Subject: Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Merchandising
I'm not a fan of merchandising as part of a
charities function. But if
it is done it should have the saving grace of having a sufficient
markup to help finance the organisation.
Agreed. It isn't something you can do without seriously considering the
business aspects. There will be issues like waste and unsold stock.
Now what would be cool would be Wikipedia calenders. Flowers, sports
events historical events - we could theme quite a few and they'd make
great gifts. It would also be a good article improvement process as
the nominated articles for the calender would be liable to get good
scrutiny and input whist we discuss which should go in the calender.
OK we would need wmf agreement to do this as a fundraiser sold outside
the membership, but there is a well established charity market for
such things. I for one can think of half a dozen calenders that I
might buy as winter solstice presents for assorted friends and
relatives.
A calendar is a good idea, and one that can be done with a lot of
volunteer input. You need to select articles to feature, or other
appropriate content. For a UK-specific audience you'd have to consider
the anniversaries and holidays to highlight. This can all be done by
volunteers.
In theory you could actually handle the distribution with volunteers
too. If you reliably handle the sales side and get the data for mailing
labels, then you have the finished calendars delivered somewhere and
volunteers handle the process through to getting them in sacks to go to
the post office.
Regardless of how you can involve volunteer labour, you do need a
business plan and know who you are going to outsource work like printing
to. Other UK charities can probably give advice on how they handle such
issues, and I would assume there is scope for working with other
chapters to work out how to best implement various fundraising
merchandise ideas. A reason I'd really support the calendar idea is that
it fits with the WMF principle of sharing knowledge.
Brian McNeil.
2009/9/14 Isabell Long <isabell121(a)gmail.com>om>:
2009/9/14 Thomas Dalton
<thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com>om>:
2009/9/14 Brian McNeil
<brian.mcneil(a)wikinewsie.org>rg>:
I would take it as a given that this would be
restricted to UK-only delivery
to avoid trading on the WMF's toes, or that of any other chapters.
"Wikipedia" t-shirts should probably be UK-only. "Wikimedia UK"
t-shirts may as well be global, although I'm not sure many people
outside the UK would want one (unless they buy it at a WMUK event as a
momento, I guess, but that would be selling it in the UK, so is
irrelevant).
I'd want one, although I live in the UK now so that makes sense!
T-shirts would be a good idea with just Wikimedia UK written on.
--
Regards,
Isabell Long. <isabell121(a)gmail.com>
[[User:Isabell121]] on all public Wikimedia projects.
Freenode Community Co-Ordinator - issyl0 on
irc.freenode.net
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