Open Advice/How to Ask for Money

How to Ask for Money

by Selena Deckelmann

in: Open Advice

This text is available under the CC-BY-SA license. (see also: Open Advice/Info)

Contents 1 Identify a need 2 Tell someone 3 Ask for money 4 Get the money 5 Spend money 6 Say thank you 7 Lessons learned 8 about the author

Looking back since the first time I booted a PC into Linux in 1994, one thing stands out in my experience with open source: I wish I had known how to ask for money. Asking for money is hard. I have written grant proposals, asked for raises, negotiated salaries and consulting hourly rates, and raised funds for non-profit conferences. Through much trial and error, I have developed a process that works! What follows is a distillation of the tricks and techniques I have used over the last five years to raise money for unconferences, day-long code sprints and multi-day conferences about open source software and culture.

The process of getting money for a conference is really about six steps:

1. Identify a need.

2. Tell someone.

3. Ask for money.

4. Get the money.

5. Spend the money.

6. Say thank you.

Identify a need

Your first task as a conference organizer is to explain why you are putting on yet another conference, why that conference will be useful to attendees and why a sponsor should give you money to do it. This is called “writing a prospectus.” The main elements of a prospectus are:

• ˆ Purpose: In a paragraph, explain why you are having the conference. What inspired you to bring people together? And who are the attendees? What will they talk about once they are there?
  If you have got a theme, or a specific goal in mind, mention that. Also, explain why you picked the location for the event. Is there some tie to the theme of the conference? Are the right people in that location? Was it sponsored by someone?
  Finally, share any interesting numbers from previous events, like number of attendees, interesting facts about speakers or details about your chosen location.
• ˆ Sponsorship opportunities and benefits: This section of the prospectus will outline what sponsors can expect from your conference. Typically, this is organized by dollar amount, but could also describe benefits for in-kind or volunteer work.
  Start simple. Typically, sponsorships for events with cash are arranged by HR departments looking to hire, or marketing departments looking to advertise products or services.
  The types of benefits sponsors ask for include: recognition on a website, mention of sponsorship in email or tweets out to attendees, access to email addresses and/or demographic information about attendees, logo and labels on conference totebags, lanyards or other swag, coffee breaks and lunch, parties, conference booth space and advertising space in a conference program.
  Also, consider creative things that are unique to you, the conference and the location. For example, Portland has a very popular doughnut shop with a truck delivery service. We got a sponsor and then acquired permission to drive the truck right onto the grounds of our venue and served free doughnuts for breakfast.
  Links to example prospectuses are below. They are all for big conferences, so YMMV. I have made a prospectus before that only had one option for sponsorship, and the benefits were: send one attendee from your company, and the organizers will publicly recognize your company and thank you for your sponsorship.
  • OSCON
  • Open Source Bridge
  • MeeGo San Francisco
• ˆ Contract: Always include a contract with your prospectus. This establishes basic expectations and timelines, and can save you a lot of trouble down the road.
  I am not a lawyer, and so what follows is my experience rather than legal advice. For smaller events, I write a very simple contract that outlines my expectations: sponsors promise to pay by a certain date, and I promise to hold the event on a certain date.
  Copying an existing contract is a tricky business, as laws change and vary across states and countries. I consulted a lawyer that was recommended to me by an experienced open source community manager. The law firm was nice enough to create contracts and review contracts with hotels with us on a probono basis. The Software Freedom Law Center may be able to refer you to an appropriate lawyer if you do not have one.

Now that you have created the prospectus, you need to talk to some people.

Tell someone

The most difficult step for me personally is getting the word out about my events!

Practice explaining your event in 1-2 sentences. Distill out what excites you, and what should excite other people.

Over the years, I have learned that I need to start talking RIGHT NOW to the people that I know, rather than worrying a whole lot about exactly the right people to tell. Make a list of people to talk to that you know already, and start checking them off.

The best way to start talking about what you are doing is in person or on the phone. This way, you are not spamming people, you have their attention, and you can get immediate feedback about your pitch. Do people get excited? Do they ask questions? Or do they get bored? Who else do they think you should talk to? Ask for feedback, and how you can make your pitch more appealing, interesting and worth their money!

Once you have your verbal pitch down, write it up and send a few emails. Ask for feedback on your email and always close the email with a call to action and a timeline for response. Keep track of who responds, how they respond and when you should follow up with each person.

Ask for money

Armed with your prospectus, and your finely tuned pitch, start approaching companies to fund your event. Whenever I start a new conference, I make a list of questions about my conference and answer each with a list of people and companies:

• ˆ Which people do I know who will think this is an amazing idea and will advocate for my event? (Cheerleaders)
• ˆ Who would be really fun to have around at the conference? (Mavens)
• ˆ Which companies have products that they want to pitch at my event? (Marketing)
• ˆ Who would want to hire the people who attend? (Recruiters)
• ˆ Which free and open source projects would like to recruit developers? (Open Source Recruiters)

Using these lists, send your prospectus out into the world! Here is an overview of how I organize the asking process: I start by sending prospectuses to my Cheerleaders. I also drop a copy of the prospectus with the Mavens, and invite them to attend the conference or speak. I then contact Marketing companies, Recruiters and Open Source Recruiters (sometimes there is overlap!). Meanwhile, I typically have opened registration for the conference and announced a few keynotes or special events. Hopefully this drives registrations a bit, and helps make sponsors feel like the conference is definitely going to happen, and that things are going well.

Get the money

If everything goes according to plan, companies and people start offering you money. When this happens you need two very important things:

• ˆ An invoice template
• ˆ A bank account to hold the money

Invoice templates are simple. I have a Google Spreadsheet that I just update for each invoice. You could easily use Open Office or even TeX (please, someone send me a LaTeX invoice template!) Examples of what invoices look like are available at http://www.freetemplatesdepot.com.

The most important elements of invoices are: the word INVOICE, a number for the invoice that is unique, the name and contact information of the sponsor, what the sponsor is expected to pay, terms of the invoice (when the sponsor should pay by, and what the penalty is for non-payment) and the total amount due. Then you need to send a copy of this form to the company. Keep a copy for yourself!

Some companies may require simple or complicated forms to be filled out and signed to identify you or your organization as a vendor. Paperwork. Ugh! Payment cycles for large companies can be up to two months. Also, budget cycles for companies are typically yearly. Find out whether a company even has available budget for your event, and whether you can get into their budget the following year if you missed the current year’s window.

The bank account can be your personal bank account, but this puts you at risk. For a many-thousand-dollar event, you may wish to find an NGO or non-profit organization that can hold and dispense funds for you. If your conference is for-profit, you should consult an accountant about how to organize the funds. Finding a non-profit to work with may be as simple as contacting a foundation associated with an open source project.

Now on to what makes this whole process worthwhile - spending your hard-earned sponsorships!

Spend money

Now that your sponsors have paid, you can spend the money.

Create a budget that details what you want to spend money on, and when you will need to spend it. I recommend getting 3 quotes for products and services you are unfamiliar with, just so you can get a sense of what a fair price is. Let companies you are contacting know that you are going through a competitive bid process.

Once I establish a relationship with a company, I tend to do business with them year after year. I like having relationships with vendors, and find that even if I pay slightly more than if I aggressively bid things out every year, I end up saving time and getting better service from a vendor that knows me well.

For small events, you can keep track of expenses in a fairly simple spreadsheet. For larger projects, asking an accountant, or using dedicated accounting software can help. Here is a list of Quicken alternatives that are free (to varying degrees and in varying aspects!): http://zenhabits.net/6-great-free-alternatives-to-quicken-ms-money/

What is most important is to keep track of all your expenses, and to not spend money that you do not have! If you are working with a non-profit to manage the event’s money, ask them for help and advice before getting started.

Say thank you

There are many ways to say thank you to the people and companies that supported your event. Most importantly, follow up on all the promises you made in the prospectus. Communicate as each commitment is met!

During the event, find ways of connecting with the sponsors, by designating a volunteer to check in with them and checking in with them yourself.

After the event, be sure to individually thank sponsors and volunteers for their contributions. A non-profit I work with sends thankyou notes individually to each sponsor at the start of the new year.

Generally speaking, communication is the compost of fundraising! Giving attention and building genuine relationships with sponsors helps find more sponsors, and build your reputation as a great event organizer.

Lessons learned

After creating and running dozens of events, the two most important aspects of it all have been finding mentors and learning to communicate well.

Mentors helped me turn rants into essays, messes into prospectuses, and difficult conversations into opportunities. I found mentors at companies that sponsored my conferences and gave detailed, sometimes painful, feedback. And I found mentors among volunteers who dedicated hundreds of hours to write software for my events, recruit speakers, document what we were doing, and carry the conference on after me.

Learning to communicate well takes time, and the opportunity to make a lot of mistakes. I learned the hard way that not developing a relationship with the best sponsors means no sponsorship the following year! I also found that people are incredibly forgiving when mistakes happen, as long as you communicate early and often.

Good luck with your fundraising, and please let me know if you find this helpful.

about the author

Selena Deckelmann is a major contributor to PostgreSQL. She speaks internationally about free software, developer communities and trolling. Her interests include opening up government data with the City of Portland, urban chickens and finding ways to make databases run faster. She founded Postgres Open, a conference dedicated to the business of PostgreSQL and disruption of the database industry. She founded and cochaired Open Source Bridge, a developer conference for open source citizens. She founded the PostgreSQL Conference, a successful series of east coast/west coast conferences in the US for PostgreSQL. She is currently on the program committees of PgCon and MySQL Users Conference, and OSCON data. She’s a contributing writer for the Google Summer of Code Mentor Manual, and Student Guide. She is an advisor to the Ada Initiative and board member of Technocation, Inc.