Minutes of Asha Seattle meeting on 01/21/09 Venue : RTC LWSD No. 414, Morton Johnson Room, Redmond, WA Attendees: Rajiv, Sri, Hareesh, Sandeep, Vikram, Binay, Amrutha, Kalpana, Pooja, Tulika, Tanuja, Srijan, Aruna, Kannan, Vibhavaree, Sumedha, Ken, Nagendra, Poorna, Aanchal, Saurabh, Saumya, Vijay, Karthik, Sri Item 1: Fundraising and PR team (see charter below) Presenters: Pooja / Kalpana Manage donor, sponsor relationships, and other PR activities. Activities: Connecting with Asha-wide Developing standard contracts to contact outside partners Managing event specific contracts To make use of a board of senior members A central point to kick-off the events over a calendar year Donor relationships and communication management Sponsor relationships and communication management Define policies for corporate grants Expand Give campaign to whole of NW Creating and maintaining PR material Creating Asha brand - writing up Asha’s differences compared to other organizations Partnership with similar organizations Revisiting the website from a donor’s perspective – e.g. stocks donation Next steps – team formation, roles, prioritization, set goals for years Team – Kalpana, Tulika, Anupa, Tanuja, Pooja – 5 members right now. But need help from others. Questions: Yahoo Group? - Yes Newsletter part of this team? – Very well functional. So presently not a part of this team Updates to Main Asha? – Every meeting Special powers? – Not really. They discuss, share, and lead the items. But no transfer of power to this team Any goals for the coming year? – Funds wise, yes. We will define the rest later. Overlapping between this team and chapter coordination team? – Chapter coordination team was doing the stuff. But good to have this team. Define policies? Yes, it is definitely recommended to define the policies of these types of charters? What is transferred to chapter coordination? – Asha Internship. Vote: No need to vote. Asha Seattle - Fundraising/PR team Charter   Objectives Fundraising Outreach - Community awareness in Seattle Partnerships - with other like minded organizations Create Asha Branding and PR Material (including web presence) Fundraising Stay connected with Asha-Wide fundraising and publicity activities. Establish fundraising board with connected senior members.  Kick off event teams, maintain event calendar and stay connected with respective event teams for coordination amongst teams. Evaluate new fundraising opportunities and existing events for viability. Sponsor relationship and communication management and maintain ongoing database. Expand giving campaign beyond Microsoft to other Northwest organizations and companies. Outreach Presence at non-Asha events Talks and presentation in community events Partnerships (Corporate partnerships/ Non-corporate partnership) Generate standard agreement for event partnerships and co-advertising. Generate event specific contracts as and when needed with appropriate legal assistance. Internal Asha Seattle Policies for co-advertisement and partnership. Establish policies for partnerships with other organizations. Corporate grants policies and strategy. PR Create PR materials. Donor relationship and communication management and maintain donor database. Establish media contacts - radio, electronic and paper media. Distinguishing Asha from other organization -Creating Asha Brand. Revisit Website status from donor perspective.   Newsletter. Item 2: Recording Asha Seattle decisions Presenters: Nagendra We can maintain two different formats Internal or external? – There is no reason why these decisions should be not external. On the web page may be. Usability thing – what is the best way to present? Project declines are never recorded nowadays Ownership ?- Who will do it? Want to separate policy and project decisions, but may be should be recorded in a single place/database This is a good idea – but we may need to come up with a more detailed proposal. Maintain a single document for the policies. We also need roles and charters document Questions: Every decision/policy decisions alone? – All Meeting minutes sufficient? – Not all the time. E.g. dollar/Rs. Approval Why project decisions? – We have different formats. What is the problem? – Inability to quickly look at a single place to look at the policies What is holding us together? – Our ideals Vote: We will record all the policies (operating guidelines), make them public, one person owns the onus of making it on to the web? 20 Yes, 1 Abstain, 0 No Item 3: Asha web site ad Presenters: Tulika Realtor 3% income to Asha – in return put an ad on the website. No legal objection. It is the chapter’s decision. – Question asked last time Events page? Main page? Beyond money, has a lot of relationship with lots of folks. Finding sponsorships, and selling tickets etc. Make it event based – evaluate it. Click through rates. This is one of the things that PR team should own. Where are we drawing lines? Questions: Did she sign-up for the activities? – Not now. She can gather 30-40 families – can do publicity for algorithms etc. Do we risk losing donors with having Ads? – It’s like shop to donate. Can we not use Google Adsense? – We can’t have control. One time vs. future proposals? – Decision can be Ad-hoc, but we need to come up with criterion Votes: All those in favor of allowing the ad on the events (Geetanjali and Marathon) website for 6 months and she is not paying for it and will return 3% of her earnings (0 to something)? – 2 Yes, 15 No, 7 Abstain No new proposals should be brought until a policy has been voted on?  19 Yes, 2 No, 3 Abstain Item 4: Chapter and Project coordinator updates Presenters: Binay Starting UW meeting Time – 7:30 to 9:30 PM 1st and 3rd Week of every month in Redmond - RTC LWSD No. 414, Morton Johnson 4th Thursday of every month in Seattle - UW - HUB Room No. 304D Ken to collect the agenda items Conscious effort to go there Weekend meeting - may be in the future For now Tapoja to moderate May be we can have project presentations to Thursday meeting Item 5: Project coordinator updates Presenters: Vibhavaree, Nagendra, Hareesh, and Vijay Project site visits – please take care Item 5: Asha Seattle blog Presenters: Saurabh Saurabh wants to put all the news on a single blog Wants to make it Asha wide down the line For now Seattle specific news, single location. Disclaimers – by news Published articles by others We shouldn’t host any place to discuss? It’s not Asha news No comments Asha Seattle Blog – posts made by individual members - no comments, discussions Link from blog to website, not the other way Questions: Allowing comments by volunteers? - for now, no individual comments Vote: Asha Seattle Blog – posts made by individual members - no comments, discussions. 20 Yes, 0 No, 3 Abstain Minutes taken by Hareesh Veldandi

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