Tuesday, August 15, 1995
Director of Development's Report
================================

Development Committee
---------------------
The Development Committee took a break last month. Meetings resume on the
last Tuesday of each month with the next meeting scheduled for August 29 at
RMOC Headquarters.

At that time we will receive a draft report from our "ideas sub-committee"
on the subject of "Personalized IDs".

Also on the agenda will be a recommendation by the Director of Development
to appoint Andre Ouellette (former Volunteer of the Month) to the position
of Vice-Chair.

Finally, we will examine two campaigns that are currently drawing to a close
- The Great FreeNet On-Line Auction (ending August 19) and the Challenge
Campaign (ending August 26).

The Great FreeNet On-Line Auction
---------------------------------
With less than one week to go, auction proceeds have reached $8,000. There
are close to 200 items covering a broad price range and representing a wide
variety of interests. However, participation to date as measured by bidding
activity is significantly lower than last year. 

Great bargains abound...and it's even easier to find what you're looking for
with the new browsing tool (listing items by categories) that went into
operation today.

Challenge Campaign
------------------
Members have responded generously to this appeal bringing the current total
to $43,000. It has been a month or more since the majority of our "active
members" were asked via e-mail to contribute to the Challenge. In order to
renew awareness and give people a final reminder during the last leg of the
campaign, a brief pop-up message will appear when the mail reader is invoked
and public announcements will be posted in the usual places. In funding
drives of this nature the final few steps are always the toughest, but our
goal is within sight.

Donor Acknowledgements
----------------------
During the Challenge campaign, NCF made an important advance in it's donor
recognition practices. Individual Supporters now receive an e-mail
acknowledgement from the Director of Development thanking them and
acknowledging receipt of their contributions. Although the procedure of
dataentry, downloading and sorting lists is rather time consuming, the
mail-merge program created by Ian! Allen makes short work of the mailing
task. This is a welcome improvement.
                       Have you met the Challenge?
  Our community needs our support. Type "go challenge"...we can do it!
Gordon Pearson (au167), Director of Development, National Capital FreeNet