Back when I called in a favor to see if it could be done so the Max profit went to Seti. What it boiled done to is that I would front the money for the shirts and I tell what sizes to order for 200 Tshirts... I tried to get a reasonable qualty, So all told the company that I was working with I have did business with for about 15+ years.

The Goal was to get a Tshirt to a Seti users for around $15 US plus shipping.

I had resigned myself that atleast early on with help for the shipping labels would be stuffing Tshirt in packages and driving to the Post Office... Or I can setup a Postal account that allows me to cut and paste and laser print the labels...

I can also setup so if a user only had paypal could sort tht so they could get the Tshirt and UCB could get the cash... Everything would be "auditable" that way I am not paying business taxes on something that I do not own...

The bottom line was, I asked Matt for approval to go ahead... I did not recieve word back that it should move ahead... To be honest, I sent another email to Matt about Tshirts... To date I have not received a reply...

To be Totally Honest, as much as I have enjoyed and support Seti. I would not pay $35 for a Seti Tshirt... and then pay shipping...

I can front the $600 for 200 hundred tshirts... Volume is the key...

I am looking at the first of the month donating half of the money that I was saving for my AMD 64 X2 4200... but that is my choice...

So if we want to convince Matt that Tshirts can be done and a reasonable profit can be made without 2,000 tshirts sharing the server room... there has to be some kind of measureable response that will allow determination of how much work is involved...

Pappa

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Please consider a Donation to the Seti Project.

Pappa, I think I will donate $20 in the next month to avoid seeing you dressed in fishnet stockings....


ps Keep up the t-shirt ideas....

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Founder of BOINC team Objectivists. Oh the humanity! Rational people crunching data!
I did NOT authorize this belly writing!

Don't forget you can also go to the Seti Bookstore and buy things....

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These comments by John McLeod VII make it plain that those organizations that are being approached by Boinc/Seti DO look hard at our rate of donations.

JM7 says "the very first question that a corporate donor wants to know is 'what percentage of your organization donates to you'?"

But the participants here are not part of the "organization". If a corporate donor is asking such a question, they are wanting to know, for example, how many paid Berkeley employees are donating - not how many people who donate by volunteering also donate by cash.

That would be the same as a corporate donor approached by the Red Cross saying they wouldn't donate money unless a sufficient number of the people who come in and donate blood also drop off some cash before they leave.

Or a business telling a soup kitchen that they'll consider giving it some cash as long as that little old lady who comes in every thursday for free and volunteers to wash the dirty dishes is also giving them cash, but if she's not giving them cash in addition to being a volunteer - sorry, no sale.

If Berkeley is presenting us to potential corporate donors as "part of the organization", they are making a serious mistake. We are part of the donating community, and that's the only way they should be presenting us. The figures they present to potential corporate donors should indicate that they already have x number of physical volunteers, now they need x number of corporate dollars. We are physical volunteers just like the blood donor and the soup kitchen dishwasher, and no potential corporate donor is going to back out just because some charity's physical volunteers are not also cash contributors.

I think the official word most boinc projects use to describe crunchers is "donors", correct? They don't call us "members of the organization".

I would like to point out that my post was in response to posts that asked why there were no corporate donors. I was just giving my experience with dealing with corporate funds managers (the response is usually - you have this group X that really cares about your school/organization/charity - get some money from them first, then come back). In this statement, WE are the ones that care about S@H - and now that corporate money is harder to get, WE have to do a fair amount of the funding - or S@H dies.

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