[openbeos] Re: "One Hour for Haiku" - Coordinating Voluntary Cash Donors

Hello, again.
I'm thankful for the generally warm reception that my proposal has received.
Several of the responses have taken my simple proposal as a point of departure, proceeding to elaborate more general ideas about organizational development and the process of institutional maturation, all of which is interesting and hopeful and potentially fruitful for the future of the project. Clearly, Haiku has many dedicated and thoughtful caretakers, most especially among the core contributors.
But it would be a mistake to pose these various elaborations as *prerequisites* to implementation of a simple membership donation program like One Hour for Haiku. I must argue that it would be more useful to think -- contrariwise -- of the membership donation program as part of a *foundation* that could ultimately permit greater organizational capabilities and maturity through improved financial wherewithal.
Keeping it simple, what I am proposing is really just an addition to the Haiku website.
Specifically: On the Donations page (http://haiku-os.org/community/donating_to_haiku), add a new paragraph between "Donating Electronically" and "Other Donations". Give it the heading: "One Hour for Haiku - Making Regular Donations". Offer a brief description under the heading and present a link to a registration form (as well as a link to a Current Donors page). The registration link navigates to a form which solicits this information from the new registrant: Name; Nickname; Email Address; Country. Successful submission of registration data leads to a "Thank You" page, which also includes a link to the Donor Listing page.
On the backend, registration data is stored in a simple database table with perhaps six columns (IdentityKey, Name, Nick, Email, Country, Datestamp). The Donor Listing page would draw data from this table for its list of current registrants. Code that sends out automated emails monthly would draw recipient address data from this table. The email body content for the next mailing could reside in a text file somewhere on the server, accessible to whomever for revisions as desired. (Even an unchanging "form letter" would suffice for the email body content, certainly at the beginning.) Finally, some mechanism to permit "unregistration" could be provided for persons who wish to opt out.
I suspect that this isn't exactly trivial in terms of coding, but wouldn't it be worthwhile? Is anyone with web development skills available and interested in pursuing such an implementation? Do the official gatekeepers of the Haiku website agree that this would be a beneficial addition to the site?
Publicizing One Hour for Haiku could come a little later. Stories at OSNews, HaikuNews, BeGroovy, and similar venues would help get the word out. I really do believe that there are many people who would be happy to learn about a new way that they can make a significant contribution to the future of Haiku -- even though (like myself) they cannot write code (yet). And nearly everyone likes to *belong*, so the membership angle holds considerable appeal in and of itself.
I suppose that I am arguing for focus at this point: Make a well-defined addition to the Haiku website as described above, and then spread the word. That's all. When a more stable revenue stream becomes established as a result, then further organizational development (hiring, bounties, etc.) becomes more feasible. 

Best wishes,

Czeslaw




Czeslaw Czapla wrote:

Home » Community » Donating to Haiku...


Hello, Haiku friends.
I have a modest proposal regarding fundraising that I would like to submit for general consideration and discussion in this forum. My wish would be to see some (likely improved) variation on the proposal adopted by the Haiku project in the end and implemented on the Haiku website. I think that the potential material benefits to the project would be sufficient to warrant the investment of initial effort for the implementation.
Here is a bit of background to my proposal. Over the past couple years, ever since Haiku Inc. obtained its tax classification status as a not-for-profit corporation under US law, I have personally made a few cash donations, but only a few, perhaps three or four. I might have made many more donations than I did make if only I had *thought* of it more often. Many of us are busy with our work, our studies, our loved ones, raising children, etc., so that we fail to remember to support more faithfully the public-good efforts that are close to our hearts, like the Haiku project.
My proposal boils down to this: implement an automated email reminder service for voluntary cash donors to Haiku Inc.
The program would be called "One Hour for Haiku". The idea is that any person who wishes to volunteer to become a regular monthly cash donor to Haiku Inc. could sign up (through a link on the donations page on the website) as a member of One Hour for Haiku. By signing up with One Hour for Haiku, a person would be making a (self-monitored) pledge to make a free-will cash donation to Haiku Inc. once each month in the amount of one hour's earnings from paid employment. This figure (one hour's earnings) could be calculated from one's own actual income, or from an assessment of prevailing wages in one's industry or community, or simply from one's best guess at an affordable amount that could be donated monthly by oneself on a sustainable basis. The idea is that a donor would be pledging effectively to work one hour each month *for Haiku*, hence the name of the program. (Another way for non-coders to "work for" Haiku!) 

(Etc., usw., ecc.)

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