January 10, 2010

Board of Directors Meeting

2010-01-10 7:00pm – 8:00pm EST
Via Calliflower

Attending

Dave Weinberg, President
Nisma Zaman, Secretary
Patrick Benz, Treasurer
Meagan Ryan

Wayne Burke, Executive Director

Commitments and Decisions

• The fundraising strategy will focus on events going forward
• The budget will be completed by the end of February
• The Board approved back-salary for the Executive Director in the budget, contingent upon him meeting weekly reporting and fundraising goals
• The Executive Director will follow up with two potential candidates for the Board of Governors

Meeting Minutes Summary

The fundraising strategy was debated, with Dave emphasizing the importance of utilizing personal contacts and Meagan conveying that goals were not met for donations from individuals and that a strategy focused on events would be better. The next such event opportunity will be the Gov2.5 conference in Los Angeles in February, and a fundraising happy hour is being considered for the 6th & 7th.

The budget was discussed and the Board decided it would focus on this after the L.A. event. The current projects will be reviewed and the costs and requirements for each will be analyzed and written up. Patrick and Nisma volunteered to look over the budget. Wayne asked for a salary increase to be included in the budget after four months. In the Executive Session, the Board discussed this, along with the inclusion of back-salary. Regarding the official non-profit status of O.F.F., Wayne had a positive conversation with a man at the IRS and was told that the letter should be sent within the month.

REPORT FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Wayne submitted an application to the Draper and Richards Foundation for a three-year grant and the next step is to submit a budget and business plan.

Wayne is working with George Washington University on the Mapping Political Communication project.

GovTwit, a database directory of government twitter accounts created by Steve Lunceford, and Wayne are discussing how to merge it with GovLuv. Wayne will be meeting with contacts on the Hill and is contemplating a staffers-only camp to discuss how social media is being used and how GovLuv can work for them.

CongressCamp is creating an online directory for use in social media circles and Wayne is doing project management on this.

Wayne attended the Personal Democracy Forum (PdF) Europe in Barcelona and met with various media directors, members of parliament and so forth to learn how the projects of O.F.F. can be applied in Europe.

The Gov2.5 conference went well, with discussions on how and why to use Twitter, and Wayne met some people who could potentially be added to the Board.

Wayne and Meagan will be attending a workshop tomorrow on open governance with thirteen federal agencies.

UPCOMING MEETINGS

The next in-person meeting will be held in July 2010 in Washington, D.C..