Group call #3: Business Modelling & Planning

Campfire
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Last week we agreed on a number of priorities in order for us to be able to start fundraising efforts.

The first of these was hammering down the business model and detailed business planning.

With Spreadsheets :slight_smile:

This is the subject of today’s call.

Priority to-do’s

Write Funding Applications and Pitches

Register organisation in Belgium: Nadia

  • Business Model & Business Plan required for this.
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So here goes the basic Excel Sheet for a programme covering all approx. 20k schools in Uganda:

https://cloud.vashgreenschools.org/index.php/f/3983

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Ok Im having a look at it @OmaMorkie
What I see is that overhead is framed as being stable whereas it starts high then drops
Both for technology and for non technology work
To be prudent basic technology maintenance costs should be estimated to be 5%.
Setting up the platform (tech, design, debugging, outreach, funddraisng will be 400-500K in year 1). Afterwards it will drop to a core team of 5 people working fulltime: Tech, Community management, Admin/legals, Outreach/marketing, fundraising. How much that will be will depend on local salaries for the staff selected.

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Hey Guys, so I’m taking the risk of embarrassing myself: I was under the impression that our gathering on April 7th will focus only least on funding, more so on theorycrafting/networking to “start something”. Also, we don’t have enough information abt our audience yet (will consist mostly of allies though).

Anyways, I have filled out 2 of the forms from this post real quick, also I put down a first (incomplete) draft for the introduction/problem part of the presentation we could maybe build up on. See here.

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Hi @OmaMorkie

Quick recap needed please clarify two budget posts in this spreadsheet you produced:

1. Edsessions

Could you in one sentence each answer the following questions:

a. What are these?
b. What/How in practical terms do they contribute to our mission?
c. How would they be financed?
d. Who would be in charge of delivering them and what support would they need from the rest of the team?

2. Edsets

Could you in one sentence each answer the following questions:

a. What are these?
b. What/How in practical terms do they contribute to our mission?
c. How would they be financed?
d. Who would be in charge of delivering them and what support would they need from the rest of the team?

3. RE

what is this an abbreviation for?

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The Education component is optional and currently not part of VashGreenSchools (but agreement with Vash that it would be a valuable addition). Idea is to use the electricity for more than lightbulbs.

1. Edsessions

a. What are these? => In-School Lessons on locally relevant Sustainable Development issues
b. What/How in practical terms do they contribute to our mission? => Carry knowledge of clean energy from the schools to the homes (and provide a broader sustainability education)

c. How would they be financed? => no cost beyond initial installation

d. Who would be in charge of delivering them and what support would they need from the rest of the team? => Teachers at the school, introduction needed by activists during initial installation

2. Edsets

a. What are these? => Raspi 4 + Projector + 256 GB MicroSD Card filled with sustainable development education videos

b. What/How in practical terms do they contribute to our mission? => Make a bigger impact from the Solar PV than just lighting.

c. How would they be financed? => same as all other impacts, by donor / Results Based Finance.

d. Who would be in charge of delivering them and what support would they need from the rest of the team? => Delivering them: The Activists, no further support needed. => Developing the content of the MicroSD Card: On my desk, support by a friend, currently not ready.

3. RE = Renewable Energy (in kWh electricity produced by the solar installation)

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Here the first throw for the Prototype Fund Germany application:

Thank you @Olli for the edits! @nadia and @matthias Especially the technical parts and the hours still need a reality check :slight_smile:

Deadline for submissions is in one week, on 31st of March!
2022-03-30T22:00:00Z

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Ok makes sense but for the prototype fund the team is basically the developer and the user experience designer as it’s really just about building the tech - right @OmaMorkie ?

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I am thinking specifically about contradictions between:

Are you applying for funding as a team?
And
The team will provide feedback to the developer

It makes it sound like the developer and the climate gains crew are not a team?

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My thinking was: Developer is the only one who gets paid, team is there to provide credibility. Should make that more explicit.

Also, I don’t have strong feelings on that, please edit however it you see fit.

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On that - let’s make the final Milestone “Vanessa uses the technology to upload one video from Uganda directly into the Discourse.” (just did in the document).

We can help with screenshare and such, but it would be a good ground-truthing.

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ok So team is Developer and User experience designer. This makes it consistent and clear that money is for developing tech.

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Thanks, @OmaMorkie and @nadia!! As agreed with Nadia, I have now sent in the application to Prototype Fund. Had to rearrange some parts to conform to character limits, and also added explanations of tech stuff that was not obvious at first glance to me, such as the use of the hashing functionality. But nothing major changed. Result is here:

Application.PrototypeFund.2022-03-31_byMatt.pdf (16.6 KB)

Have entered me and Daniel (@daniel) as team members due to the requirement of residency in Germany. Added @Olli as well, without caring to ask before :smile: … b/c he’s residing in Germany as far as I know and it looks better that way. I know from the previous work with PrototypeFund that team membership can be changed after funding confirmation at will, so, no worries …

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