I assume that fundraising and development roadmaps will be discussed at some point during the convention agenda.
So this is just a thread for brainstorming the specifics of the convention agenda, speakers, activities, and general topics of discussion that will be scheduled throughout.
There is a momentum and usefulness to meeting in person, as Rhiju and many of you have pointed out, so let’s reach our maximum potential by planning in specific sessions on addressing our fundraising and development needs, to make the most of the time you all have together onsite.
Take this in whatever direction you wish, but for example a loose agenda and activity set for these two topics could look like this:
1) Fundraising
- Brainstorm list of potential fundraising platforms or grant sources
- Take a peek at experiment.com and kickstarter layouts - what inputs are required? e.g. Title, Description, Price/reward levels ( i.e. $5 = thanks! $10 = Honorable mention $20 = branded trinket $40 = branded tshirt $80 = branded hoodie … $1,000 = a piece of rna designed and named after you, $10,000 = lunch with Rhiju or other scientist, etc… ), Disclaimers?, any other text that must be entered for the campaign
- Do quick search on top strategies for good campaigns. In particular consider the timing, and marketing factors - how will we let people know when it starts? What sort of press/articles do we want to line up with debut of the fundraiser?
- Consider making a fundraising roadmap for the next 2 years, staggering out use of different platforms or grant applications over time - or is it better to go for one big tag fundraiser to get 2+ years worth of dev funding in one go? For example, the flash transition merits a full rebuilding of the platform, so perhaps we can design the campaign to be big enough to actually address that?
- etc.
2) Development Roadmap
- Development requests: What are our top priorities? Mention the 2020 EOL for Flash, and any bugs or features we want to address. Put them in order of priority, and consider whether the issue will be moot after the flash transition. Discuss pros/cons of 3D?
- Estimates: What amount of time and skill sets are required for xyz development requests? If we get this outlined, we will have info needed to set up specific fundraising targets or grant applications
- Team assessment: what roles do we have covered? What roles will we need to hire for once we begin transitioning out of flash, and/or attempting to address platform issues or feature development?
- etc.
Please feel free to modify or suggest any other agenda items, and I assume you may have already started on this, so if you’ve already considered all these things, thank you, and good luck!