Sponsorship Opportunity
Posted: 30 September 08 6:10 pm
Greeting Senators.
Please forgive the length of this post. It contains background information as well as thoughts and discussions that have happened privately. It is important, so please take a few moments of your time to read it.
First of all thank you for all of your donations so far for the new GCA wesbsite. GCA were ultimately looking for around $3,600 for the first year and we are very close to achieving that.
As you are aware the need for donations was to assist us in moving the website to a faster, better, more "future proof" webserver. The rate of growth of the Geocaching Australia website has meant that our current arrangement, kindly provided by ideology, has neared saturation point and there are issues that are arising as a result of the volume of people and data GCA is providing. You don't necessarily see the issues that arise as they are dealt with quickly in the background, but on occasion you do see the impact. The forum is the place that the biggest issues are being manifest with posting and retrieval times getting longer and longer.
Originally the GCA community was asked to raise some thousands of dollars to lease a server for the next 12 months. The amount sought has been discussed in quite a few threads and as the developers learnt more and discussed long term growth, the amount sought has varied. The current target for a 1 server environment is around $3,600 per year which is very close to being achieved. In the next couple of years this would need to increase if the current rate of growth continues. In future years this is likely to be a dual server environment costing around $5,000 annually.
There are currently around 8,000 registered members at GCA. The rate of signup has been:
2005 - 3 signups per day
2006 - 5 signups per day
2007 - 6 signups per day
2008 - 6 signups per day (so far)
As can be seen, since 2005 GCA has doubled the number of people signing up to the website per day. In total, GCA serves around 1.6 million pages per year. There is no doubt that the number of people signing up has had an impact on GCA's ability to serve them from the current webserver. Your generosity so far has enabled us to look at leasing an upgraded server for the next 12 months. For each year beyond the 2009 calendar year, GCA would need to ask again and again for your generosity to continue. Donations that have been received so far are in the hands of the Treasurer of Geocaching Tasmania Inc.
Out of the blue, in the last 2-3 weeks, the developers have been approached by a marketing company who has a client that would like to sponsor the website.
riblit and I have spoken to the marketing company. We understand their interest in becoming sponsors of Geocaching Australia is genuine and is for the medium to long term. It is my understanding that this would be at least 5 years.
I am not at liberty to discuss the client at this point. The developers have mulled over the nature of the business that the client operates and while the developers have a few reservations about their product and how it would be associated with Geocaching Australia, only the fullness of time will layout the full marketing plan and allow the community to make a proper decision.
The approach to sponsor Geocaching Australia is based on the following idea, to quote them "The new advertising package is along the lines of new wild places and places not previously visited. Geocaching fits in well with that."
They are NOT looking for ads across the site. They do their own advertising. They are looking for an established activity that would fit with their needs. They would be seeking something like "Geoaching Australia sponsored by ...", etc on the home page and possibly as part of the logo (not sure about the logo yet). They have also suggested that the home page could be redesigned to take that into account and to accommodate some changes to make it less "cluttered" and more "streamlined".
They have indicated that all forms of media would be used in the marketing. Radio, TV, Print, etc. They would set up their own website based on their marketing which would drive people to Geocaching Australia. This could potentially mean many, many thousands of people.
The marketing firm spoke about ideas that they had. Things like placing caches around the country that if you "joined the dots" would show the client logo. People who found those caches might be entered into a significant prize draw. Major caches hidden around the country with significant prizes. While nothing has been decided yet, prizes may range from new GPS receivers up to boats and cars.
From both riblit's and my discussions with them it seems that the client is very interested in NOT upsetting the community. As marketers they know what bad sentiment can do to an ad campaign. This is our site to remain our site. They would set up another site for their ad campaign which would drive traffic to us. i.e. We are the target site, not the marketing site.
They are very forthright in stating that they do not want control of the game (not that they could anyway) and they want the community to be supportive of the approach.
They suggested that the client would be up for paying for things like:
Hosting and other associated costs
Prizes / Equipment
Events
Other things
Ultimately, this will secure funding for the website as well as dramatically increase the visibility of the game in Australia.
I will highlight that at NO point do the developers or administrators of the site gain any monetary benefit whatsoever. None. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Bugger all. All of the benefits that would come from this sponsorship would be ploughed back into the GCA site and Geocaching Australia community.
There are any number of pros and cons, so let me list those which I can immediately think of.
Pros:
A faster wesbite for us all.
No more begging for money.
GCA retains control of the site.
GCA remains free and open.
With the client sponsoring caches, the quality of their caches and swaps would be very high.
More Australians being involved at Geocaching Australia and the caching community.
Publicity for the game.
Thousands and thousands of people signing up and joining in the game.
A dramatic increase in the number of hides and finds on GCA caches.
Cons:
An influx of new hiders and all of us know the sorts of fun and games we have with newbies.
Movement from an essentially "underground" activity into "mainstream".
More administration of the website.
The potential that the game is viewed as being "owned" by the client.
The client pulls the plug in 6 months and we're screwed*.
*The developers do have a strategy to ensure we always have a copy of the database held offsite (probably no longer than 24 hours out of date) so GCA can fall back to a leased server arrangement in short order (maybe a couple of days).
They have given an indication that if this is going to occur, then we would need to ready, possibly by November.
Ultimately Geocaching Australia is run by volunteers and is part of your caching community. The developers would love to ensure the website's viability without having to go cap in hand each year begging for funding. The developers do seek your input. As part of the Geocaching Australia community this is your website and you have the right to provide feedback. In the event that the community decide no, then we fall back to our current position of asking for increasing donations each year for the site. In the event that the community decide yes, then all of the donations received to date will be saved for the future when the sponsorship phase come to a close. There is no intent to disperse those funds for anything other than the intent for which they were donated.
Please ask any questions you may have. Questions about the total amount of funding, the client or what the client product is cannot be answered at this time. I know it leaves you without some salient information and for that I apologise.
caughtatwork
on behalf of the GCA administrators and developers.
Please forgive the length of this post. It contains background information as well as thoughts and discussions that have happened privately. It is important, so please take a few moments of your time to read it.
First of all thank you for all of your donations so far for the new GCA wesbsite. GCA were ultimately looking for around $3,600 for the first year and we are very close to achieving that.
As you are aware the need for donations was to assist us in moving the website to a faster, better, more "future proof" webserver. The rate of growth of the Geocaching Australia website has meant that our current arrangement, kindly provided by ideology, has neared saturation point and there are issues that are arising as a result of the volume of people and data GCA is providing. You don't necessarily see the issues that arise as they are dealt with quickly in the background, but on occasion you do see the impact. The forum is the place that the biggest issues are being manifest with posting and retrieval times getting longer and longer.
Originally the GCA community was asked to raise some thousands of dollars to lease a server for the next 12 months. The amount sought has been discussed in quite a few threads and as the developers learnt more and discussed long term growth, the amount sought has varied. The current target for a 1 server environment is around $3,600 per year which is very close to being achieved. In the next couple of years this would need to increase if the current rate of growth continues. In future years this is likely to be a dual server environment costing around $5,000 annually.
There are currently around 8,000 registered members at GCA. The rate of signup has been:
2005 - 3 signups per day
2006 - 5 signups per day
2007 - 6 signups per day
2008 - 6 signups per day (so far)
As can be seen, since 2005 GCA has doubled the number of people signing up to the website per day. In total, GCA serves around 1.6 million pages per year. There is no doubt that the number of people signing up has had an impact on GCA's ability to serve them from the current webserver. Your generosity so far has enabled us to look at leasing an upgraded server for the next 12 months. For each year beyond the 2009 calendar year, GCA would need to ask again and again for your generosity to continue. Donations that have been received so far are in the hands of the Treasurer of Geocaching Tasmania Inc.
Out of the blue, in the last 2-3 weeks, the developers have been approached by a marketing company who has a client that would like to sponsor the website.
riblit and I have spoken to the marketing company. We understand their interest in becoming sponsors of Geocaching Australia is genuine and is for the medium to long term. It is my understanding that this would be at least 5 years.
I am not at liberty to discuss the client at this point. The developers have mulled over the nature of the business that the client operates and while the developers have a few reservations about their product and how it would be associated with Geocaching Australia, only the fullness of time will layout the full marketing plan and allow the community to make a proper decision.
The approach to sponsor Geocaching Australia is based on the following idea, to quote them "The new advertising package is along the lines of new wild places and places not previously visited. Geocaching fits in well with that."
They are NOT looking for ads across the site. They do their own advertising. They are looking for an established activity that would fit with their needs. They would be seeking something like "Geoaching Australia sponsored by ...", etc on the home page and possibly as part of the logo (not sure about the logo yet). They have also suggested that the home page could be redesigned to take that into account and to accommodate some changes to make it less "cluttered" and more "streamlined".
They have indicated that all forms of media would be used in the marketing. Radio, TV, Print, etc. They would set up their own website based on their marketing which would drive people to Geocaching Australia. This could potentially mean many, many thousands of people.
The marketing firm spoke about ideas that they had. Things like placing caches around the country that if you "joined the dots" would show the client logo. People who found those caches might be entered into a significant prize draw. Major caches hidden around the country with significant prizes. While nothing has been decided yet, prizes may range from new GPS receivers up to boats and cars.
From both riblit's and my discussions with them it seems that the client is very interested in NOT upsetting the community. As marketers they know what bad sentiment can do to an ad campaign. This is our site to remain our site. They would set up another site for their ad campaign which would drive traffic to us. i.e. We are the target site, not the marketing site.
They are very forthright in stating that they do not want control of the game (not that they could anyway) and they want the community to be supportive of the approach.
They suggested that the client would be up for paying for things like:
Hosting and other associated costs
Prizes / Equipment
Events
Other things
Ultimately, this will secure funding for the website as well as dramatically increase the visibility of the game in Australia.
I will highlight that at NO point do the developers or administrators of the site gain any monetary benefit whatsoever. None. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Bugger all. All of the benefits that would come from this sponsorship would be ploughed back into the GCA site and Geocaching Australia community.
There are any number of pros and cons, so let me list those which I can immediately think of.
Pros:
A faster wesbite for us all.
No more begging for money.
GCA retains control of the site.
GCA remains free and open.
With the client sponsoring caches, the quality of their caches and swaps would be very high.
More Australians being involved at Geocaching Australia and the caching community.
Publicity for the game.
Thousands and thousands of people signing up and joining in the game.
A dramatic increase in the number of hides and finds on GCA caches.
Cons:
An influx of new hiders and all of us know the sorts of fun and games we have with newbies.
Movement from an essentially "underground" activity into "mainstream".
More administration of the website.
The potential that the game is viewed as being "owned" by the client.
The client pulls the plug in 6 months and we're screwed*.
*The developers do have a strategy to ensure we always have a copy of the database held offsite (probably no longer than 24 hours out of date) so GCA can fall back to a leased server arrangement in short order (maybe a couple of days).
They have given an indication that if this is going to occur, then we would need to ready, possibly by November.
Ultimately Geocaching Australia is run by volunteers and is part of your caching community. The developers would love to ensure the website's viability without having to go cap in hand each year begging for funding. The developers do seek your input. As part of the Geocaching Australia community this is your website and you have the right to provide feedback. In the event that the community decide no, then we fall back to our current position of asking for increasing donations each year for the site. In the event that the community decide yes, then all of the donations received to date will be saved for the future when the sponsorship phase come to a close. There is no intent to disperse those funds for anything other than the intent for which they were donated.
Please ask any questions you may have. Questions about the total amount of funding, the client or what the client product is cannot be answered at this time. I know it leaves you without some salient information and for that I apologise.
caughtatwork
on behalf of the GCA administrators and developers.