pcplantdb

["Lawrence F. London, Jr." <lfl@intrex.net>]

Chad Knepp wrote:

> Scott Pittman writes:
>  > 
>  > Regarding Bear's post:  As far as I'm concerned you should send me an 
>  > invoice for your time, unless there are some objections out there.
>
> It turned ugly again outside (will continue for the next couple of
> days) so I'm back in front of the computer again.  Bear getting paid
> is what I was recommending earlier as well, so of course I'm there.
> While on the subject of money... I think the biggest thing holding
> this project back from being done quickly is money.  I would
> guestimate that I make less than $3/hr if I counted all the time I
> spend on this project.  Like I said in the report it is hard to give
> such a low paying prospect a lot of priority over things that are
> either more important or higher paying.  The difference is that it's
> fun and something I believe in.  Don't really have any suggestions
> other than keep eyes open for more funding opportunities.
>
> Also about using the remain funding I think it would be good to get
> submit estimated budgets for continuing work and get group approval
> for them... like John S. did recently.  As I said earlier, my proposal
> is to move the current version on dev to live.  This will involve a
> lot of cosmetic changes, minor bug fixes as they occur, some end user
> documentation and copyleft agreements, etc...  My billable time will
> be less than 20 hours.  After this I or someone would announce *open
> for business* on the permaculture list.  Ok with folks?  I hope so,
> cause I already started;-)

A serious proposal here:

Once PIW is online as you proposed and open for business wouldn't it then be 
reasonable
to send out solicitations for direct funding or assistance in acquiring 
funding.
I can think of 2 or 3 non profits in my area we could send requests for 
assistance
in finding and getting development money we need. They could get the grant 
themselves
and disbures funds directly to thos on the payroll or send payments 
(incremental or
the full amount of the grant) to PCI/Scott for disbursement. Maybe there 
would not be
a problem having grant money pass through two hands before it gets paid out 
in wages.

Wondering what Bear, Scott, Chad and John S think about this. It actually 
would seem
easy to just email or phone around to find a few interested nonprofits who 
could make
our needed funding materialize. Some organizations I am thinking of are not 
involved with permaculture per se but are
very involved with agriculture, sustainable development and local economies and are very aware of the importance of 
permaculture in general and specifically to themselves and have already promoted various permaculture causes in projects 
they have sponsored or are in support of.

An impromptu plan:
1)A phone call or an email to each organization we may want to do business 
with
2)A pointer to what we have already done, our origins, our mission and 
projected accomplishments for the future
3)An introduction to a working PIW they can explore, use and demonstate to 
prospective funding sources

I am thinking this may be a quicker and easier way to get money to pay Chad, 
Bear, John S and anyone else
doing paying work on PIW than going through various institutional, ngo or 
governmental (i.e. SARE grant, etc.)
funding sources.

LL