Ron Teitelbaum wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> I received a reply from Ton Roosendaal who runs the Blender Foundation.  He
> shared his experiences with grants, and said I could share his thoughts with
> you.
>
> I agree with Ton that if we are going to fund projects that a professional
> atmosphere, proper administration and management, will help to achieve
> better results.  We might consider funding research projects administered by
> a University, or managed by a company.
>
> Ron Teitelbaum
>
> From: Ton Roosendaal
>
> Hi,
>
>  From Blender Foundation experience:
>
> We've participated twice in the Google Summer of Code, grants for  
> students to work for two months on a coding project. Results of this is  
> very mixed; it mostly depends on the professional attitude of a  
> student. A downside of this approach is that it divides  
> volunteers/hobbiests a bit... students get paid for what others do for  
> free. That's why it is perceived like a lottery; some people just got  
> the luck to be granted.
>
> We've also hired a couple of times active volunteers to do servicing  
> (website, development support). In almost all cases, the contributions  
> they did while getting paid was less (quantitive as well as in quality)  
> than what they did for free.
>
> In 2004, a student of the Amsterdam University graduated on a research  
> on this topic, the results of a survey she did in the Blender community  
> is summarized here:
> http://download.blender.org/documentation/bc2004/Martine_Aalbers/ 
> results-summary.pdf
> I've asked her to also look at how financial rewards would work in our  
> projects. Her conclusion was that this has the danger of diminishing  
> motivation. In scientific research on other communities, this is called  
> "crowding out".
> Her entire paper is unfortunately only available in Dutch:
> http://download.blender.org/documentation/bc2004/Martine_Aalbers/ 
> MartineAalbers.pdf
>
> As an alternative, I then decided to experiment with another approach.  
> This became the "Orange Open Movie" project, which has resulted in the  
> 3D animation short "Elephants Dream". The target was to establish a  
> temporal but highly professional studio in Amsterdam, and invite key  
> members of the community to come over to work for half a year on  
> realizing a movie short.
> That project worked out great in all aspects. It helped Blender  
> development, it helped our 'brand', it increased commitment from the  
> active volunteers as well as from professionals.
>
> This leads to a separation of two groups of contributors to Blender;
> - volunteers: people who contribute to Blender without getting paid.
> - professionals: people who contribute to Blender as part of their  
> daytime job.
>
> It's important to realize that 'volunteers' still can be highly  
> professional in their contributions. For example a 3D developer working  
> for company XXX can contribute to Blender in his spare time still. This  
> seperation is not about quality of work, but about differencing ways  
> for how to support contributors.
>
> My current conclusion is that - when money gets involved - it's  
> important to participate in an existing professional environment, or to  
> create one yourself (like we did for studio Orange), or to help people  
> to setup a business to become 'professional'.
> We didn't give out large grants yet, but if we will do I would look at  
> sponsoring companies/organizations to hire Blender developers/artists  
> for projects.
>
> For volunteers, what works quite well is more incidental support:
> - sponsored hardware (we got boards from ATI and Nvidia for example)
> - small grants for creating documentation (or helping creating books)
> - organize events, and give volunteers expenses coverage, free access,  
> drinks/dinners
> - art/movie festivals with prizes
>
> -Ton-
>
>
>
>