NATIONAL CAPITAL FREENET DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY by Gordon Pearson (au167), Director of Development Brett Delmage (aa693), Board Liaison OVERVIEW * The need for an effective development program National Capital FreeNet was launched publicly in 1993 as a "demonstration project" to show the feasibility of community computing networks and computer-mediated communication. Here are the results of the experiment: - NCF is the second largest free-net in the world - 20,000 new members join NCF every year - most of them in the Ottawa-Carleton Region - 50 new members sign up every day, seven days per week - Hundreds of organizations have information areas on FreeNet - FreeNet handles 95,000 dial-up and telnet connections per week The challenge now is to meet the demands of a community hungry for FreeNet resources, and to ensure that the system can be accessed by the thousands who are knocking at our door, eager to be part of the information society. To achieve our goal, while remaining true to NCF's Mission as a free community service, we need to increase donations and contributions substantially. We need to sustain this funding into the future and keep pace with growing demand...and we need the proper tools to do it. DEVELOPMENT PRINCIPLES * "Development" is not begging for money. "Development" is not just a fancy word for fundraising. The major goal of NCF's development program is to identify NCF's potential supporters and maximize the opportunities for them to contribute in practical, meaningful and personally (or institutionally) satisfying ways in support of NCF's objectives. At the heart of the Development effort is the fact that FreeNet is a community initiative -- financial and volunteer support channelled through NCF is reinvested, many times over, in services and programs that benefit the whole community through improved communication, access to information, learning and interaction. Development involves bringing members and others into the picture, incorporating their ideas about how they can help. It means giving them ownership in the organization and making sure they recognize that they have an important stake in FreeNet's continuing success. * Support (cash & donations in-kind) will be sought from diverse sources. To ensure funding stability and balanced participation from the broadest possible community, NCF will solicit and accept support from all individuals and agencies with an interest in NCF or whose aims and objectives are furthered by the success of NCF. The following groups of individuals and organizations will be solicited for support: a. NCF members b. NCF Directors c. NCF Information providers: - non-profit associations - SIGs (as a groups of individual members with a common interest) - governments - businesses d. Municipal, Regional, Provincial and Federal Governments and government agencies with goals in common with NCF, including community development, community service, fostering greater communication and understanding, and enhancing economic development e. Corporations and businesses that are not information providers but can benefit from the success of NCF The key to sustainability is balanced, broad-based participation. FreeNet's funding future depends upon maximizing local community support. * Donors will be properly acknowledged and asked to renew. Donor acknowledgment and recognition is a critically important component of a successful development program. Thanking is as important as asking. The development program requires that NCF maintain accurate records of individual donations in its administrative database. All Donors will be personally thanked in a timely manner for their contributions and recognized publicly, for both current and lifetime donations, as each wishes. Donation records will be tracked and Members who have donated will be asked individually by Email to renew their support. * Members will be asked to become Donors. Members who are not Donors will be given the opportunity, when logging in, to make a donation or make a pledge. They will also be able to read and ignore the message or opt to register as a volunteer. * Donating will be made easier. Members will give more frequently if we make it easy for them. The Development Office will continue to work with NCF's technical and administrative departments to set up on-line donation procedures, including a range of convenient auto-debit options using VISA and direct bank account debits that many Members have requested in order to spread their contributions over time. * Opportunities for sponsorship will be increased There is a significant potential for sponsorship of some of NCF's services, tools and content areas. The task is to sensitively integrate sponsorship recognition into these well-used, and consequently expensive to run, resources in a manner that does not disrupt an acceptable user interface. An important distinction must be made between sponsorship and advertising. When accepting sponsorships, NCF maintains editorial control both of the message and its placement, unlike advertising, where the advertiser has control of the message content. Unlike the sale of advertising space, a good sponsorship program provides appropriate and valuable recognition of a donor's generosity. * Corporate Sponsors will be recognized. FreeNet's public popularity and success as a community service make it an attractive vehicle for corporate sponsorship, provided that donors are accorded recognition and visibility in keeping with their contributions. Every effort will be made to guarantee that the benefits NCF receives are returned with equal value through recognition on NCF's login screens, web pages and elsewhere. Opportunities will be created to honour NCF's Key Partners and other major supporters both off-line and on. * Operating costs will be stated in meaningful ways and widely publicized. The development program will assist NCF members, information providers and others to make meaningful and appropriate contributions by ensuring that NCF's operating costs are accurately identified and stated in ways that users can relate to such as the cost-per-hour-of-use and the cost per kilobyte of information stored online. * Fundraising projects will have clear goals. Whenever possible, development projects will be undertaken to support specific operational improvements so that Donors, members and the NCF Board will be able to clearly see the benefits of each successful project, or the consequences of each failed project. * Projects will be fun. Development projects should be enjoyable for both the volunteers and staff implementing the project and the participants. The completion of each project should leave participants eager for more, asking "When will the next one be?" * Projects will serve multiple Development objectives. Fundraising projects must pass the "multi-purpose test" to ensure that our limited resources are being used most efficiently. The Great FreeNet On-Line Auction is a good example. It was designed with the following goals: -raise money for NCF to improve community access to the system -expand membership by encouraging Guests to become Members -raise NCF's profile in the business community -establish relationships and procedures for a repeatable event -serve as a focus for volunteers (recruit fundraising committee members) -involve IPs and SIGs in NCF funding (as donors of auction packages and as volunteers) -attract Members to the "Funding Area" By the same token, all NCF initiatives should be examined for their fundraising potential, so that opportunities are not missed. For example, when the Help Desk published its recent Survival Guide, a donation reply envelope was inserted. * Volunteers will be recognized as Donors. FreeNet runs on donations of volunteer time and expertise, as well as money and gifts-in-kind. In co-operation with NCF's volunteer co-ordinator, appropriate recognition of these contributions will be given in the funding area. * The role of the Director of Development. The Director of Development will work closely with the Executive Director and staff, the Board Liaison and members of the multi-disciplinary Development Committee to initiate and support fundraising programs and projects consistent with NCF's development plan. * The role of the NCF Board of Directors. A knowledgeable Board of Directors that actively participates in the development program is essential to the long-term success of any organization. Members of the NCF Board of Directors should assist with and demonstrate leadership in NCF's development activities, in addition to providing input to the annual development plan, approving objectives and monitoring progress. * Volunteers are an important part of the development team. NCF cannot achieve its development objectives solely by the work of the Director of Development. NCF members will be encouraged to work with NCF staff, as members of a multi-disciplinary development team which includes software specialists (designers, testers, database specialists, etc.), graphic designers, sales people, project managers, marketing experts and others. The goal will be to attract volunteers with a real interest in the development program who have skills that they can contribute to its success. Volunteers will participate by "signing up" for individual development projects. This will help build commitment to the timely and successful completion of each project and will also serve to clearly identify those persons responsible for each successful project. NCF's volunteer co-ordinator will play an important role in helping to identify volunteers interested in participating and setting up a structure that ensures program effectiveness and volunteer satisfaction. DEVELOPMENT TOOLS In the past, much attention was given to encouraging Guests to become Members, while little was done to encourage Members to become Donors or to develop the relationship with past Donors. NCF continues to rely on donations from new registrants for most of its revenue, even though experienced Members are more likely to appreciate the value of the system and therefore are more likely to give larger donations. NCF's Development Strategy will focus more on current Members and Donors -- Members will give if properly asked, properly thanked and properly recognized for their donations. Here is an outline of administrative and software tools needed by the Development Committee to accomplish this. * Tools for Donor Recognition: Most people won't give money more than once if they aren't properly recognized and thanked. a) NCF's Administrative Database should be programmed to yield donation records so that Donors will be properly credited automatically on lists in the Funding Area -- lists will be created for the current year's donations and for total lifetime contributions. b) A variety of thank you/acknowledgement messages prepared by the Development Office should be sent out automatically; it should be flexible enough to allow special responses to special-case donations. c) Some donors will be contributing under a variety of "auto debit" programs. There should be a provision in the Administrative Database to handle these as special-case donations in terms of sending out acknowledgement messages and crediting the Donors on the lists in Funding Area. As the funding programs evolve, there will be changes and additions to the Donor Recognition area (new donor categories; new campaigns which require separate listings). Flexibility and ease of accommodating changes will be important in designing the Administrative Database. * Reminder Program: Most people won't give if they aren't asked. Software should be written to work with the Administrative Database to recognize non-donors (those who have never given) at the login screen and provide them with a set of options - including "make a donation"; "make a pledge"; "read & ignore". The Reminder Program should also recognize past donors who have lapsed and handle them in a similar fashion (but with slightly different wording). * Semi-Annual Email of 'Renewal' Requests: Most Donors appreciate a personal reminder when it's time to give again. Working from the Administrative Database, appropriate Email messages written by the Development Office should be sent to Donors 6-months after their last donation asking them to renew and increase their contribution. The messages will be tailored to the various donor levels and will include extracts of pertinent data from the Administrative Database. If Donors renew, they should be thanked automatically by Email and recognized in the donor listings (both "current" and "lifetime"). Donors who don't renew should receive an automatic reminder 3 months later and another 3 months after that. Thereafter, they will be eligible for the Reminder program. * On-line Contributions: People will donate more if we make it easier for them to do so. NCF should have the capability to accept credit card donations and transactions online.