[Theforum] Corporate sponsorship?

martin.p.burns at uk.pwcglobal.com martin.p.burns at uk.pwcglobal.com
Thu May 23 04:12:58 CDT 2002


Memo from Martin P Burns of PricewaterhouseCoopers

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>I agree with you both here... We already do have some forms of corporate
>"sponsorship" but I also think there is a slippery slope to allowing
>corporate sponsors to dictate what we say, or at least the tone of evolt.
If
>we rely primarily on corporate sponsorship for the
money/software/bandwidth
>that evolt requires to exist, it becomes much easier for those
corporations
>to lean on evolt to change message/tone/policy to match their interests.

Tara

It can be easy for that to happen, if it's not agreed with sponsors up
front. Sponsors don't do this for fun and laughs[1], they do it to get some
kind of business benefit[2]. So for them, it's a business negotiation. If
you're having a business negotiation, you make sure that you cover
*everything* which matters to you in the deal. How a sponsorship affects
how we operate matters to us, so it would be madness not to get this
covered.

[1] partial exception - a sole owner or partnership where *all* partners
are supportive can do stuff for fun and laughs, although this may not be
indicative of a business we'd want to rely on
[2] This need not be simply 'extra sales', it can also be about staff
morale and loyalty, general PR (being seen to be supporting the web
development community), demonstrating their capability etc etc

>I'm
>not saying that present sponsors do this now, or even that future sponsors
>necessarily will - but I do think it is something we should keep in mind -
>or maybe more than in mind - in policy - specifically laid out.

Yep - the first step to agreeing this with an outside party is to agree it
ourselves.

>So perhaps
>we should publicize the EthicsCode for sponsorship. We could also expand
it
>to say that we should limit corporate sponsorship to certain things (like
>subsidizing bandwidth or donating software or whatever else we decide is
>okay) and try other avenues of funding before accepting corporate money,

I'm not sure there's a difference...

>Whadda ya think?

's good stuff.

Cheers
Martin.


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