To provide a stable basis for effective generation of income sufficient to enable regional chapters to operate vigorous programmes to support and promote digital humanities, and for ADHO centrally to provide effective support for its constituent members and to administer those programmes and activities that are best carried out centrally or at a super-regional level.
To provide a framework for collaborative fundraising to support initiatives at regional and global level.
ACH receives income mostly/entirely from its member subscriptions. Of the $65 standard rate, $50 goes to Kluwer for subscription to CHum ($55/$50 for reduced rate memberships). The basis of ACH income is therefore $15 (or $5) per member. With a membership of a little over 130, annual income in recent years has therefore been a little over $2,000.
Membership of ALLC is by subscription to LLC. ALLC receives 15% of both personal and institutional subscriptions to the journal, plus 50% of the profits. In 2002 there were 369 institutional subscriptions and 131 personal, with subscription rates of £133 and £48 respectively. Over the past few years the annual income of ALLC has been between £12,000 and £14,000.
TEI derives its main income from institutional subscriptions. The rate varies according to size and geographical location.
The ALLC model has proved to be a most effective one. There is every incentive for both the publisher (OUP) and the association to put energy into making the journal a success in terms of content and subscription levels. The more successful the journal, the greater the revenue to both Association and publisher.
The ACH model is not seen as a good one, since the returns to the Association from increased personal subscriptions are marginal, and no revenue is received from institutional subscriptions.
The subscription-only basis of TEI has proved to be a problem, in that immediate and practical benefits of membership tend to be seen as nebulous.
It is proposed that the funding model for ADHO should be a modified version of the ALLC model. The basis would be adoption of a single print publication and a coherent group of electronic publications. The income derived from these publications will constitute the principal regular revenue for ADHO and its regional chapters. The publications aspect of the proposal is described in the Publications section of this paper.
Since the proposals tie the funding so closely to the publications, there is of necessity considerable overlap between the issues raised in this section of the paper and those discussed in the Publications section.
It is proposed that:
Preliminary financial assessments suggest that even with no additional institutional subscriptions, and the addition only of existing ACH members as subscribers to LLC, the proposed funding model is just about sustainable, although the level of centrally funded ADHO activity would have to be very modest.
At the same time, each regional chapter would have considerable incentive to work hard to increase the number of institutional and personal subscriptions in its region, and the potential is there for robust and viable regional chapters and a vigorous core of centrally administered activities.
On current membership levels, only three regional chapters would be viable in the immediate future: Europe (ALLC), N America (ACH) and Asia and Pacific (to be established).
Three pdf files are linked below. The first shows in tabular form the estimated income for ADHO on the basis of the 2002 subscription rates for LLC, the institutional and personal subscriptions in 2002, and the personal subscription numbers for ACH in 2002, with overlapping ALLC/ACH subscriptions counted only once (28 in total). The data is broken down by geographical region.
The second shows projected income distribution in chart form. The chart is based on the estimated figures in the above table, and assumes 8,000 GBP retained by ADHO centrally to support the editors of LLC and the proposed joint electronic journal at a rate of 4,000 GBP each.
The third is a table showing projected income based on 2003 subscription rates for LLC, and what the author considers to be a modest set of 'recruitment targets' for LLC subscription, which should be achievable in the short to medium term. Naturally this is a numbers game that could be played in a number of different ways! It is hoped it will help to promote thinking about what levels of subscription might be realistic if we can engage the whole community in an effective way, promote and encourage new ideas, and offer a more imaginative range of member services.