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Thanks, David for the contacts.<br>
<br>
Looking at <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://fundraising.mozilla.org/">https://fundraising.mozilla.org/</a>
a "Snippet" is very close to proposals that have been put forth here
for a link on the start page for Thunderbird. We can use their data
to get a rough estimate of what to expect for a similar campaign in
Thunderbird. (If you are not comfortable with rough estimates,
please ignore the rest of this message).<br>
<br>
Thunderbird usage is about 1/20 of Firefox (comparing ADI from
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://crash-stats.mozilla.com/daily?p=Thunderbird">https://crash-stats.mozilla.com/daily?p=Thunderbird</a> to
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://crash-stats.mozilla.com/daily?p=Firefox">https://crash-stats.mozilla.com/daily?p=Firefox</a>). The Firefox
campaign is about 1/3 through a one month campaign, and has raised
$327,000 from snippets. At that rate, a similar campaign from
Thunderbird would give about (3x$327,000)/20 = $50,000. This is
probably a factor of 2 estimate, so consider the best current
estimate is $25,000 - $100,000 per year with that approach. We would
be getting donations averaging about $10 each from about 0.1% of
users.<br>
<br>
My sense of the need is that $50,000 is an adequate amount if
Thunderbird continues with volunteer developers, but is not enough
to make an impact if the hope is to hire some developers. We would
need closer to $500,000 per year to be able to make progress with
some paid development, which means we need to get donations from 1%
of our users instead of 0.1%<br>
<br>
It also sounds like the Mozilla Foundation has plans next year to be
more active in assisting community-based projects with fund raising
efforts, and at that point we could know more what to expect from
them. But we can assume for now that this will be a straightforward
path.<br>
<br>
I hope that you can picture what this future looks like. This is
probably enough income to sustain the product in it current form,
but not enough to make significant forward progress. I don't want to
minimize the value of sustaining the product in its current form,
for the majority of our users that is probably sufficient. But I
also know that I have higher hopes. That's why I have been
encouraging us to consider a more aggressive approach to in-product
fund raising.<br>
<br>
:rkent<br>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 12/9/2013 8:43 PM, David Ascher
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote
cite="mid:716FCCC5-992C-4BF2-926D-11D4B06119CE@mozilla.com"
type="cite">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;
charset=ISO-8859-1">
<br>
<div>
<div>On Dec 9, 2013, at 2:47 PM, Kent James <<a
moz-do-not-send="true" href="mailto:kent@caspia.com">kent@caspia.com</a>>
wrote:</div>
<br class="Apple-interchange-newline">
<blockquote type="cite">
<div><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;
font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight:
normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal;
orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px;
text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto;
word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; float:
none; display: inline !important;">The revelation that
Firefox already has in some cases a start-page donation
link is new information.<span
class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
</blockquote>
</div>
<br>
<div>A relevant point — the snippet on the Firefox home page which
is sometimes used to ask for donations for “unrestricted”
donations to Mozilla, not donations specifically to further
Firefox. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>You can find information about that campaign at <a
moz-do-not-send="true" href="https://fundraising.mozilla.org/">https://fundraising.mozilla.org/</a></div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>
<blockquote type="cite">4) Is the Mozilla Foundation willing and
able to setup an account dedicated to Thunderbird for use in
managing donations? If so, what would be the requirements of
governance of that account, and rules for expenditures from
that account?<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
</div>
<div>I’m happy to help if useful, as I talk fairly often to the
folks behind the fundraising campaign. Gerv I’m sure is also
well connected.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>But I don’t think either of us need to gate. I’ll introduce
you by email to those folks.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>—david</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<br>
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<pre wrap="">_______________________________________________
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</pre>
</blockquote>
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