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Complete Nation1 Fundraising Update
Nick Moraitis, July 8th 2000
In November 1999, the Nation1 team looked back on a year of work on the project. Much had been accomplished. In particular, we had plugged ourselves in to some of the most exciting of the existing youth based initiatives around the world and learned a great deal about the real needs of young people, and how the web can be a powerful intrument educating, and empowering them to make a difference. However, much work was required to make the plans we had developed a reality.
Thus, in a Coordinators chat meeting, we resolved to increase our small 10-15 member team by 10 times, and ask 35 adults to help us out and provide advice. We resolved to determine the amount of money we realistically needed to make the project happen, and locate that money. We decided we wished to set up a strong legal-basis for our project. We decided we wanted to employ a coordination team to work full time on the project.
We are now seven months into that agenda. An enormous amount of work of a high quality has been done, and much achieved. Much remains to be achieved. This document is designed to succinctly summarize actions taken over this seven month period, and infer a logical progression of actions for the future. It is written for the benefit of our Board of Directors, fundraising team, various other taskforces, Adult Advisors, potential and current sponsors, and the general youth community.
Legal Work
The legal status of the Nation1 Project had been an on-going concern for the youth members. Late in 1999, MIT agreed to semi-formalise their relationship with us, to provide interim legal status as a non-profit organisation. In early 2000, Young Lee, a non-profit management consultant joined our project as an adult advisor. Young provided expert advice to the Coordinators and Fundraising Groups during a discussion on the type of legal status we should obtain (ie. Non-Profit Corporation? For-profit Corporation? Association?). It was resolved Nation1 should form a non-profit corporation, to be known as the Nation1 Foundation Inc.
Young then worked with Terah DeJong to develop the details. A Constitution and mission statement was developed, and an application was submitted to the New York Department of State for incorporation there. Taking into account the need for gender equality, and primarily American representatives on this board (but also ensuring -some- international involvement) it was resolved the interim Board of Directors would be youth Terah DeJong (as President), Nick Moraitis (as Vice President), Mary Fister (as Treasurer), Maitreyi Doshi (as Secretary), Ian Wojtowicz, and Benjamin Quinto . Adults were selected on the basis of the demonstrated enthusiasm for our project and expertise. They were Pilar Baptista (Futurekids Mexico), Mitchel Resnick (MIT Media Lab), Carolyn Chin (MarketXT), and Alan Kay (Disney).
NY State is currently evaluating the application, and we fully expect it to be accepted by our first board meeting, to be held on the 28th of July (at an as-yet undetermined time). Board meetings will then be regularly held every month.
At our first Annual General Meeting (a date which is also undecided) we will change the membership of the Board, primarily by adding new members. We have invited expressions of interest from a number of high profile people including:
- Richard Branson, owner of the Virgin Group.
- Isao Okawa, owner of Sega Enterprizes.
- Lucy Hughes Turnbull, Deputy Mayor of Sydney, Australia.
As a priority, we want to encourage an adult with legal or accounting experience to join our board. When we increase the board numbers, we will retain the majority under-25 situation (which is mandated in our Constitution).
As soon as our incorporation is confirmed, we will apply for charitable 501 c (3) status with the IRS. We will obtain a letter from the IRS noting they are considering our application (which will be good enough for foundations and other potential donors.
Expenditures:
In January, Nation1 spent $2000 on a new Dell server for our developmental purposes (as opposed to our webhosting which is on a distinct server).
In May, Nation1 spent $85 on our application for Non-profit status in NYC.
In July, two delegates are attending the IEARN conference in Beijing. Nation1 OWES these delegates the cost of their airfares and registration for this event, totalling roughly $3000US.
Nation1 currently has approximately $300 in our MIT bank account.
Our fundraising goals:
Preferably by October 2000 and no later than January 2001 Nation1 will:
- Open an office at a central New York City location. Fit it out with computers for staff, and other equipment. Cover insurance & associated expenses.
- Employ an Executive Director, a System Developer, a Nation1.net Project Manager, a System Adminstrator/Junior Programmer, an Administrative Assistant and an Outreach Coordinator (total of 6 staff).
- Provide for an intern to be located at our NYC office.
- Provide for an intern to be located at the MIT Media Lab.
- Provide for an intern to be located at the University of California (Berkely).
- Obtain laptop computers for outreach purposes.
- Obtain enough computer hardware (servers) and connectivity (Internet bandwidth) to operate a website with 100,000 daily visitors.
- Have funds for travel as necessery (approx 50 trips in all).
- Have funding for other expenses, as outlined in the budget.
- Have funding to cover professional consultants/memberships/dues etc.
Non-core goals could include:
- Employing a News Editor, further Programmers, a Citizenship manager, Outreach-events assistant.
- Digital cameras/other technology for grass-roots content creation.
- Very focused Television/print advertising
On Executive Directors and Start-Up
As an immediate measure, we wish to engage a non-profit management and start-up consultant who can do a significant amount of the organisational work associated with setting up the Nation1 Foundation, our office in New York and further fundraising. Our rationale is that while we want to establish an operating organisation and begin work on Nation1 Network immediately, we would prefer to do an extensive search for a more permanent Executive Director and not rush the appointment. If Markle/others funded us in September/October, we imagine we would not appoint an Executive Director until November/December at the earliest. However, the consultant (and other staff he/she locates) would act in place of the ED's development capacity.
Fundraising activities
The Nation1 Funds Group is responsible for fundraising activities. It is locating money from a variety of sources.
(1) In January we approached the Markle Foundation of New York City. After Nick Moraitis met their program associate Yalda Nikoomanesh, Markle asked for a more detailed proposal which was delievered in April. This proposal covered core areas of Nation1 and is intended to provide a basis for other donations to build from. Our hope is that Markle will see the potential wide-ranging impact of the Nation1 project, and agree to be the key founding funder of the initiative. While their funding will be used to primarily for salaries and some core expenses, we hope it will provide our project with the legitimacy required for other potential donors to provide further resources.
Unfortunately, as Markle's new head of the Children's Interactive Media program, Alice Cahn did not take up her job until late May, a decision on our proposal was delayed from the June board meeting until September. With Markle, we want to stress:
- the wide-ranging real-life scope of the project; it's not just a prototype or a case-study, but a working organisation that will involve a massive number of young people in positive stuff. Of course, we will provide a full report on it (particularly covering areas they are interested in). And MIT will be taking note of us. But that's the point, we're an even better 'experiment' because we're not one.
- the mainstream nature of our target audience. We are not trying to do something radical by giving young people a voice. It is not just 'the coverted' that will take up the opportunity to link up with a global community, make friends and make a difference. If you make something that makes young people feel important, give them authority, treat them as 'adults' they love it!
(2) Considering the delay in Markle's evaluation of our proposal, we deemed it necessery to seach for immediate further funding. We have approached:
- Mr Isao Okawa, Chairman of Sega Corporation. Nicholas Negroponte suggested we contact Mr Okawa via Mr Nishi of Ascii Corporation. We asked Mr Okawa for $90,000 to immediately cover employment of our Executive Director/Consultant, office space, travel to IYP.
- Cisco Community Involvement. Provided a large range of potential sponsorship opportunities.
- Idealab! Asked for office and all associated expenses a professional consultants.
- Mamamedia. Asked for office space and presented potential sponsorship opportunities (such as Consultant).
- Swatch. Asked them for funding for a non-profit consultant.
As yet, we are yet to hear back, but are expecting too soon.
Planned programs to complement Markle/Core Funding.
(1) Foundations
- The Starmedia Foundation. Christopher Allieri and Julia Pieruzzi Tirelli contacted us suggesting they could form a 'win win' partnership with us.
- Bell Atlantic Foundation
- Tides Foundation
- Nathen Cummings Foundation
- Soros Foundation - Open Society Institute
- The Irvine Foundation
- MacArthur Foundation
- Ford Foundation
(2) Corporations
- Viacom/Nickelodeon (They have already expressed an interest and we are following up)
- OneMain/Earthlink (As for Viacom)
- Swatch
- Apple
- Compaq
- Thomas Cooke
- American express
- Sun microsystem
- CMGI
- Genuity
- Progress software
- Rational software
- Akamei
- Sycamore networks
- Timberland
- Selected Media Lab Sponsors
Donors are provided with benefits commesurate with their level of sponsorship in cash/cash equivilent for in-kind donations. Our levels are Activist (200k+), Visionary (100k-200k), Catalyst (20k-100k) and Friend (20k and below).
In addition to the above companies which we are specifically targeting, we have created a list of 100 companies that we will approach to join a Corproate Supporters Group. We wil ask them to donate $5,000 (?) each.
We have created a Corporate Sponsorship information page at (http://www.nation1.net/internal/sponsorinfo.htm).
(3) Individuals
We are approaching high-net worth individuals. In particular, we are focusing on contacts supplied by our board members and Adult Advisory Board. We are focusing on people with a technology background (such as Bill Gates) and young people (such as Athina Onassis). Our feeling is that these people might like to take a greater role in our development than simply offering cash, which could only be positive.