Fundraising.

W3C's Legal Entity task force recommended that we need a $10M reserve to have a strong financial basis for the Legal Entity (nb. IETF with a $7M historical annual budget is starting with a $10M reserve plus a $2M endowment.)

In addition to the $10M reserve, W3C will also need additional funds for start-up expenses. This includes legal expenses to create the organization documents for W3C, consultants to assist with employee and benefit programs, revised website to project W3C's new image, and IT expenses to build new systems to replace those currently provided by Hosts.

If we intend to get $10M, we ought to look for a much larger number. W3M has identified several classes of potential contributors and seeks the advice of the W3C Steering Committee, as well as contacts into these and other organizations.

Here is a current table of target organizations, with commentary below.

Target	Min.	Max.	Instances	Total target	ValueProp	Source	Introducer	Making the Call	Benefit
High likelihood targets
ISOC	$2.5M	$5M	1	$5M	Infrastructure	OperatingFunds	Jeff	Jeff and Tim	Board seat
ICANN	$2.5M	$5M	1	$5M	Infrastructure	Auctions	Jeff	Jeff and Tim	Board seat
4 Hosts (discretionary funds)	$1.5M	$2.5M	1	$2.5M	Infra.+Mutual success	2 yr. DiscFunds	Jeff	Jeff	4 Board seats
Highly desirable, but uncertain targets
Crowdsourcing	$5	$10	1M	$10M	Gratitude	Everyone's wallet	W3C Marketing	W3C Marketing	A good web
Foundations (Knight, Ford, Gates, Soros, etc.)	$.5M	$2.5M	5	$12.5M	Benefit of society	Funded programs	Steering Committee	Jeff	Possible board seats; Achieving the fundamental goals for each Foundation
Appropriate but highly uncertain
Internet Cos.	$.5M	$1M	25	$25M	Infra.+Giving back	Community Relations	Steering Committee and a "supporting corporate CEO"	Jeff, Tim, and/or the supporting CEO	Public relations; Endow chairs (Internationalization Chair, Privacy Chair, Security Chair, Accessibility Chair, etc.)
Dicey, but deep pockets
US Government	$2M	$2M	1	$2M	Infra for US	Earmark	Daniela Rus and MA Congressional delegation	Jeff and Daniela	Future growth
EU (or constituent countries)	$2M	$2M	1	$2M	Infra for EU	EU programs	Bruno	Jeff and/or Bruno	Future growth
Japanese Government	$2M	$2M	1	$2M	Infra for Japan		Jun	Jun	Future growth
Chinese Government	$2M	$2M	1	$2M	Infra for China				Future growth
Totals			37 calls	$68M

Discussion of targets:

Most of these revenue sources will take some time to get signed up. On the other hand as mentioned above, there is an immediate need for funding for start-up expenses. The Hosts provide a particularly appropriate source for those funds - so Host contributions would be split between start-up expenses and the reserve.

ISOC and ICANN are the largest fellow travelers as pure non-profit internet organizations who work at the infrastructure of the internet. Both have much larger budgets than W3C and should be willing to make substantial donations.

ISOC makes an annual $5M donation to IETF, and has recently transferred the $10M reserve and $2M endowment into the new IETF disregarded entity of ISOC.

Internet companies. There are a large number of large successful companies whose success (or existence) was built on the technical infrastructure provided by W3C. They should be approached at the CEO level, and pushed on the proposition that an appropriate "giving back" is to donate $.5M - $1M each. The best way to approach the CEOs is to find a current or former CEO to approach them.

Candidate CEOs to approach Internet Companies: Eric Schmidt, Bill Gates, Jack Ma, Meg Whitman, John Chambers
Candidate Internet companies: Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Cisco, Netflix, Verizon (Yahoo and AoL), Tencent, Alibaba, Amazon, Paypal, eBay, Comcast, Baidu, Rakuten, AirBnB, AmEx, IBM, AT&T, Intel, Apple, Adobe, Ericsson, Siemens, Mozilla,Samsung

A common value proposition is that all of society has benefited from (and will benefit from) the web. The web has been successful largely based on the success of the technical community in evolving the web at a time of technology upheaval. We need to communicate that donors should open their wallets partly to express gratitude and partially to ensure continuity.

Some of the donors would be very interested in board seats and would be appropriate board members. That should be extended as an inducement where appropriate. Generally governmental representatives are not appropriate board members. Corporate representatives to the Board might be elected from the W3C Membership (per AB resolution), and not "bought".

To ensure vendor neutrality, corporate donations should be limited to $1M.

It is possible, though not likely, that we exceed the $10M target. That is a good problem to have. It could be used to beef up efforts; reduce member fees; or build an endowment.