[Discussion] - Financial goals for 2024 #734
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This thread is meant for discussion on financial goals and budget for 2024. Top post will be updated with decisions.
Definitvely the number one goal.
I completely agree. Though for some reason I feel like we have had that goal for years but suck at it. For example we hardly manage to send the newsletter every month. I would say that perhaps instead of taking care of tickets, for one Milestone, the goal could be to focus on that.
My knowledge on that subject is very poor. But it sounds like a good idea. I don't know how doable it is.
I would put that as a 2025 goal, when for sure you're done with the house and everything else.
I'm not sure I understand what you mean...
I don't like to have to many goals, so I would focus on the three first ones.
I also completely agree with points 1, 2 and 3.
As for merchandise, I wouldn't kick it forward to 2025, although I'm not sure how we can handle this. And I wouldn't want you (Mupp and Ant) to have something more (like tshirts and bags production) to work on either.
Same as @meaz I'm not sure I understand the point 5.
I also think we could explore the possibility to have more donation based (perks) services. For example, PeerTube space or something similar.
EDIT:
For example, a couple of Diaspora* nodes (a brazilian and a german one) have something like this:
Agree with both of ya. I would not want to kick marchendise to 2025 but it will depend on how things are going to look like in spring / summer. I think we could setup small workshop to make something. I am dying to make something creative like this. One of the way to make it easy would be to launch a pre-order campaign for shirts. So that we can produce the ordered amounts (plus some extras). It would make it easier to setup workshop to produce shirts/bags without the need to produce on regular basis. So if this works out we could launch simiar pre-order campaigns on regular basis (let's say twice this year) until we are indeed finished with the house and have a proper permanent printing shop setup.
As for increase of donations, if we are to start paying salaries and would like to support more core contributors (even to the extend of full salary) we need to find a good way to secure that in as big procentage as possible via donations of users themself. And yes I do agree we need to send newsletter on regular (monthly basis) and I hope (am actually sure) this year we will manage this. Perhaps we should think how to work on this (getting more donations and also investigate grant possibilites) on next meeting and at least form a workgroup for this subject.
As for 5. point. I once had this idea to provide service for people to install eg. lineageos with pre-loaded disroot services, or linux on laptops with pre-loaded disroot stuff. So instead of selling devices (we could also do that) help people with installation (getgoogleoff.me service). I do think this could work and provide nice service people would like to pay for. But perhaps it's something for at least 2025 when the house is finished and we have a workshop to do this kind of stuff.
Few friends getting to know the disroot story from the kitchen often say, 'why dont you just charge money for it'. I know its maybe tempting and an easy solution but I still think we could just encourage people to donate without forcing them. That does need we need to do better job with education/information but also make it easier to donate (we should provide interface where you can do one-stop donation right from the website without need to go elsewhere.
That is a great idea and seems easier to handle.
I also have a few users saying something similar about "charging" services. And although I totally agree with the pedagogical approach on services usage and donations, I find myself thinking of the other approach more frequently, especially when it comes to salaries and services maintainance. Another example (similar to those of Diaspora* I mentioned) are Plume's instances which are decreasing in number and of those that are still running some have begun to ask for a donation before approving the account request. We're not a business, of course, but a small organization offering a lot of things that needs a lot of time we're not handling properly since we also need to take care of getting money for living (or least that's my case).
I'm beginning to think that, somehow, we're also either getting the users used to it wrong or we're not getting them to commit with the project that provides them with this bunch of tools.
Rergarding point 5, I think it's a great idea that needs some human resources we're lacking of at the moment and somehow takes us back to the previous conversation about donation based services, no?
A bit late to the party but here is what I have to say. I agree with Meaz that we should focus on few first goals, having a long list of ambitious plan is quite overwhelming for me. As great as all 5 of those ideas sounds, I'd have to take it one at a time so agreeing on the order of priority is essential. If we want to tackle few of those idea at the same time (or other ideas on top of those 5), I'd suggest each of us pick one to navigate and lead on.
I think changing now the way Disroot works financially and asking for x$ from each user is tricky. Apart from it meaning that we then fail to provide service to anyone, regardless of their financial situation (and that we'll have to admit the idea of a community like Disroot, supported by it's members as we imagined it, does not work), it will also change our legal status - as we will no longer be running on donations but will be providing paid service -that will mean we will need to invest more in a proper accounting person. Maybe what we will than earn could cover that but it needs real good investigation and maybe help/guidance from external sources with better understanding.
I think this should be added to the goals. Or clearly define it as one task within goal number 2. Seemingly a simple task, but one we've been talking about doing for some time.
@fede In regards to point 5. yes it needs more resources and work. This is why I look at it as purely paid service where your work is financially compensated. Basically leading to adding funds to the salary. this however is a project in itself and needs not only human labour but also a proper workshop setup and procedures to make it into a smooth operation. It can be done but indeed it's for sure not something to even talk about this year and I think it requires situation where at least one or two people are already compensated fully meaning they work full time on disroot and could take the load to make this happen and bring more funds to the project.
Charging for service, is as @antilopa mention a bit tricky. I personally don't see the administrative thing an issue, but more the fact of proving that our initial idea failed. I think we have not done much to get more donations. Even with such small effort however, we are doing very well. In fact I have not ever think we will be able to even consider salaries. I think we are on very good track to actually prove our ideas were right. We need to work more on that front IMO. The last three years of house building for me personally were very exhausting times, where I could only focus on maintaining disroot (specially that we had so much going on in recent years), but I think as we hope to finish the house this year, I will have more time to focus on all those aspects and provide more input.
I will try to re-formulate the goals (unless someone else wants to), so they are clear and include the feedback and then we could vote on them to see whcih ones we will be focusing on in 2024.
Something like this @muppeth ?
Formalize a proper budget before end of January that includes all the spending including allocating money for equipment and work needs for all core team members + salary for muppeth.
Improve communication with Disrooters to try to increase donation income to secure paid staff salary and other costs as well as accumulate money for future hardware. For example, we should send our monthly newsletters. We should set two milestones per year on focusing on actions to get donations (like in June and December?). We should also form a workgroup for this subject.
Investigate funding possibilities similar to those from NLNET, to potentially secure salaries for staff for longer periods (duration of the grants). We should create a list of associations/foundations/companies that would do this thing and then write to them.
Merchandise. We could produce shirts/bags/badges etc. We would need to first launch a pre-order campaign for shirts/bags/etc., so that we can produce the ordered amounts (plus some extras). If this works out we could launch similar pre-order campaigns on regular basis (twice this year at first, for example in June and December, like for the "actions for donations" milestones).
Hello disroot team members, i wish you all the success for the initiative you have taken. Since i am now part of the disroot user base, i therefore felt the need to give you feedback which will hopefully resonate with other disroot users as well.
Firstly, there are 3 groups of users who are using your services:
(1) Your loyal users who would always donate you no matter what
(2) Users who would donate only if they are reminded regularly (using all available platforms).
(3) A third group who would prefer using the service for free, due to financial constraints etc.
The suggestions i have may hopefully be effective at reaching out to the users belonging to the second group. It is these users who need to be motivated and approached in an effective manner.
My feedback from a user perspective is as follows:
(1) Website:
In the donate section, i would advise that you calculate an estimate of the total funds that are required for the year and display it in the form of bar indicator (see screenshot below). The reason is that if you for example post the monthly donation / total expenses for Jan 2024 and the montly donation exceeds the total expenses, i as a user might become relaxed / demotivated to donate since in my mind i find that the project is being well supported. However if you display your yearly goal, then it would encourage me to donate, irrespective of the monthly donations / total expenses, since i know now how much disroot needs to thrive.
(2) Email:
A monthly or 6 monthly reminder through email would be a good approach in the form of newsletter or whatever suits you best :)
(3) XMPP:
XMPP could be a very good way of approaching all disrooters. I would suggest to make a dedicated group and add every disrooter
over there with an opt out feature for those disrooter who wants to maintain his/her privacy and not be part of the group, and at the
end of every month or 6 months send a reminder notice to everyone to contribute a cup of coffee etc. This can also make xmpp a more
lively environment.
(4) Social Media:
A monthly or 6 monthly reminder on https://nixnet.social/disroot could be useful as well.
This approach can definitely improve your donation outcome because each available platform (email, xmpp, social media) is effectively used to communicate with disrooters. My best wishes to all. Regards.
Thanks for the feedback. Very interesting.
But I think we also have a group of users who uses the services in a more pragmatic way. For example, they donate for cloud/email storage or domain linking because they find the service "better" than others for financial reasons mainly. This also means, of course, they trust in us (because our ethical approach or whatever) but in a more practical way.
I'm thinking if the approach you mentioned could be applied to a kind of group of users like the one I mentioned above.
Hello, i am glad to be of assistance here :) ; As a user, i think it can definitely work in your favour. For this group of users which you have mentioned, the best way to communicate with them would be through email in the Q4 of every year. In the email you can state:
(1) How much you appreciate for their contribution
(2) How much disroot has received so far in donations
(3) How much disroot still needs for their yearly goal
And finally you can request to them to help disroot achieve this goal with a cup of coffee ;)
If someone would send me an email this way, i would certainly donate more without hesitating even if i have contributed in the past by paying for cloud storage etc.
All the best 👍
We send email with a yearly report stating the above. We normally would also send email with new years greetings and all. Though this year we have not manage on time. However we hope to send email by the end of january with a yearly report.
This year as an easy improvement on communication part, I would like to send out a newsletter with a summary of work done as well as new features (if there are any) each month. First to develop regularity but also keep reminding of our existance and work that is done regulary.
Thanks @zeeshan for all your input. Its nice to see disrooters taking active part in discussions here. Your ideas about the improvements on donation page we have discussed briefly on the meeting and we will be doing some improvements on that front soon.
@Disroot/Owners this is a summary of all above comments:
Formalize a proper budget
Tasks:
Improve communication with Disrooters
This in order to increase donation income to secure paid staff salary and other costs as well as accumulate money for future hardware.
Tasks:
Get fundings
Fundings similar to those from NLNET to potentially secure salaries for staff for longer periods (duration of the grants).
Tasks:
Merchandise
We could produce shirts/bags/badges etc.
Tasks:
I'm closing this as I have create issue for each goal.