I’m confused about the mathematics of a a fee-paying membership society. I’m having a hard time seeing how that would generate more than a modest fraction of current revenues.
I’m confused why you think this is required, I don’t think Michael implied it would.
The society wouldn’t be a good replacement for CEA unless it could attract significant major donor support. As the next paragraph implies, there’s no reason for major donors to support the society if they judge an alternative vendor to be more effective in delivering conferences, etc. As a result, the society would either have to adapt its programs to meet the scoring metrics of the big donors (in which case the democratic nature of the organization isn’t doing much work; the money is still calling the shots) or it would lack funding to perform those functions (in which case the organization isn’t effective on those functions).
As my third paragraph suggested, there are functions the membership society could potentially run on member revenue and small donations. But that is a significant tradeoff.
I’m confused why you think this is required, I don’t think Michael implied it would.
The society wouldn’t be a good replacement for CEA unless it could attract significant major donor support. As the next paragraph implies, there’s no reason for major donors to support the society if they judge an alternative vendor to be more effective in delivering conferences, etc. As a result, the society would either have to adapt its programs to meet the scoring metrics of the big donors (in which case the democratic nature of the organization isn’t doing much work; the money is still calling the shots) or it would lack funding to perform those functions (in which case the organization isn’t effective on those functions).
As my third paragraph suggested, there are functions the membership society could potentially run on member revenue and small donations. But that is a significant tradeoff.