Re: help us design nonprofit org funding mechanisms

[Tony Bigbee]

glen e. p. ropella wrote:

  Help!!!

  glen

Ok, here goes a swarm of clay pigeons  :P

It seems that there are interrelated problems, such as the structure and
goals of the nonprofit organization (NP henceforth) and the funding
sources for achieving those goals.  While the overall reasons for moving
to an NP may have been put forth in the last month or two, I still am
unclear about the overall goals for the Swarm platform (other than
probable exhaustion of funds in the fall and a need to rethink funding
and thus organizational structure).  Perhaps there can be parallel
discussions about what Swarm should be and what are the overall goals
and strategic vision of Swarm?  It seems that there is a lot of
enthusiasm for a multiagent toolkit with a wide variety of features
(which have been discussed at length here), but I raise Java as an
example of an important issue.  Is one goal widest possible
usage/development using this toolkit (I'm not promoting Java and know
that there are significant problems with moving partially or completely
to it, I just use this as example)?

I like the idea of a membership buy in, with the amount proportional to
"size" (individual, corporation, etc.)  What seems to be a really
important consideration and is found in option 2: *services* rendered
are proportional to contribution.  Then you ask what are the services?
This leads back to the question:  what are the mission and initial goals
of the organization?

Maybe there are studies out that review the histories of NPs, especially
small ones that deal with software development; they could be valuable
in the planning of the organization.

Tony