Business Plan

Objective:

This website is a social networking site aimed at providing Vietnamese boat people and their families with a strong community in which they can interact and share their experiences.

Intentions of site:

    •    Allow individuals to share their stories regarding leaving Vietnam and living on the islands
    •    Allow boat people and their family members to network with others who have undergone similar experiences, as many             who have never gone through such an ordeal cannot understand the lifelong effects that it has.
    •    Inform users of the site about conditions on the islands and the repercussions that boat life had/has on this                            community
    •    Create forums divided by island of inhabitance to organize user contributions
    •    Create scholarship or support fund—funded by users of the site—to help children of Vietnamese boat people attend                 college.

Costs:

This website will be fairly low cost, as it is primarily a text-based site.  However to cover costs I will look to grants from the following organizations.
    •    Asian-American foundations
    •    Immigrant Foundations
    •    Anti-war foundations
Because of the intimate nature of the website I would prefer to not have intrusive ads on the website that detract from the close community feel.  
The funds provided by the users would not be used in supporting the website.  They will only go towards a scholarship fund for deserving individuals.

Maintenance:

The basic information on this site is historical, documenting the conditions of the various islands that the boat people inhabited.  This information is not likely to change and will not require extensive maintenance.  The contributions if the users will make up the bulk of the website, providing personal anecdotes and comments about the experience.  This portion of the website relies upon the users.  I plan on implementing a tagging system so that users can mark user contributions that are of primary interest.  This will be the main form of organizing the material on the website.  However, I plan on reviewing the contributions on a daily basis to maintain the quality of the entries.  With the tagging system in place it should not be difficult to pinpoint any contributions that detract from the aim of the site and subsequently edit them.

Laura Chau

2008-05-02