Hi Ben
Thank you very much for taking the time to draft this proposal. I do have a couple of questions and comments, which are directly related to my own background and experience (or lack, thereof). First of all, I have been very impressed with your skills and capability in understanding and using social media and other contemporary forms of electronic communication. Your newsletter was great. But please understand I am a retired former chemical company manager and materials scientist by education. While I am computer literate, I have no real sensitivity as to the details of what you are proposing....and I barely appreciate the current language of marketing and media you use in your proposal. Accordingly, when I read your proposal, I revert to my experience base, and present the following questions:
1. As a community we need much better communication and engagement, but EXACTLY what do you intend to do over the next 3 quarters?
2. e-NABLE is largely a volunteer community, and we do pay for some things. $1500 per month is not an insignificant sum. How do I reconcile what we need, what you are proposing to provide, and the financial support you suggest?
3. Basically, you are suggesting we contract with you for $13,500 over a nine month period to obtain much better communication, marketing and engagement tools and capabilities. That is why I'm asking what specifically do we get for that expenditure. Am I viewing this correctly? If not, what am I missing?

I apologize if my questions are blunt...but all my corporate experience was based upon looking at an expenditure, and evaluating the proposed return on investment.
Regards, Bob

Hi, Ben. It does not appear that we have the access permissions needed to add comments to your draft proposal (the Google Doc). Please update that so we can add comments.

As a global (non)organization with challenging brand identity and diverse membership, it would be great to have someone responsible for stitching all of our communication and collaboration components together. @danielu, I think you'll see that hub.e-nable.org is the platform we wanted. Ben's role would be to create and get informatino flowing between hub.e-nable.org and our many "spokes" all over the world (see what I did there?).

Ben's proposal is not to create a website. It's to help create coherence within and between our various websites and social media. I know Ben and think he'd be great for in this role. I'm very supportive.

@bobrieger With regard to the amount requested, $1500/month was what used to support toward Jen Owen's work. This new project is not the same as blogging, maintaining ETF, creating marketing materials etc., but it is a project that addresses many of the same organizational needs, appropriate to our current configuration. The "job" requires considerable focus, commitment, responsibility and accountability, which is apparently and I think we've learned that it is to much to expect that job will be fulfilled by an unpaid uncontracted volunteer. So that's why I think the framework makes sense.

But because it is indeed real money, more clarity on specific activities and deliverables will be helpful.

Thanks for the explanation, Jon......I agree that more clarity on specific activities and deliverables would be very helpful in order to better understand the investment.

It's good to have your input a Daniel!