Draft of Financial Ideas

The ideas below are all results of brainstorming sessions I've had with Jerry, some alumni, my friends, and other grad students in my lab and comments/suggestions I've received back from the other Executive Council members, other alumni, and some of the recent discussions on the mailing list. Most of them need some careful thought and critique. If you have any other ideas or comments on those listed below, please e-mail us at naaa@nasa-academy.org.

RAISING MONEY (for both the NAAA and the Academy in general)

• (large capital) donations
• operating-expense (small) sized donations
• alumni contributions
  • What is the best way to approach alumni?
  • Should we offer "contribution-only" services
  • Hit them up at least once a year during the annual membership drive and suggest as part of their membership renewal that they give something to the NAAA
  • Put the budget in the material we used to solict their membership form and donations
  • When the NAAA was formed, we said that we didn't want to require dues. Do we want to revisit this?
• form NAAA investment club
• endowment
  • This is the idea Jimmy Talbot (GSFC '95) had
  • Primary goal is "income", rather than "capital appreciation"
  • Means investing in very conservative stocks, mutual funds, or bonds that usually generate PREDICTABLE income
• Space Grant
  • Should probably have them support the group project(s) every summer as this is what they have done in the past
• Corporate donations
  • Companies could give other things like airline tickets, satellites, stock, etc.
• Speakers during the summer
  • Hit up certain speakers during the summer to donate something of value to the NAAA that could then be raffled
• friend of the Academy scholarship fund
  • We could approach companies and other friends of the Academy to see if they'd be willing to fund a few RA slots.
  • Maybe they could use these to send fresh-outs to NASA for the summer before they started work with a particular company.
  • It kind of changes the focus of the Academy a little.
  • I think companies would be more willing to provide a sholarship than support a group project.
• get NASA to mandate that a certain percentage of Space Grant's budget goes to funding the Academy/NAAA scholarships
• increase the amount of Center DDF funds (I'm not sure how MSFC, ARC, and DFRC pay for their portion of the Academy) used for the Academy to include RA stipends
• allocate money directly from NASA's budget for the Academy
  • drawback: This eliminates one of the reasons I think Dr. Soffen included Space Grant in the first place - if they're paying for part of the RAs stay, they will be more likely to send quality students.
  • might not necessarily replace money from Space Grants; instead, it could replace the DDF money (which is iffy in itself)
  • regardless of where the money comes from, if the space grants loose a "vested interest" in the students they send the quality of applicants could suffer
• approach EduTech to set up a Mildred Wyatt memorial scholarship fund
• general fund raising (see below)

GENERAL FUND RAISING IDEAS

• Create a 12 month Calendar using Hubble images
  • have spectacular pictures and explanations of the science in layman's terms
  • hits two goals
    • public outreach
    • fundraising
  • requires an initial investment (and probably outside backing) but those nice glossy calendars sell for $15+ each
  • for a Hubble calendar or something similar we could probably get the technical support of an office at Goddard.
• Have some prominent aerospace professional donate something of value (signed Viking book from Jerry, autographed copy of Dr. Mather's book, something from Alan Ladwig) and raffle it off. This could be done every few months. It's a good way to use our contacts developed through the Academy and a good way for speakers we've had to contribute to what we're doing. We could even buy stuff to raffle.
• Keep selling shirts, bags, pins, etc. Estimated maximum profit < $300/year (which will go to cover the set-up charges and shipping the stuff out to alumni)
• Offer something for alumni contributions or perhaps something special for the top donator. Similar to what PBS does with their fund drives.
• Develop our own NASA stuff - shirts, caps, etc. This is an idea that Andrew Hoppin wanted to pursue after SAII.
  • could sell at space related conferences or events over the summer
  • if we developed a cool poster or T-shirt, we might be able to have alumni convince their college book store to sell them for a percentage. Might make some good money if you consider all of the colleges that are represented by academy alumni
  • if we could just come up with a good design something like t-shirts would be a low-risk low initial investment, relatively easy thing to do
• If we start looking for a corporate sponsor for the Congress really soon, maybe in addition to sponsoring the Congress/banquet/whatever, that they would also provide some money for airfare for academy members not in the immediate area. I doubt they would support EVERYONE, and how would we decide who gets some help and who does not.
• Form an investment group with a certain percentage "kicking back" to the NAAA.
• marketing products
  • something that could potentially really help the NAAA in the short term (next couple years) come up with several thousand dollars per year
  • if done right, and if we can come up with clever ways to market a product to the general public using the Internet or something, it could grow into something much bigger.
• have alumni contact their alma mater's alumni associations to see how they raise money

ADDITIONAL EXPENSES WE MIGHT WANT TO THINK ABOUT

• We've already promised we would support 1 RA next summer. Maybe the goal the next year should be 4-5 RAs, because that is approximately the number of Space Grant Consortia that don't support the Academy. Using those two years as data points, we can then decide how many we would like to fund each year.
• Provide some financial support to the Academy group project. This is something that would be cool to do this year.
• Set up a travel fund so alumni can solicit these funds to attend conferences, etc. I think it would be one of the many "benefits" of being a member of the NAAA.
• Support alumni in other ways still TBD.
• Set up a fund to support research projects that the alumni can apply for. Kind of like our own mini-DDF.