From efn!utopia!efn.org!marc Tue Nov 22 00:48:04 1994 Return-Path: Received: from efn.UUCP by utopia.noname (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA05773; Tue, 22 Nov 94 00:48:04 PST Received: from utopia.UUCP by efn.efn.org (4.1/smail2.5/05-07-92) id AA21110; Tue, 22 Nov 94 00:32:57 PST Received: by utopia.noname (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA05362; Mon, 21 Nov 94 20:30:17 PST From: efn!efn.org!marc (Marc Baber) Message-Id: <9411220430.AA05362@utopia.noname> Subject: End of Year Fundraising Blitz To: board@efn.org, staff@efn.org, nerds@efn.org, council@efn.org Date: Mon, 21 Nov 1994 20:30:16 -0800 (PST) X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Content-Type: text Content-Length: 3001 Status: RO Hello All, It's time for an end-of-year fundraising blitz to raise money for new equipment. The goal is to organize about $20K in matching grants from major donors, board members and active volunteers and then appeal to the general membership to do their part as well. We hope to get a couple more SPARC workstations, more disk space and more modems so that we can add more phone lines and more members without overloading the system. You may have noticed that the system gets a little sluggish lately, now that we've added more phone lines. The point of the new equipment is to be able to grow very quickly and maintain quality of access at least as good as the current level. I'm writing to ask each of you to make a significant, End of Year donation to OPN. If you could find a way to contribute 1%-2% of your annual income, we'd be well on our way. As some of you know, we are behind our plan for major donations by about $15,000 at this time, and though monthly contributions cover most of our operational expenses, we have no funds for growth at this time. At the recent board "retreat" it was decided that one of the best ways to solve many of our current problems is to rapidly grow OPN to about 5,000 to 10,000 members so that donations will run $15,000 to $30,000 per month and we can afford to pay staff for many of the ongoing tasks that need to be handled regularly and in a timely, reliable manner. This path was chosen over trying to find ways to make the current membership donate more per person. Our volunteers have done an excellent job, but we need to hire people to do some of the tedious day-in day-out work which doesn't inspire the passions of volunteers as much as say, public terminals or exploring the frontiers of online technology or getting various non profits on-line. This step is needed to avoid volunteer burn-out which is a serious danger for OPN at this time. The main idea here is to take some of the deadline-pressure off of us volunteers while still encouraging us to work on the fun stuff on our own schedules instead of working on the gotta-do-it routine deadline work. This would appear to be one of the healthiest steps OPN could make right now with your help. So, please think about it and let me know by return e-mail if you are able and willing to pledge/contribute to the new equipment fund before December 31st. By the way, this is our first fund-raising appeal to focus on a specific purpose and we guarantee all funds received that are designated for the "OPN New Equipment Fund" (please write this in the memo field of the check) will be used only for the purpose of buying new equipment. I'll be making a list and checking it twice, finding who's naughty and nice, etc. ;-) Whatever you decide, know that your volunteerism is appreciated at least as much as any financial support. Thanks for considering this matter, and please let me know if you have any questions or comments about the plan, Marc Baber OPN Fund-Raising