We volunteers for the Team99%Fundraisers had our first organizational meeting on August 17. This is the agenda we dealt with:

Hello and welcome to this first planning session of the c99 fundraising committee/group. The list of us on this message is my collation of those of you who volunteered to join, by comment or by private message as well as those who have written fundraising essays.
Some of the latter group may not have personal time available to devote to the committee, and our inclusion of them won't extend to waiting for their input/responses to our working PM round robins, but their input (when & if) will be invaluable, and we'll want to keep them informed as we invent our sausage machine. If I've missed anybody who belongs on either list, please say so in your responses, so I can add them and pm them with this opener.
1.We need to operate under two simple, inflexible rules: The first is, "Everything we come up with needs JtC's prior approval." Naturally, I'm not talking about him having to inspect our rivets; we just want to make damn sure he sees and signs off on the architectural drawings. We won't even need to bother him except for final approvals, because dkmich is a volunteer as well as one of the site moderators, and will know when we need to run a thought or idea by JtC.
2. The second rule should be, "Everything we do should further the goal of self-funding a people's blog in a way that makes assisting accessible to everyone." I predict this rule will prove to be our most powerful tool, and is in any case necessary to what we want to accomplish.
3. We have to have transparency in our proceedings as well as our accomplishments; if we dare to presume to do things in the name of the people, we must have their eyeballs on our deeds. I'll want to publish this as a post from the fundraising committee. I would incorporate amendments from those of you who wished all or part of your input to be specifically cited. I think if we made this a regular way to report to the blog members we could accomplish several good things at once. One of them is transparency without having to think twice or bite one's tongue in a working PM response. The original post has to be unedited, of course; we ain't gonna disfunction like the Congresscritters.
4. We should be as non-hierarcial as possible, commensurate with routine efficiency. We want to draw in as large a pool of diverse talents as possible to our committee and we want everyone to feel empowered to speak up with a suggestion or observation, without thinking they need to be sub-committee chairs or some such. That doesn't mean we won't naturally gravitate toward sub groups we're interested in or good at.
Some committee members will be good with taking care of the details of getting a donation packed, shipped, marketed, auctioned, and they'll know which donating artist/craftsperson needs their help or reassurance. Some members will be able to relate to and aid members who find ways to (literally) manufacture the donation money (in Rusty 1776's fundraiser, 42's comment). We'll do better networking the right committee members with the needing users, and users themselves will start reaching out to the right sub-group, where anyone might answer.
5. Setting up this way means we'll be leaning on secretarial skills (the way the real world works) heavily, at least to get started. Fortunately, dkmich has specifically volunteered to assist there, and I figure others will as well. It also means nobody is yet "in charge" of publishing for the group we're forming, so we have an immediate problem: Who should clear essays published in the name of the group? Shiz PM'd me last night and I suggested publishing without waiting for me to read it (we're talking Shiz here, I knew it would be great) but we need an inspector. I suggest we ask dkmich to do that, at least at the start.
6. We need a proper group name. It should be transparent, yet invite further inquiry. I suggest we use C99p fundraising group, or C99p fundraising committee. People on and off the site who don't know what we're fundraising for will be tempted to see, and may learn something. We should avoid a cutesy or flippant name because we're building something new here; we have to convey we take our work seriously and that it's worth others taking it seriously. JtC told me he's behind us 200%, and to just ask for what help he can give. Right now, we need two things from him: a group page and link, and a report of incoming funds monthly, broken down into recurring and one-time contrib totals. For him to give us a page and link, we need to pick a name.
Please, all committee volunteers, respond to the six numbered paragraphs, and I'll add whatever you like before we publish tomorrow afternoon, along with a small summary of what's been accomplished, but three big shout-outs: Thanks to [elenacarlena http://caucus99percent.com/comment/156150#comment-156150] for our funding thermometer, thanks to LeChienHarry for finding the POP Money solution to Paypal and thanks to JtC for trusting us with this.
David

I'll include part of my response to the team during discussion. You'll note that I'm not including direct quotes from other volunteers, but if you must know what each of us said (or thought) by all means come find out by joining our team and being part of our work.

Dallasdoc, dkmich, how about if I include direct PMs to JtC as part of my general secretary duties? What I would do is send him two messages for each of our sessions. One would be the entire group pm we've used. The other would be a short but comprehensive summary that would boil down the first one for JtC. When we have specific requests of JtC --as we do today-- I'd send a third pm for that session. What do you think, everyone, is this OK?
dkmich, on your #1, thank you. Your communication suggestions are all good, and I'll see about setting them up in the next four or five days. If you've already asked JtC to set us up under Team99% we should go for it, because we need to get started as a group on the blog as soon as just before we publish the final notes of this session. I take and agree with the point that we should have 'fundraising' in our name, but we can always amend that in a couple of weeks if we still feel it necessary. Also, if we're adding "fundraising to support a people's blog" I think we'll get to the same place.
On #2, JtC would need to make the decision whether to add Square Cash. I hope he does, because the more ways to pony up, the more ponies we'll get. Keeping in mind that it took JtC a morning's work to set up his end of POP Money, I agree we need to research the details so (if he agrees to add it) the mechanics of sign-up will be as brief and painless as possible. Anyone of us who does the research can enlighten the rest of us in session two.
On #3, yes, and we definitely need Elena's instruction. An essay from you and Elena on the subject would be very useful and informative. That is the sort of general site-user instruction which will help build our efforts and the spirit of the blog. It wouldn't need 'inspection' either: You'd be publishing as the experts on the subject.
On #4 you are again correct, and I expect us to rely on ongoing subscriptions eventually. The whole numbers and sources of income thingy will be the subject of our next planning group pm, sent out a couple hours after this session is published as an essay.
Your TO DO lists look good; we don't need everything on JtC's list shared but he should have it handy. An essay on the costs of running a blog would be very useful, however. More on that in session two.

Session two (organizing) will start as soon as I post the group private message. We'll be talking about various kinds of fundraising and making decisions about directions and goals to aim for. I want to encourage everyone interested in doing so to join our team. What we are trying to build has to be very broad-based, and we want a large team. Don't make the (false) assumption that you have nothing to bring to the team; we will find your clever parts and ask you to put them to work. JekyllnHyde posted a list which we all should contemplate:

1. It is incredibly time consuming and requires lots of patience.
2. Every inquiry needs to be addressed and catered to.
3. It requires persistence, lots of it.
4. Creativity in getting one's message across is an added bonus.
5. Luck and timing are intangibles over which most of us have little to no control.

Note that JnH (a noted and noteworthy fundraiser for years) doesn't say anything about needing technical skills. Fundraising is about dealing with people. If you care to join the team, say so here in the comment thread or send me a private message; you'll then be on the next group pm.
I'm going to publish this report to the blog members and then go visit with what dkmich and LeChienHarry have dug up for our team's communications, so I may not be immediately available to respond to comments, but I will answer (or find answers for) every question.