[Osmf-talk] Should OSMF run another microgrants round?

[Simon Poole]

Am 22.10.2021 um 22:59 schrieb Amanda McCann:
> Hello OSMers,
>
> In 2020 (& onwards) the OSMF ran a microgrants programme ( https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Microgrants ) , and distributed about €50,000 to 12 projects. You can read the report from the Microgrants Committee here: https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/File:OSMF_Microgrants_report_2020-21.odt
>
> The OSMF Board is often asked if we're going to do another round. No decision has been taken, but I and others are pleased with the results, and I am tempted to run a similar microgrants round again.
>
> But first I want to ask you, the OSM & OSMF membership. Do you think we should do it again?

While there is a lot to unpick here, I think that answer can only be 
"no" at least to a repeat in the 2020 form.

Please note that while I'm critical of the undertaking as a whole, and 
may mention a number of projects that I believe shouldn't have been 
financed by the OSMF, that doesn't mean that I'm of the opinion that 
they were not worthy of financing at all, just they were not in scope of 
the OSMFs activities and shouldn't have received funds out of the very 
limited resources available to the OSMF. Further note that I believe 
I've previously written all of this, so there is not really anything new 
here.

Governance failures

The report makes some obtuse references to conflicts of interest issues 
(these are well known), but doesn't detail nor proposes rules to avoid 
them in a next instance. I do not believe that this is an area where 
leaving things a bit ambiguous is helpful. Any project receiving funds 
needs to declare all relationships of any kind to OSMF officers, 
employees etc up front and rules need to be in place that make it clear 
when and when not these require projects to be disqualified.

The other governance issue is simply that the original governing 
document turned out to be, as expected, far too vague. Now it is 
understandable that for a first try you may need to leave some more 
wiggle room, but now after the first round I fail to see any recognition 
of yes, at least half of the projects boiled down to paid mapping (not 
to mention the body of applications as a whole). Something that anybody 
naively participating in the discussions drafting the governing document 
would have expected to been ruled out from the start.

In the project selection there was a clear tendency to outdo 
"humanitarian" orgs at their own game. I suspect this wasn't 
intentional, more just to have some projects funded out of the large 
pool of feel good "humanitarian" proposals submitted. The OSMF, at least 
currently, does not have sources of funding that fit the "get money from 
donors, take a cut for G&A, hand out to  projects with high marketing 
value for the donors" schema. This can be a very successful business 
model as we all know, but the OSMF cannot, nor should compete with the 
well funded organisations dedicated to doing that in the "humanitarian" 
space. The OSMF neither has sufficient funds nor did it receive them for 
that purpose.

Absence of marketing

Taking it at a given that at least 6 out of 12 projects had high 
marketing value even if a majority of those were outside of the OSMFs 
normal scope, it is head banging against all available walls insane that 
none of them was written up and was published as an OSMF originating 
story and then milked for maximum value.  If the OSMF ventures in to 
other players territory then we should try to get at least the same 
value out of it as they do. To be clear I would have suggested getting a 
paid professional to do the stories, not increasing the load on the 
volunteers running the show.

Conclusion

It seems that most of the projects concluded more or less successfully. 
2020 being what it was, that is no small achievement, kudos both to the 
microgrants group and the projects for that.

The committee points out that the software projects ran smoother and 
typically concluded early. By there nature they are different beasts 

than educational outreach or similar activities. Because of that I'm not 
convinced that putting software projects, community events, education 
initiatives all together managed by the same group with the same rules, 
funded out the same budget, makes a lot of sense and would suggest 
splitting these things up, maybe with a set of basic rules that are 
common to all, if this is to be repeated.




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