Fund Raising 

AUTHOR:         Chris Edmondson-Yurkanan, dragon@cs.utexas.edu, +1 512 471 9546
DATE:           9/24/94
CONTENTS OUTLINE:
1.  Role of fund raising chair
2.  Sample request letter
3.  Thank you letter
4.  Input to advance program/proceedings ( logos )
5.  NSF Grant/disbursement for student/minority travel
*******************************************************************************
1.  Role of fund raising chair
    a)  The purpose of the Fund Raising is to provide a high quality conference
	at slightly lesser costs to the attendees, by raising approximately
	$12 - 18 K of outside support, typically in $3k chunks.  Thus, 3-5
	corporations have donated $3000 each year, since 1990.  Sometime,
	a company will donate services ( PACbell and the T1 hookup to the
	hotel, for example ), and we give them the same acknowledgement
	as to companies donating $.   Companies get publicity among a select
	group of networking professionals:  we publicize their support in 
	the advance program, the proceedings, and at the conference.

    b)  The volunteer filling this role succeeds most frequently when this 
	person has extensive contacts, and thus the role may not require
	much effort.  The effort increases certainly for those who do not
	have the contacts.  Some years are easier than others, because of
	the economy.  The person filling this role can easily be a conference
	volunteer filling other roles ( eg Soren-Aksel Sorensen in 94 and 
	Shukri Abdallah in 92 ).

    c)  This role needs to be assigned early, because it takes time
	to get the check;  promises a year ahead of time come easier than
	the actual money.  Certainly, we want this completely taken care
	of by the time the advance program goes out, although the company
	will get publicity in the proceedings.

    d)  A new responsibility that was added in 1994 is to pursue finding
	funding for student travel.   This is described in the 
	student.travel directory.

2.  Sample request letter
    a)  we have not had good luck with "cold calls", ie letters that go
	to a company/person without that person expecting the letter.
	
	Thus, the letter should really be a formal restatement of what
	has been discussed over the phone.  It is very important that
	this letter provide realistic expectations to them of the publicity
	they will get from this donation.

    b)  I don't have copies of any letters.  See Biswanath Mukerjee
	from SIGCOMM 93 or Shukri Abdallah ( SIGCOMM 92 ) or Craig Partridge
	( SIGCOMM 91/90 )

3.  Thank you letter
    a)  I don't know if we have sent this in the past, but it seems 
	appropriate.

4.  Input to advance program/proceedings ( logos )
    a)  Advance program:  we mail this out to the SIGCOMM membership,
	plus it's in the CCR newsletter, plus we mail the advance
	program out to lots of different mailing lists ( IEEE subsets,
	RARE, .... ) so this goes out to over 10,000 people.

	So, typically the logo is somewhere in the advance program.
	We started out in 1991 (90?) with putting the logos rather
	prominently on the cover of the advance program, but in 1994 we 
	had a nice visual cover, and so the company names are on the
	cover in a tasteful, but more subtle design.

    b)  Proceedings:  again, the conference proceedings is a great
	place for a company to get some recognition for their donation.
	We haven't had the logos on the cover for several years, but
	their is a separate thank you page inside the proceedings
	opposite the Table of Contents.