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  • From: Lisette Kalshoven <lk AT kl.nl>
  • To: Ryan Merkley <ryan AT creativecommons.org>
  • Cc: Maarten Zeinstra <mz AT kl.nl>, cc-europe AT lists.ibiblio.org, cc-affiliates AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [CC-Europe] CC website fundraising
  • Date: Thu, 16 Jul 2015 17:30:30 +0200


Hi Ryan,  

Wanted to check on the way we could discuss how we can practically adapt donation appeals to the different regions at the summit. We wrote earlier in this thread about the need for a discussion on this, with the summit as a logical time. 

Is there already a session proposal in the works, shall we collaborate on one and/or shall I create a first draft/idea on how I was thinking about it?

Cheers, 

Lisette



On 23 Jun 2015, at 15:20, Ryan Merkley <ryan AT creativecommons.org> wrote:

[cross-posting to cc-affiliates]

Thanks Maarten for your comments. A few replies and next steps:

- We'll use Transifex to set up strings we want to translate - I want to work in existing workflows we know, not design new ones unless necessary.
    - The request will be for affiliates to translate w/in 1 or 2 weeks. If there is a desire for alternate language to adapt to cultural differences, we should work through it together. That helps us understand those differences.

- I'll keep the fundraising discussion on the existing mailing lists, but I'll default to cc-affiliates for the same reason you raised about compartmentalization. I think all would benefit from the discussion that happened on cc-europe.

- I will report out on how fundraising is going with data/stats in September.

- I will set up a monthly fundraising hangout for those who want more engagement in the planning.

Best,
Ryan

 

On 2015-06-23 9:05 AM, Maarten Zeinstra wrote:
Hi Ryan,

Thanks for the reply. I’ve waited to respond to this because I was seeing if others on this list wanted to reply too.Also because I probably got it off hours, thought I responded but didn’t :)

I’ve put comments inline.

Best,

Maarten


-- 
Kennisland | www.kl.nl | t +31205756720 | m +31643053919 | @mzeinstra



On 19 Jun 2015, at 4:27 , Ryan Merkley <ryan AT creativecommons.org> wrote:

Hi Maarten,

Sorry for the slow reply -- I've been in San Francisco this week meeting with funders and platform partners.

Your comments are very helpful. Perhaps it's best if I share a proposed approach, and let's find a model that works. Ideally, we would translate and publish all page content at once. I will admit that I had some assumptions about how the site works that are now clearly not the case. For example, there is no staging server, so we can't see things before they're live. If we want to translate these strings offline, we'll need to set something up separately.

re: translation -- my approach to translation is more "localization" or "adaptation" -- we don't have to literally say exactly the same thing. In fundraising, I think that's important. So long as the appeal carries the sentiment and the specific request to give, I think there should be latitude for translators to adapt to culture/tone.

Further, I'm happy to have discussion about the core content/ask, and appreciate the comments we already received, which we're going to incorporate into the site and test. However, to get statistically valid test data, we'll have to run the language for several months, less if donation rates pick up significantly (which is possible).

Here's my proposal, feedback welcome:

- I will share a document with the updated strings for translation (including the "donate now" button).

You could do that already in Transifex I believe, In transifex you can put the strings you want available. You then call the strings when you need them. I believe CC now lets Transifex reactively scan each page request for translation, which are then added if they are not previously available. However, you could also actively push strings in there. That is far less overhead than a separate document and its maintenance.


- Affiliates will translate (within a week or two), but if there is a local proposal to functionally change the content to adapt to a local need, we discuss and agree together (this is important to me, because we need to understand how they are changed if they do well, or do poorly, and also because I want to understand the differences)

- CC publishes the pages, tracks data, and shares results at the end of September (Q3) before we go into our year-end campaign planning

Good idea.

- We set up a separate mailing list and monthly office hours for all those interested in working on donor strategy -- we have a lot of work to do here in the next number of months, and I also want the discussion to not be limited to cc-Europe -- nor do I want to fill cc-affiliates with all that donor content.

I would rather have a public discussion. Compartmentalising only leads to exclusion of community members that were not aware of a discussion from the start. Also as I believe most of us have no really a large interest in the fundraising in itself, only when it touches the work they are doing as affiliates.


I really appreciate all the feedback, criticism, and ideas. CC is not good at this yet, but we have to become good at it. It's a struggle with full-time people, a fundraising agency on retainer, and volunteers who have deep investment in these pages. But I'm confident we'll work it out, and I'm committed to doing it.

I think this will remain an ongoing struggle as with all of these projects like Wikimedia. It’s the game we are in :)


Best,
Ryan


On 2015-06-14 4:49 PM, Maarten Zeinstra wrote:
Hi Ryan,

Thanks for the nuanced response. I believe the friction that we are experiencing is not about the necessity of attracting funds for CC Global but a lack of involvement or perceived restrictions of involvement from the European side. 

For me this was triggered by needing to translate a sentence that was so undutch in its way of addressing the Dutch public. Now you said in a mail that you are open for all feedback, you’ve got some for use about the wording of the donation notice on the deed pages. I’ve not seen a response to that or a structured way to discuss that donation message.

Also, and this is a pet peeve, but the response to our initial concern was met with a mail by you stating you want to restrict this to the English language for now. Should you then make these messages available on other language deed pages? Also if you want to enable translations please make them available in such a way that we can at least have our languages in the system before the change goes live. Also make sure that all sentences are translatable. While Dutch is completely translated according to Transifex, the dutch deed pages have a English ‘donate now’ button: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.nl The Dutch and Belgian team has spent many person months translating the licenses and deeds and we pride ourselves of having a Dutch translation. To us this looks unprofessional.

And this touches also a bit on the underlying feeling I/we have here. The affiliates feel ownership over these product because of the hard work we put into them. However we also feel a loss of control over them, this frustrates. 

Best,

Maarten


-- 
Kennisland | www.kl.nl | t +31205756720 | m +31643053919 | @mzeinstra



On 11 Jun 2015, at 16:38 , Ryan Merkley <ryan AT creativecommons.org> wrote:

Hi all,

Thanks for the discussion and comments -- I'm sorry to not have engaged sooner. I wasn't on the CC-Europe list and so didn't see it until John W brought it to my attention. I am here now.

CC needs to seek donations from everywhere in the world. By comparison, Mozilla receives over 40 percent of its small dollar donor revenues from outside of the US, in all the regions where CC also operates. About two thirds of Wikipedia's funding came from outside North America in 2013/14. Donation cultures are different everywhere, but there are also people everywhere who are willing to give to support CC (and many already do). We have to figure out how to reach them and speak to them in a way that will be most likely to inspire them to give. I can't (and don't intend to) figure out how to do that without all of you.

We're working to develop the right messages and tactics for creativecommons.org, and my intention is to pilot those attempts in EN first, and then work with all of you to localize. Based on the Mozilla and Wikipedia experience, the three biggest factors that drive international donation rates up are localization, payment methods, and currencies accepted. The last two are much harder to implement than the first. On localization, we can work together to design and test (and re-test), and I hope that we will. If you're interested in working with me on that now, please send me an e-mail. Otherwise, there will be a more general call as we refine the EN strategy and prepare to consider other markets.

I'm committed, and happy to commit as you ask below, to working with affiliates and to consider the recommendations. As I mentioned in my previous e-mail, we will ensure all of you are aware of what we're planning in advance, and engage you in the discussion on how to do it.

CC has no choice but to become good at fundraising. It's my first priority, because it gives us what we need to support you, maintain the licenses, and execute our projects. This year, CC's direct investment and support in the community will be over a half a million dollars (travel, co-ordinators, Summit), and our budget is $3.2M. Last year's fundraising program was our most successful ever, raising $200k USD. So even with strong growth, we still have a ways to go.

I like Lisette's suggestion, and I'll gladly lead and/or participate in a discussion at the summit about fundraising and collaboration and design of programs along with affiliates.

Best,
Ryan

PS - One small point that I think is important. CC HQ's activities and policies are not being developed for the US market only. I'm also not American. I still accep the points about CC HQ having its own strategy, and that there are local affiliates with their own programs (including CC US), but I would ask that we attempt to be precise about CC HQ rather than calling it the US org.



On 2015-06-10 4:12 PM, Alek Tarkowski wrote:
Dear all,

Maarten, I agree with what you write, especially the part about ownership. I think the whole issue is about us having a sense of not having a say in an issue that we have some stake in, build over the years.

John, it would be great if next time we could have an inclusive process and a consultation on funding-related matters. This has been mentioned for years. I still think it's a pity this current issue will be left as is. I like LIsette's idea about a workshop at the Summit - but this will only work if the HQ makes some commitment to be in this process and consider / adopt the results.

But there is a broader issue of governance behind all this. I think it's up to us as affiliates to come up with some proposals of issues about which we believe that we should have a say, and a proposal for a method to conduct this.

Best,

Alek

On Jun 10, 2015, at 15:36, Lisette Kalshoven <lk AT kl.nl> wrote:


Hi John, 

That is good news, looking forward to the digest of the call. 

Perhaps we can organise a session during the Summit where we can discuss the diversification of the messages per region? CC NL would be happy to contribute. 

Cheers, 

Lisette 

-- 
Kennisland | www.kennisland.nl | t +31205756720 | m +31613943237 | @lnkalshoven | skype: lisette.kalshoven

On 10 Jun 2015, at 14:31, John Weitzmann <johnweitzmann AT creativecommons.org> wrote:

Hi Maarten et al,

as a result of the pop-up issue and the discussion here on the list, we discussed in yesterday's staff-call the inclusion of the affiliate network in future donation-related tests and tinkering. I'll send the digest of the call in a separate email. The message was well received by all incl. the rather new staff members, so I think we're making progress here for everybody's benefit.

I also mentioned the next State of the Commons Report as a central focus point to get staff and affiliates working together on overall funding. There might even be potential in diversifying the donation messages for different parts of the world, for which the regional/local Affiliates could also offer their unique expertise.

Best
John

On Wed, Jun 10, 2015 at 1:17 PM, Maarten Zeinstra <mz AT kl.nl> wrote:
Hi John,

Thanks for the the update.

I do not completely share Alek’s concern. Some European affiliates use CC as way to communicate their policy/mission and CC is for them a brand name that we can use (within the limitations MoU’s) to attract funding in different projects under the names of the hosting organisations. I understand that CC Global as an organisation with a singular mission (unlike Kennisland and Centrum Cyfrowe) needs to get funding to do its work. What bothers me is that CC Global is making interventions in the website they control that can reflect poorly on affiliates. 

Also looking at the statistics ( I have access to CC’s Google Analytics ) Europe is about a third of all hits to their website (North and South America take another third, Asia takes another third and Oceania and Africa take the scraps). We don’t have North America's donation culture and not taking this global perspective into account might even hurt all of us in the long run. 

The disconnect that I am sensing here is that we as affiliates feel ownership over the licenses that we promote, push and advice on and that these are singularly used in US-centric policies.

Cheers,

Maarten


-- 
Kennisland | www.kl.nl | t +31205756720 | m +31643053919 | @mzeinstra



On 08 Jun 2015, at 16:19 , John Weitzmann <johnweitzmann AT creativecommons.org> wrote:

Hi CC Europeans,

FWIW: The basics of the general funding situation of CC's central org structure were discussed, even with several board members on stage, as early as 2013 in Buenos Aires. It became clear then that several of the "traditional" (US) foundations supporting CC were in the process of shifting their focus. Later, when Ryan joined, he laid out quite clearly before those attending the CC Europe meeting in Berlin that he set out to reform CC's donation structure. He also presented several of his ideas as to how he wants to achieve a more sustainable setup, f.e. with more small donations levered inter alia through the high volume of traffic on the CC website.

So, to be frank, I don't see too much reason for concern really, at least not for any additional/new concern on the part of affiliate teams. The donation pleas are nothing new and the tinkering around with the website in this Transifex-triggering way was a mishap. However, the wording and ways of asking for donations should be decided on with more consultation of the entire affiliate network. I'm convinced that this will be done in the future, see Ryan's message.

If any of you have more specific suggestions, concerns or questions - not limited to the donation thing - please let Gwen and me know on or off list. The next all-staff call is scheduled for tomorrow evening CEST and we are in that to represent you.

Greetz
John



On Sat, Jun 6, 2015 at 10:15 AM, Alek Tarkowski <alek AT creativecommons.pl> wrote:
John, Teresa, and everyone else

yes, this is a clear clash of donation cultures. and it's an issue that goes behind the relatively simple problem of us not being informed about a new translation string.

the email from Ryan only raises my concerns - there's a whole new strategy being implemented for the American CC organisation, but which affects strongly all affiliates. THis is because an average internet user does not distinguish easily between American CC org, the general CC brand and affiliate projects, together with institutions / people that run it. I wish we were consulted on this in any way beforehand.

Best,

Alek

On Jun 4, 2015, at 14:01, John Hendrik Weitzmann <jhweitzmann AT mx.uni-saarland.de> wrote:

on the content side of things ...

Am 04.06.2015 um 13:43 schrieb Teresa Nobre:
I think:
1) we do not need to reinforce our need for donations in such a short
message ("a non-profit that survives on donations"), but maybe it's my
European shyness and proudness speaking; 

nothing wrong with a little pride :)   to some extent this is a clash of
donation cultures probably

--
koordynator, Creative Commons Polska
European Policy Fellow, Creative Commons
Twitter: @atarkowski / @ccpolska









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koordynator, Creative Commons Polska
European Policy Fellow, Creative Commons
Twitter: @atarkowski / @ccpolska
WWW: creativecommons.pl / oerpolicy.eu

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@ryanmerkley

Get Creative Commons Updates http://bit.ly/commonsnews


-- 
Ryan Merkley
CEO, Creative Commons
ryan AT creativecommons.org

+1 416.802.0662
@ryanmerkley

Get Creative Commons Updates http://bit.ly/commonsnews 



  • Re: [CC-Europe] CC website fundraising, Lisette Kalshoven, 07/16/2015

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