[Finance] Re: [theforum] lists (was: We've got a serious problem here at evolt.org)

[David Kaufman]

Martin Paul Burns <martin.burns at uk.ibm.comrote:
>>>> we need to ensure everyone everywhere is on the right lists.
>>>
>>> Which should be much easier with the streamlined lists with any
>>> luck [...] When are they going to be actioned btw?
>>
>> As may have been noted in my other e-mail, it would probably be best
>> to wait until we changed servers before doing this.  I've never had
>> any luck getting an 'admin' list working on theraq because there was
>> a user account called 'admin' on it.  It also means less migration
>> when  we get the new box, assuming that Finance agrees we can take
>> it on and no one has any objections.
>
> Assuming this is still true:
> http://lists.evolt.org/sysadminarchive/2003-August/000765.html
> (we should have more now, right?) then we should jfdi imo

Martin, if by "we should have more" you're referring to money, then we don't
have much more, no.

in the post linked above, it says we had about two thousand dollars, and we
currently have about two thousand dollars.  i don't know, yet whether it's
the same two thousand, or if many significant donations have been received,
or expenses paid out during the interim, but i suspect not.  i'm hoping
Elfur can download from the old paypal account a transaction history so i
can get a better idea of what we can *expect* coming in, but most likely i'm
guessing that there's been no real significant activity in the last six
months.  i curious if much/any of that is monthly recurring income, from
those $10/$20 - per month paypal donation links on the website.

currently we have:

  $2,104.88 in paypal (the $2,167.36 Marlene transferred yesterday from the
old paypal account, minus the fee paypal took for the transfer), plus:

  $306.29 available in the checking account.  i do know there's been no
donation checks since the initial batch i deposited to open the account
(some of which bounced due to being past their expiration dates).

it's true this should be enough pre-pay a year of lists.evolt.org hosting,
but i'd like to answer the questions, first:

how long did it take to raise $2K and at what rate can we hope to raise
money going forward, including revenue from donations, affiliation programs,
and now advertising?  i'm going to need a bit of time to do these kinds of
revenue projections.

how much bandwidth do we use on l.e.o, can we predict the exact monthly
expense? apparently these estimates have been done, but i dont know what
they are.

what is the contingency plan if, a year later, we can't afford to continue
to pay our way?

how do the rest of evolt's servers affect the plan.  if we do l.e.o. first,
might that cause a delay in being able to move other servers, especially if
we pre-pay for a year of l.e.o's service or something to get
discounted/favorable terms?

that said, i think it would be *great* to get even just one box moved to
evolt owned and operated service, especially if the sysadmins concur that
moving l.e.o. would be a welcome opportunity to redo it's configuration from
scratch, and make list consolidation go more smoothly.  i just want to do it
as part of a plan, with an eye to moving *everything* sooner rather than
later, if thats at all feasible.

-dave