Foundation/AGM2024/Election to Board/Answers and manifestos/Q06 Fundraising and Resource Development
Fundraising and Resource Development
How important do you think fundraising is for the OSMF, and what experience do you have in this area? Have you participated in direct fundraising, grant writing, or public speaking to raise funds?
Craig Allan - Q06 Fundraising and Resource Development
Fundraising is extremely important. Without funds we are nothing. I’ve previously worked for a charity doing fundraising and fund allocation and for a different donor where I handled grant-making. For the OSM Foundation I have connected the foundation to a workplace funding organisation “Benevity” which has the potential to raise a lot of funds. I’m working on improving our spreadsheet-based donor management system to a more capable database system with a view to expanding our reach to touch most commercial OSM data users. I have written and am improving a fundraising framework for the foundation. I want to reach more companies that use OSM in their commercial offerings and recruit them as corporate members. I am keen to start tapping the large private Foundations. I have close connections to the US fundraising environment.
Brazil Singh - Q06 Fundraising and Resource Development
In terms of experience, I’ve been actively involved in raising funds for various causes. I am an active member of 2024 OSMF Membership Drive, also I’ve led a group of 13 people from my university to raise funds for flood-affected people, which gave me hands-on experience in organizing and executing fundraising campaigns. This involved everything from planning the campaign, reaching out to potential donors, and managing the funds to ensure they were used effectively. While I haven’t yet had direct experience with grant writing or large-scale public speaking specifically for fundraising, I’m eager to expand my skills in these areas. I’m confident that my experience in organizing grassroots fundraising efforts can translate into success in larger fundraising initiatives for the OSMF. I’m ready to dive into learning more about grant writing and public speaking to ensure that OSMF can continue to grow and serve our global community.
Courtney Cook Williamson - Q06 Fundraising and Resource Development
Fundraising is one of the skills that I bring to OSM. I could write an entire manifesto on the many, many different kinds of fundraising that OSM could do that wouldn’t disrupt the free and open source culture of the project. The story and importance of OSM is one of the most compelling fundraising stories that I have ever encountered in my career. The truth, however, is that we don’t need a lot of fundraising, we just need a small amount of very smart fundraising. Given the enormous scale of OSM data usage, a few very well-placed and well-designed “calls to give” in a few smart locations online would likely fund the entire project. It is possible that if we did this successfully, there would be no need for corporate sponsorship. We might take it anyway, but we could choose whether we wanted to or not, based on the good of the project, and not on financial need. And, as mentioned in question 5 above: I helped concept, write and implement the new fundraising website at[1] and helped lead the broad base giving campaign on social media that raised more than £100k in 2023. I also helped update our corporate membership communications, including writing statements that have helped OSM secure significant gifts from several corporate sponsors.
Maurizio Napolitano - Q06 Fundraising and Resource Development
Fundraising is crucial for the OSMF’s long-term sustainability, and it’s important to operate within the ethical standards and transparency defined in the OSMF’s Fundraising Guidelines. While I have some experience in fundraising, particularly through grant writing, I wouldn’t consider myself particularly skilled at it. Most of the successful grants I’ve worked on were the result of teamwork and the support of a structured organization. When it comes to public speaking, I’m very comfortable when presenting in Italian, and my enthusiasm has often led to unexpected fundraising support. However, I’ve never made a speech directly to request funds—it has always been a consequence of the excitement I managed to communicate. In general, I’m not very good at directly asking for money.
Can Ünen - Q06 Fundraising and Resource Development
If the OSMF is going to take the road to build strong institutional structures and extend its operational capacity with more staff, or to have more programs and support towards communities and local chapters, then there needs to be solid fundraising efforts as well. I have experience in partnership development and dialogue, as well as grant proposal writing both from my time with Yer Cizenler and my last year with HOT. I am mostly comfortable and tend to thrive in in-person meet ups both by means of network building and ideation. I generally have a tendency to fill in the blanks during creative discussions and ideation which is mostly instrumental in mutual agreements and collaborative discussions.
Michael Montani - Q06 Fundraising and Resource Development
I believe sustainable fundraising is fundamental for the OSMF, at the very least to cover its operational costs and have a reasonable margin over the years, before even considering recruiting paid posts for any other matter. OSM has a good history of being able to scale massively with few paid staff, which I believe is honorable and impressive, but needed if we want to advance on some topics and maintain OSMF's organizational memory.
Recent events like the appearance of Overture Maps Foundation (read more at Q14) introduce some risks in fundraising as possible sponsors or donors being attracted from Overture Maps while taking advantage of OSM data but not directly supporting its operations. One solution could be to attract different donors maybe from big funds or institutions that would not choose Overture Maps as a first choice (ideally any public sector or non-Western entities), also in order to differentiate funding sources.
I have no experience in direct fundraising, but I happened to write grant applications (either as a YouthMapper when applying to a research fund sponsored by the USAID and The World Bank (read Q9), or budget expenditure proposals within the UN Secretariat). I regularly do public speaking to attract new clients during my everyday job. As basically most of the business in the UN is internal, with the UN mostly buying and selling services from itself and its agencies, I usually present our products to UN conferences or bilateral meetings, with the end goal of attracting UN clients to the programme I work for.
I am happy to gain additional experience on this front and to give an hand to work in opening relationships with potential institutional donors. Whether I would keep working for the UN or not, I feel to have an understanding of the institutional GIS scene and some contacts over there.
Andrés Gómez Casanova - Q06 Fundraising and Resource Development
I have no experience in fundraising, but it is vital for the foundation and the project in the long term.
Laura Mugeha - Q06 Fundraising and Resource Development
As the OSM project and community continue to expand globally, securing diverse and stable funding sources becomes increasingly important to support our infrastructure, community initiatives, and strategic goals. I believe fundraising is not just about securing financial resources but also about building relationships, increasing awareness of OSM, and engaging supporters who share our vision for open geospatial data.
I have experience in fundraising, having participated in these activities at both the community and organizational levels. My background spans work in the tech industry and the development sector, providing me with a diverse skill set and perspective on fundraising strategies. While my public speaking hasn't been exclusively focused on fundraising, I have presented at conferences and events, mainly presenting to various audiences on open geospatial data, FOSS4G, and digital development. These experiences have strengthened my ability to articulate the importance of OSM to diverse audiences and could be helpful in seeking additional funding sources.
Héctor Ochoa Ortiz - Q06 Fundraising and Resource Development
I believe that fundraising is key to making the OSMF do more for the project and ecosystem. I support the employment of a person dedicated to raising funds for the Foundation. The role model I believe we should follow is that of the Wikimedia Foundation, which last Fundraising campaign can be found here, and which manages to raise a significantly greater amount of money compared with the OSMF. The report clearly highlights how the campaign has evolved over the years, with lessons learned and what is expected to come in the future. However, one significant difference between Wikimedia and OSM is that most users in OSM come from third-party services. This needs to be accounted for, with a focus set on the service providers as donors to the project.
Español
Creo que la recaudación de fondos es clave para que la OSMF haga más por el proyecto y el ecosistema. Apoyo la contratación de una persona dedicada a recaudar fondos para la Fundación. El modelo a seguir que creo que deberíamos seguir es el de la Fundación Wikimedia, cuya última campaña de recaudación de fondos se puede encontrar aquí, y que logra recaudar una cantidad significativamente mayor de dinero en comparación con la OSMF. El informe destaca claramente cómo la campaña ha evolucionado a lo largo de los años, con lecciones aprendidas y lo que se espera en el futuro. Sin embargo, una diferencia significativa entre Wikimedia y OSM es que la mayoría de los usuarios en OSM provienen de servicios de terceros. Esto debe tenerse en cuenta, con un enfoque puesto en los proveedores de servicios como donantes del proyecto.
Arun Ganesh - Q06 Fundraising and Resource Development
Fundraising is a mission-critical activity for the sustenance of such a project and the guidelines are a good supporting document. Personally, I do not have experience with fundraising.
OSM Foundation's board election 2024: official questions
Q01 Motivation and Objectives
| Q02 Conflict of Interest Management
| Q03 Transparency and Accountability
| Q04 Strategic Vision and Sustainability
| Q05 Decision-Making and Collaboration
| Q06 Fundraising and Resource Development
| Q07 Handling Legal and Political Challenges
| Q08 State of the Map
| Q09 Your Community Contributions
| Q10 Promoting Community and Attracting Volunteers
| Q11 Technology and Innovation
| Q12 Data Quality and Protection
| Q13 Perspective on Open Source
| Q14 Perspective on Overture Maps
All board candidates' manifestos
2024 OpenStreetMap Foundation's: Board election - Voting information and instructions - Annual General Meeting
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