[ICANN-EU] Re-opening the funding debate

[icann@LF.net (Kurt Jaeger auf Mailinglisten)]

ICANN Europe needs funding

ICANN in Europe needs funding to set up sound and representative 
decision-making structures. A prerequisite of this goal is to make
ICANN better known among European countries and to encourage participation.

Furthermore, Europe has to pay its share for the next
At Large registration process. The first election's budget depended
solely on a USD 200000 donation by the American Markle Foundation.

The ICANN director elected by its european constituency has as
its first and most urgent task to communicate about the topics
and responsibilities of ICANN with the european constituency.
Real life meetings beyond email communications are a necessary 
means to this end.

According to ICANN, affluence is a necessary condidition for 
candidates to serve on the board. Such a condition may well reflect 
the American political tradtion, however, it is cleary at odds with 
European priniples of democracy.    

Funding is needed to ensure that all European citizens independent of 
their financial situation and employers are able to run for ICANN 
elections.  

To do so requires independent money to not blurr the message
with other interpretations.

So let us discuss how to set up an neutral fund to pool sufficient money
for those tasks, independent from any influences and transparent for
all internet users to understand what is going on.

How much money is required ? Estimates are that roughly 20 KEUR
are required each month to fund the costs for the infrastructure
to run a communicative ICANN european directors office.
So, in total approx. 500 KEUR will be required for the two-year term.
In addition, for each new At Large Member, we need one EUR for
the PIN letter.

What will be paid with that money ? Phone bills, internet
fees 8-), air plane tickets, general office infrastructure, hotel
bills, printing costs for brochures, conference/exhibition fees, etc.,
whatever is required to do the ICANN director job.

Who will collect the money ?
- volunteers should campaign in their communities, companies and regions
  for donations
- one bank account to allow people to donate money
- some neutral organisation should handle the cash flow with a small
  staff to handle bills and accounts

Who decides on where to spend ? The person that will be elected
is probably the best person to decide where to spend the money.
This person will probably choose to have some controlling institution
to balance against abuses. The money not spent after two years
might go to the general ICANN budget, but this is just an idea...

How to ensure transparency of the money flow ? It sounds a little
radical, but technically, it does not sound very difficult to
have a website online with the full electronic transaction
record of the banking account, together with scans of the
relevant paperwork. Yes, it might frighten a few potential
funders from giving money. It will not allow anonymous contributions.
With the latest european experiences in transparency topics (namely
Santer, Kohl, Chirac, maybe others), it might not be a bad
idea, after all 8-)

>From talks I had in the last 4 weeks it looks like some diverse
scientific, political, economic and business groups might be willing
to support such a funding model for now.

So with this mail I explicitly ask

    all the candidates, especially those that already seem
    to be well-funded 8-), the following question:

	Will you lobby your backing institutions to give at least
	some amount of money you are willing to spend for your
	candidate, even if your candidate is not elected ?

    all those willing to participate in the funding debate:

	Will you help raise some funds by giving a few speeches
	at local/regional groups (be they political, scientific,
	businesses or whatever), asking them to pay into the fund ?

If this plan sounds acceptable, lets start doing it. Its
late, but not too late.




P.S.: If you wonder what my non-exclusive role in this will be:
 a) find some bank account held by a neutral fund collection organisation
 b) find fundraisers
 c) support this fund with some money of my own

And, no, there's no webpage for this effort right now -- maybe soon.
If you want to ask private questions about this proposal, send mail to me
at pi@LF.net.

-- 
MfG/Best regards, Kurt Jaeger                                  20 years to go !
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