=head1 Project Title: TPF capability development, working for the Perl
community

=over 1

=item Name:

Richard Dice

=item Email:

rdice@perlfoundation.org

=item Amount Requested:

Grant compensation / support of USD$5,000 per project milestone-month
= USD$30,000 in total.  (I.e. deliverables with a 1 month allocation
receive payment of USD$5,000, deliverables with a 2 month allocation
receive payments of USD$10,000.)

Travel/lodging and conference registration expenses, as needed for TPF
representation and community outreach efforts (e.g. pre-approval for
YAPC::EU, YAPC::Asia and OSCON for an estimated USD$5,000, approval on
a case-by-case basis for targeted trips, other conferences, business
development efforts, etc.).

Office expenses of CAD$350/month + incidentals (e.g. phone, taxes,
stationary).

Other miscellaneous standard reimbursable expenses.

=back

=head2 Synopsis

The Perl community has a wealth of excellent computer scientists and
technologists.  This is necessary, but not sufficient, to meet the
aspirations of the community circa 2009.  It has become apparent over
time that we lack both volunteer time and talent to collectively
perform other functions necessary for success: strategy, organization,
planning, communication, public relations, financial development,
alliance-making.  Also, the traditional techniques used by the Perl
community to find and direct resources have not proven effective in
these fields.

The Perl Foundation (TPF) has been aware of this at some level for
years but has had a shortage of available person-power to invest into
projects:

=over 4

=item * That improve TPF; 

=item * That benefit the Perl community;

=over 4

=item * As perceived to be a benefit by TPF;

=item * As suggested as projects to TPF by members of the Perl
community.

=back

=back

Due to a rare confluence of factors:

=over 4

=item * TPF has in its possession available funds, through the Ian
Hague donation of 2008, already earmarked for exactly this kind of
work that it could make available to fund someone to work on projects
per the above;

=item * Richard Dice, the current President of TPF and one of the very
rare people qualified for this kind of work, has time available that
he can offer to TPF for these purposes.

=back

I propose that TPF provides funding to me on a grant basis in order to
secure my time for the purpose of addressing a list of six
deliverables.  These have been chosen from a much longer list of
potential projects in order to prioritize work and make work that has
definable points of completion.  In addition, in order to represent
TPF to both the Perl community and outside organizations, to prospect
for funding opportunities, and to gather information that will feed
into deliverable milestones (predominantly D5.), I propose that I will
attend a mix of conferences and other events.  The time required for
these is encompassed into the deliverable milestone schedule.  I will
provide a written report for each event attended. (C.f. Money:Tech
2008 report.)

=head2 Benefits to the Perl Community

Each deliverable in the grant has its own resulting benefits.  Taken
together, TPF will be considerably advanced towards being a dynamic,
active organization, capable of advancing the Perl programming
language (Perl 5 and Perl 6) and supporting the Perl community in its
aspirations and goals.

=head2 Deliverables

The deliverables of the project will be delivered in the order
presented below.

=head3 D1. Donor Relations and Donor Outreach (1m)

TPF has a large backlog of communications with donors to TPF over a
long period of time.  I will review all previous donor communications
and create appropriate and individualized thank-you notes for all
donors who have not yet received such a note.  I will also update the
TPF website with materials for all those donors who have reached a
"sponsor" level ($5,000+) with appropriate text and logo materials.
Where possible and appropriate I will create documentation and
repeatable processes to make the sending of thank-you communications
to donors more automatic, or at least easier to implement and document
in the future.  Also, I will create procedures for maintaining
longer-term contact with donors and sponsors in the future, to
establish a more regular pattern of donations and other givings from
individuals and corporations.

For this task I will need the support of those within TPF who have
access to the IT and data systems that currently house all our donor
information.

This work is most likely a stop-gap until we have improved and
modernized donation systems online, most likely through a relationship
that is currently being developed with donor.com.  Documentation and
implementation procedures will in the future need to be reworked in
order to reflect the changes any new system brings.

=head3 D2. Historical Revenue & Expense Analysis, Budget Preparation,
Reports and Procedures (1m)

I will review all records pertaining to past TPF revenues and expenses
and produce reports and spreadsheets (and templates of reports and
spreadsheets) based on this information.  This work will form the basis
for the creation of future-looking budgeting, in terms of creation of
budget categories, anticipating the needs of funding levels to
allocate to each category, and to provide a better sense of what
revenues are needed and what actions need to be taken to generate
those levels of revenue.

=head3 D3. Community Federated Donation / Sponsorship Model
Development (1m)

One possible approach to fund-raising that has been suggested to TPF
in the past but which has not yet been implemented is the approach of
creating designated representatives who have geographical
responsibility to identify and approach potential sponsors.  These
people need support from TPF in a number of ways, including: creation
of geographical areas, responsible designation of representation,
creation of materials to provide to potential sponsors, back-reporting
to the Perl community the results of the efforts of these
representatives in their geographic areas, and direct support by
participating in any sponsorship meetings as necessary.  I will
develop and implement the various support needs of this sponsorship
development model.  Perl community members who have previously
expressed interest in working with TPF in this type of arrangement
will be consulted in the creation of the program and asked for their
assistance in its implementation, and also a public call for help to
the Perl community will be made.

=head3 D4. TPF Documents: Online and Offline Organization and Storage
(1m)

I will review and organize all documents of the corporation, create a
portable bundle of the documentation and identify a home for the
documents, including possibly a commercial service that can collect
and maintain future documents and any needed distribution of the
documents in the future.  Additionally, I will scan the documents and
create an equivalent electronic store which will be more practically
available to the directors of TPF, considering the virtual and
geographically dispersed nature of the TPF organization.  In the
process of reviewing the documents possessed by TPF I will identify
any documents or forms which are lacking which would improve our
various business procedures and create a report of what is needed,
which could include creating rough drafts of lacking documents and
forms.

=head3 D5. Strategic Review of TPF and Perl (1m)

The software language and development landscape has changed beyond
recognition since the mid-90s, when Perl first started making its
advances and achieving its temporary dominance in the dynamic
("scripting") language category.  I propose a research project in
which I apply standard business strategy models to the software
language industry and Perl's situation and produce a report document
as a deliverable (~ 50 - 100 pages).  This will help TPF and the Perl
community understand the drivers behind the changes we have
experienced, the direction of future changes in the software
development landscape, and provide ideas on how TPF and the Perl
community can orient itself to take advantage of future changes in
order to better achieve our aspirations.  Significant amounts of time
will be spent gathering data and material in conversation with Perl
community members and others in both the FOSS and proprietary software
spaces, including interact in person at conferences and other meeting
opportunities.  The purpose of this strategic review will be both
descriptive and proscriptive, but the proscriptive elements will be
meant mainly to catalyse further discussion within the Perl community
and will not be taken to be a "final word" on the subject.

=head3 D6. Strategic Review: Community Orientation and Feedback (1m)

I will publicize the results of D5. to the Perl community and organize
a discussion.  The results of the discussion (including opinions,
perspectives, additional facts, points of interest, outreach efforts,
in-person presentations, etc.) will be fed back into the strategic
review document and a revised version will be released.  This new
version is anticipated to vary considerably from the original, and it
will include extensive material regarding the discussion process and
the information gained from the process.  Also included will be
"minority reports", so that even information and feedback incompatible
with the larger conclusions of the report will be represented for
future consideration.

=head2 Project Schedule

This project will be six months in duration, with one milestone to be
delivered per month. The project can commence upon acceptance of this
proposal.

=head2 Bio

I am the current President of TPF, past Steering Committee chair,
organizer of numerous Perl events in Toronto between 2001 – 2008, Perl
monger since 1999, professional Perl programmer and/or manager of Perl
programmers since 1995.  I have written several books and magazine
articles regarding Perl or related topics using Perl as a
demonstration language, I have spoken at many conferences, and I have
trained Perl professionally.  Both personally and through my work with
TPF I have visibility and a profile within the Perl community, and in
other Open Source communities.

During my involvement with TPF I have completed a number of important
projects, which should give TPF confidence in the prospects for this
work proposal; here is a list of the major items:

=over 4

=item * Chairman of the successful YAPC::NA 2005 conference (2004-5);

=item * Forrester Dynamic Language Survey participation co-ordination
and original work (summer 2007);

=item * LSB 3.2 spec acceptance of Perl 5.8.8 (2007 – early 2008);

=item * Research into Perl as a part of the larger IT ecosystem,
including public presentations of results at various conferences
(2007);

=item * Acquired and arranged the Mozilla Foundation / TPF grant for
Patrick Michaud's work on Perl 6 “Rakudo” (late 2007 – early 2008);

=item * Acquired and developed the Ian Hague Perl 6 development
donation & subsequent grants (2008);

=item * Acted as TPF representation at non-Perl conferences
(Money:Tech, EclipseCon) (2008)

=item * Wrote TPF response to Government of Canada RFI regarding Open
Source software (early 2009).

=back

=cut