[imc-baghdad] imc-baghdad mailing list

[Sascha Meinrath]

On Sat, 10 May 2003, sam rossiter wrote:

> 3.
> I fully support using the UCIMC as fiscal sponsor- do
> they/you have a seperate account for such things? or
> would the funding come direct from UCIMC funds?

we would need to fundraise to fill an account with funds to disburse.
basically, when funding comes in for one of the projects we sponsor, it's
earmarked and that project can then draw upon these funds as needed.  it
would be great to one day have additional funding as an organization to
disburse to projects we fund (but see below under tactical media fund),
but right now we simply don't have extra funding as an organization to do
so.

> "Hi all, I'd like to set a SUNDAY May 11, 2003 (Noon
> GMT) deadline for accepting fiscal sponsorship from
> the UCIMC. If people have concerns with moving forward
> on this, please raise them now (likewise, of you
> support the idea, feel free to make your opinion
> known)."
> Would UCIMC have the resources to meet all the urgent
> equipment needs? If not how much shortfall would there be?

unfortunately, no -- the UCIMC actually has a surprisingly small budget
(almost all of our funding goes directly to rent & utilities).  so we
would need to fundraise to get the funding to disburse to IMC-Baghdad.

> 4. I propose that we contact the tactical media fund and the global
> south fund to make up any shortfall. We could do this on the agreement
> that we then fundraise for these funds.

o.k. here's where it gets interesting -- i'm one of the co-founders of the
tactical media fund and the global south fund.  there's a couple things to
understand -- the UCIMC is fiscal sponsors for the tactical media fund and
the global south fund is a project of the tactical media fund (got all
that ;).  the global south fund (GSF) has received funding to make
micro-grants (up to $500 except in cases of extreme emergency) -- but as
yet, we haven't finished setting up the processes for distributing these
funds.  i think this certainly fits the mission of the GSF, and might make
for a great test-case for starting/catalyzing funding disbursements.  to
get the process started, i would send a proposal to gsf at ucimc.org.

as for general tactical media fund (TMF) support -- currently, we're
awaiting funding, so we don't have anything to distribute yet.  but
IMC-Baghdad supporters might want to contact folks (send an e-mail to
tmf at ucimc.org) officially alerting people to our needs.

o.k. now that i've finished switching hats in rapid succession, let me
know if folks have questions.

> 5. Is it possible to offer the newspaper group a website which will only
> accept arabic script for 'articles' but will allow English characters as
> 'comments'?  This IMHO would make the site a lot easier to
> moderate/maintain (see previous comments about SPAM) whilst still
> allowing for english speaking people to engage with discussion. I also
> think that this would place the emphasis for translation on us, rather
> than with the overstretched people in Bagdad. On the Bristol site we
> certainly don't have the added pressure of making sure the articles are
> translated into Arabic, why should we expect Bagdad to do this for us?

this reminds me, the UCIMC has resources that are available to our
sponsored projects (e.g., e-mail lists, grant database, etc.)...  we
should probably put together an enhaustive "wish-list" as the UCIMC might
be able to help with some of IMC-Baghdad's needs.

in solidarity,

--sascha meinrath
urbana-champaign IMC