment context. Assumingly one would generate
more money since these would be more focused ads (on the tech side we
should be able to choose which ad network to use by IP since one can
find the corresponding country more or less easily).

Although there is the question of the non-profit and tax stuff if we get
money not just from US income streams.

Jochen

[Jochen Garcke]

Should have the further development of kachingle and flattr on our
radar. flattr currently receives lot of attention (some call it hype) in
the German blogosphere.

Jochen

[Lionel English]

What are these?  Ad revenue?  Do you have links?

--
Lionel English
lio...@beanmar.net

[Jochen Garcke]

I expected you guys to just google for them :-)

Micro-payment systems where you give websites you visit some of your
money, either once per click (flattr) or per click and then depending
how often you visit the site in comparison how either sites you treat
this way (kachingle).

So essentially some form of donation, but in a bit different way. More
aimed at blog authors, but would for us as well.

Jochen

Am 22.08.2010 16:35, schrieb Lionel English:
> What are these? Ad revenue? Do you have links?
>
> On Sun, Aug 22, 2010 at 2:57 AM, Jochen Garcke <gcd...@garcke.de
> <mailto:gcd...@garcke.de>> wrote:
>
> Should have the further development of kachingle and flattr on our
> radar. flattr currently receives lot of attention (some call it hype) in
> the German blogosphere.
>
> Jochen
>
> Am 19.08.2010 00:03, schrieb Jochen Garcke:
> > Am 10.08.2010 16:27, schrieb Tony Rose:
> >> Other ideas? Questions? Arguments?
> >
> > One could think about different ad networks. From google we often get
> > public service ads, e.g. for kiva or grameen foundation (which I
> do find

> > very worthwhile organisation, I do use kiva.org <http://kiva.org>

> to fund microcredits). I
> > assume for these we don't get money. There might be others more suited
> > for our comic/entertainment audience.
> >
> > We could think about language dependent ad networks, for Germany I
> know
> > about one (due to my involvement with comicradioshow.com

> <http://comicradioshow.com>) which focuses

> > work in the comic/entertainment context. Assumingly one would generate
> > more money since these would be more focused ads (on the tech side we
> > should be able to choose which ad network to use by IP since one can
> > find the corresponding country more or less easily).
> >
> > Although there is the question of the non-profit and tax stuff if
> we get
> > money not just from US income streams.
> >
> > Jochen
>
>
>
>
> --
> Lionel English

> lio...@beanmar.net <mailto:lio...@beanmar.net>

[Lionel English]

Sorry, I still haven't gotten around to reading up on these.

Question though:  can these feed our paypal account, or would they feed directly into our bank account?

--
Lionel English

San Diego, CA
lio...@beanmar.net

[Jochen Garcke]

Don't know. I assume paypal, if they are cool also the cheaper
moneybookers. Since flattr is in Europe maybe transfer to Euro-based
bank accounts.

Jochen

Am 27.08.2010 05:45, schrieb Lionel English:
> Sorry, I still haven't gotten around to reading up on these.
>
> Question though: can these feed our paypal account, or would they feed
> directly into our bank account?
>
> On Sun, Aug 22, 2010 at 8:02 AM, Jochen Garcke <gcd...@garcke.de
> <mailto:gcd...@garcke.de>> wrote:
>
> I expected you guys to just google for them :-)
>
> Micro-payment systems where you give websites you visit some of your
> money, either once per click (flattr) or per click and then depending
> how often you visit the site in comparison how either sites you treat
> this way (kachingle).
>
> So essentially some form of donation, but in a bit different way. More
> aimed at blog authors, but would for us as well.
>
> Jochen
>
> Am 22.08.2010 16:35, schrieb Lionel English:
> > What are these? Ad revenue? Do you have links?
> >
> > On Sun, Aug 22, 2010 at 2:57 AM, Jochen Garcke <gcd...@garcke.de
> <mailto:gcd...@garcke.de>

> > <mailto:gcd...@garcke.de <mailto:gcd...@garcke.de>>> wrote:
> >
> > Should have the further development of kachingle and flattr on our
> > radar. flattr currently receives lot of attention (some call
> it hype) in
> > the German blogosphere.
> >
> > Jochen
> >
> > Am 19.08.2010 00:03, schrieb Jochen Garcke:
> > > Am 10.08.2010 16:27, schrieb Tony Rose:
> > >> Other ideas? Questions? Arguments?
> > >
> > > One could think about different ad networks. From google we
> often get
> > > public service ads, e.g. for kiva or grameen foundation (which I
> > do find
> > > very worthwhile organisation, I do use kiva.org

> <http://kiva.org> <http://kiva.org>

> <mailto:lio...@beanmar.net <mailto:lio...@beanmar.net>>

>
>
>
>
> --
> Lionel English
> San Diego, CA

> lio...@beanmar.net <mailto:lio...@beanmar.net>
>

[Jochen Garcke]

Once we have an API for the data we should think about cost contribution
by 'power users'. For normal users it should be free, but if some
software or site uses it to access the data live they should contribute
to the server costs in some way.

In other words, the normal dump every two weeks is free, but if they
want live access they should contribute something.

We could also make an API for my.comics.org, so that users could
synchronize their collections between their mobile apps. Here the
contribution by the apps developers makes more sense since the
collection part would be out of our core focus.

Jochen

[Tony Rose]

Makes good sense to me.

tony
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jochen Garcke" <gcd...@garcke.de>
To: gcd-finan...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Sunday, August 29, 2010 4:17:47 AM
Subject: Re: [gcd-financial goals committee] brainstorming