[Bundle-sponsorship-wg] International PyCon Prospectus

[Betsy Waliszewski]

Hi Nick,

We're not using the google doc where you posted your comments. The PDF I
sent around is our working document. That being said, we do need to
incorporate new language more clearly identifying the benefits and whatever
discounts we decide to offer.

The challenge is that the only thing we can discount is the admin fee.
Based on my feedback, even if we didn't charge any fees, I'm not convinced
that any companies would take us up on what we're offering in the
prospectus. Granted, we only sent the prospectus to 6-7 companies, so we
don't have a lot of data to look at.

I'm very willing to add copy to our working doc, but I need help with the
wording. A page could be added before the "Build Your Own Bundle" page that
shows the offer that is not "custom" or a la carte and the discount. Right
now, we're only showing a custom option.

Betsy

On Sat, Mar 12, 2016 at 6:28 AM, Nick Coghlan <ncoghlan at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 12 March 2016 at 23:24, M.-A. Lemburg <mal at python.org> wrote:
> > On 12.03.2016 08:55, Nick Coghlan wrote:
> >> As far as covering costs goes, I think an important aspect of that
> >> will be to be clear that bundling carries an expectation of reduced
> >> customisation of benefits, at least at the PSF level - hence the fee
> >> discounts.
> >
> > I'm not sure which fee discounts you are referring to here.
>
> I mean the proposal for distinct a la carte/regional/global rates for
> the administration overhead - my working assumption from the start has
> always been that conferences get their normal sponsorship amounts, and
> we'd figure out some other way to cover the PSF's costs (whether that
> was cross-subsidisation from PyCon US, covering it out of general
> sponsorships, or applying an additional percentage to the bundles to
> cover costs).
>
> The reason I specifically like the "15/7.5/3" administration charge
> structure is that:
>
> * a self-sustaining program is preferable, since that provides more
> scope for future hiring & grant making
> * 50% and 80% are substantial enough discounts for potential sponsors
> to appreciate them
> * 20/10/4 feels too high, 10/5/2 feels too low, so 15/7.5/3 splits the
> difference
> * I except many of the PSF's costs in staff time to be incurred per
> sponsor, rather than per event (registering with their supplier
> management if they're not already PSF or PyCon sponsors, getting to
> know the right points of contact within their event management
> organisation, getting to know what they're generally interested in as
> sponsor benefits, etc)
> * for sponsors that opt for a bundle over a la carte, I'd still expect
> their typical engagement with the smaller regional events to be low
> (since they often won't have an on-site presence there - unless they
> were planning to be involved in the event anyway, the cost in staff
> time and travel would likely exceed the sponsorship)
>
> Consider the global Platinum sponsorship, for example - the admin fee
> discount there ends up being just over $9000. Compared to a more
> selective a la carte sponsorship, that's likely going to mean a
> Platinum sponsorship for each of the 3 or 4 lowest cost conferences
> participating in the prospectus - those are often also going to be the
> ones where the return on investment for large sponsors is smallest,
> but the potential return on investment for the PSF in terms of growing
> the Python community is highest (it's much easier for a 150 person
> conference to grow to 300 people than it is for a 750 person
> conference to grow to 1500).
>
> Along those lines, I've posted a couple of comments in the document
> suggesting a change in the way the administration charges for the
> bundles are presented.
>
> Currently, the discounts are baked into the percentage used to
> calculate the the administration charge line item. I believe it would
> be preferable to always list the administration charge at the a la
> carte rate, and then explicitly list the fee discount as a separate
> line. Using the global Platinum sponsorship as an example again,
> that's currently presented as:
>
> Funds distributed to conferences: 76590
> Program administration charge (3%): 2298
> Cost to sponsoring organisation: 78888
>
> I'd suggest instead presenting it as:
>
> Funds distributed to conferences: 76590
> Program administration charge (15%): 11488
> Administration charge discount (80%): -9191
> Cost to sponsoring organisation: 78887
>
> (In that particular case, the rounding works out slightly differently,
> but that's at most a dollar either way)
>
> Regards,
> Nick.
>
> --
> Nick Coghlan   |   ncoghlan at gmail.com   |   Brisbane, Australia
>



-- 
Betsy Waliszewski
Python Software Foundation
Event Coordinator / Administrator
@betswaliszewski
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