The Monsoon Site says FREE with capital letters. Is it really? The better question to ask is what is free and what is not free?

Monsoon usually doesn't charge for things that can be done with existing resources (people, software, equipment, etc.) If your request requires an additional purchase or unusual cost to Monsoon, then you will be asked to pay for that.

One of the common concerns is travel expenses. What we can accomplish in an hour will take a week over email or what might take one week to do face-to-face would take a year to complete over e-mail.

So it's much better if a Monsoon staff member can travel to your location. The question is who will pay? Here are the basic guidelines, but of course it really depends on circumstances. 

• If a request comes for a project that  serves a narrow audience and a specific need, the requesting client will be asked to cover all project expenses (including all travel). 
• If a project serves a broad purpose, Monsoon will happily negotiate the sharing of expenses with the requesting party.
• If a project is initiatied by Monsoon, the area leadership, or international, Monsoon will cover all expenses. 
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• Our advice is that if you make a long range plan for your project, include travel expences in the budget.

The famous artist Da Vinci spent four years painting the Mona Lisa, then left it unfinished. After eight years, he picked up his brush and worked on it another three years before completing it. Unlike water painting, oil painting allows you to paint over and over. There is no such thing as a “finished” product for this kind of artist. He can always find more things to correct and change. At some point, he must say, “It is complete”. 

The same thing applies to media production work, we must set a deadline. If we don't, a couple things can happen:

• Distraction—the production staff may need to move on to other projects, thereby having less and less time to allocate to completing unfinished, undefined projects. 
• Abuse—Client may continually change every small detail, causing unnecessary delays. Sometimes the client will take the nearly finished product to a committee as the last part of the process, and end up wanting the whole thing re-done.

If you have local volunteers you can use, use them rather than Monsoon. We recommend that. Volunteers are people who are passionate about God’s work. They can become a valuable advocate, and promoter of Wycliffe. Sometimes, and with some volunteers, you might not get the speed and quality of work you need, but try using them. It's an investment, and sometimes you find a real jewel!

Monsoon is not modeled after a free lancing company, but rather we work like an in-house production team. If Monsoon was modeled after a regular free lancing media company, we would charge per hour. The more corrections a client requests, the more money the company can charge. Because we serve partner and sister organizations, we don't charge per hour. We are not in the place of a free lance company.