Re: [atlarge-discuss] Membership fees

[DannyYounger@cs.com]

Re:  << what do you get back from belonging to any of these three 
organizations, or hundreds of similar ones?   >>

Organizations that are properly funded have the capital to:

1.  Incorporate
2.  Subsidize fees associated with representatives' travel to necessary 
conferences
3.  Pay for member teleconferences
4.  Organize meetings and pay for the cost of the venue
5.  Pay for professional services, ranging from election services to 
Secretariat services.

All over the world people are accustomed to paying a membership fee when they 
join an organization.  Well-funded organizations invariably are more 
successful at lobbying than those with no capital.  This organization purportedly has 
over 1000 members.... if each paid a reasonable mininum membership fee of at 
least $50 (a lower amount than other similar organizations), then we would 
already have a budget of $50,000 that could readily subsidize designated 
representatives' travel to ICANN sessions in Montreal, Carthage, etc.  (The assumption, 
of course, is that the "members" care enough about the mission and goals of 
this organization to offer a modicum of financial support).

Will ICANNatlarge be sending the Chair of its Panel to Montreal to represent 
the interests of this community?  Of course not, it has no money.  Is it in 
the best interests of this community not to have a designated spokesman present 
at such events?

I have watched other groups, such as the IDNO, attempt to function without 
the benefit of a dues structure.  Those groups are gone.  They achieved nothing. 
 Other groups, that chose to establish membership fees, are still here:  the 
Business Constituency, the Intellectual Property lobby, etc. and they continue 
to successfully influence the decision-makers.  



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