Sponsorship pitching, and FUDCON sponsorship request draft

[Mel Chua]

(For Walter's action item, but sending to the list as well for 
open-tasticness.)

This was going to be a braindump of questions on sponsorship, value 
proposition, and the like, but I think my puzzlement boils down to one 
thing: I'm not convinced we need a general fundraising pitch.

I'm not clear on the problems (both specific immediate ones, and a 
longer-term general class of them having such a pitch would solve, and 
for the examples I know of (servers and FUDCON travel funding), it feels 
backwards - we should make funding/resources requests specifically for 
hosting and travel$, /then/ combine them into a first round of a 
fundraising pitch if it makes sense.

Putting my money where my mouth is, a pitch outline for FUDCON funding 
is below. Once it's done, I could see this being generalizable.

Please forgive the crudeness of this pitch. I don't know much about 
writing for funding/sponsorships, and would love feedback on how to make 
this better / get better at it in general.

--Mel

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* 1-sentence version of what we're asking for. ("To fully utilize SL 
participation in FUDCON, we need housing for N people for Y nights, 
123,456 miles' worth of airline tickets, $Z for presentation materials.")

* The Sugar Labs Mission, and a rocketpitch, from Greg.

* Now the important part: how FUDCON will make a Giant Giant Leap 
towards accomplishing that mission. , and how us accomplishing our 
mission helps you accomplish your mission through specific contributions 
towards your projects. Varies with audience.

For instance, Google's mission: "organize the world's information and 
make it universally accessible and useful." Projects include things like 
Summer of Code ("we plan on soliciting/refining project selections at 
FUDCON, and need these key people present") and Google for Educators 
("we'll be running workshops with teachers on topics like 'searching for 
information in the classroom,' and would love to work with you on this, 
or at least share results.")

* "Does this sound good? Here's what we need." Here we insert list of 
people we'd like to fund (this info needs to be solicited, do we know 
exactly what is needed?). Include:
** Name
** Past SL-related work
** What them going to FUDCON would do for them and SL
** Type of assistance needed (airline miles/plane ticket? lodging? other?)
** What they're doing, independently of this request for sponsorship, to 
get themselves there ("I'm mowing lawns after school all next week to 
pay for half my airfare.")

* How you can help. (Send money here, talk to this person, etc.)