Financial Transparency is Good for Community

re: Financial Transparency is Good for Community

Michael K. Campbell — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 17:25:43 GMT

Yeah - I totally agree. We're POSITIVELY spoiled by awesome sponsors/vendors in the SQL Server Community - and I'd hate to see that ever change.

re: Financial Transparency is Good for Community

Rachel @ DevExpress — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 18:13:21 GMT

Hear hear Arnie.

As as newbie community event organiser for GiveCamp UK and the contact for a regular community sponsor, I certaily appreciate this being brought to the fore.

Vendor-internal community supporters like myself, Hannah at Red Gate and Emily at Telerik often have to work hard to justify to our superiors why and where our sponsorship dollars are going.

I hadn't really considered the impact that sponsorship(s) could have on an event until GiveCamp UK started up. There are so many questions that event planners need to answer for their sponsors to justify why their event deserves financial support, and just a couple of $100 can make all of the difference (coffee and tea ... yup,that all costs!). Our sponsors' pockets are sadly not bottomless, and when there is no more financial support to be had, what do we do then?

It is often not obvious to sponsors just how much a community event costs to operate. By being transparent with financials, we can demonstrate just how vital funds are to helping to support community activities.

I agree with Arnie and Andy, it is in everyone's best interests to be open and transparent about where sponsorship dollars are spent. The better information and value we can provide to sponsors, the more likely they are to help us on a regular basis.

~ Rachel.

re: Financial Transparency is Good for Community

Ameena Lalani — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 18:56:34 GMT

In my opinion, transparency in all matters, but specially financial, is very important. It could make or brake the trust of sponsors as well as community in an organisation. At least good faith attempt must be made to release the information that you have mentioned such as money collected, money used and money left. From the organization's point of view it may not be as simple as that. But whatever it is and how much it is possible, some insight into the big event like sql pass summit should be made available to the community and sponsor. I think organisation will gain more respect and trust from sponsor and community rather than more finger pointing. Remember, Honesty is the best Policy.

re: Financial Transparency is Good for Community

Mark Broadbent — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 16:03:42 GMT

Very good post Arnie. I have asked the following question direct to a couple of vendors "exactly how much ROI are you getting for sponsoring this event and exactly how many sales will you/or hope make? How can you keep funding all of these events?". Surprisingly the answer was that the number of sales from the event was expected to be zero or low short term and longer term was unclear to them, however their business analytics would hopefully show a ROI.

My worry is probably the same as yours, namely that these people (who are the lifeblood of our activities right now) need not to be taken for granted and hopefully rewarded for their investment into the community. My worry though is that too much transparency might reveal that they are not getting value for money and *perhaps* it is time that we (the community) ought to start worrying that they are.

Thanks for a great post.

re: Financial Transparency is Good for Community

Brandon Leach — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 13:54:12 GMT

Sponsors really do make events happen. Monthly user groups like SNESSUG, cost a good amount of cash to put together. When you look at how much smaller events like that cost and then consider a much larger event, It really makes brings things into perspective.

I definitly think transparency is a good idea. Not only could it generate trust between event coordinators and sponsors, but it could also help attendees to really appreciate what the sponsors do for the community.