[Osmf-talk] Should OSMF run another microgrants round?
Craig Allan
allan at iafrica.com
Sun Oct 24 21:54:07 UTC 2021
Dear All,
Yes, a further microgrants round could be useful to OSM. That said,
some improvements may give benefits. Previous contributions are noted.
I reinforce others before me and add my thoughts:
Purpose - OSMF should be very clear internally about the purpose of
running a microgrants programme.
Microgrants should serve only two purposes.
1. Building the greater OSM organisation, emphasising building
leadership, building membership and teaching mapping skills.
2. Building the OSM IT infrastructure, emphasising robust and resilient
systems.
Note that:
1. Humanitarian purposes are out of scope. HOT and many others cover
that aspect pretty well.
2. Building our database must be voluntary. Paid data collection is
against policy.
Like Simon suggested, I would separate the two purposes above into two
distinct funds and two separate workflows - possibly even two committees.
With regard to the organisation-building microgrants, some thoughts:
Conflicts of Interest: Yes, the evaluation committee must strictly
follow COI rules.
Grant Application Support - There are writers who may benefit from
support in preparing a micro-grant application. I believe we should try
to offer such support, but only prior to the formal submission of the
application.
M&E - I can't find out if our micro-grants succeeded in doing anything
of enduring value. We need some monitoring and evaluation reporting. For
micro-grants I'd only want a few formal measures of progress during the
process and formal confirmation of the deliverables at the end. These
measures must be published.
Capital Goods - Last time, several grant requests wanted expensive
hardware. Drones, Computers, Cameras etc. Where hardware can be very
explicitly linked to purpose 1 above, and where the hardware remains
property of the local structure after the project, then maybe a capital
grant is ok, otherwise no. In general, I would rather build human
capital then provide someone with a nice toy.
Rentals/Fees - Many grant requests asked for consumable services, like
catering, airtime, bus-fare, room rental, use of the BBB server, swag
etc. Where this is proportional to the proposal I think it can be
supported. I suggest that we don't support stipends.
Communications - Yes, it is deeply frustrating that the micro-grants
programme failed to communicate itself to membership and the greater
public. However OSM doesn't (yet) have a marketing strategy, so just
hiring someone to "just do something" will be an auto-fail event. In
the interim, we should patch over that gap by writing a blog post or two
to keep the membership informed.
With regard to microgrants for building a resilient robust IT
infrastructure, I know little about those dark arts. I believe that our
greatest weakness is the depth of our bench. If so, some courses to
upskill willing and capable members eg. Chef courses, and providing
sandbox environments for learning sysop work without destroying the sys,
might be useful micro-projects. Our Engineering members will need to
guide us.
Craig Allan
OSM: cRaIgalLAn
On 2021/10/23 17:24, Simon Poole wrote:
>
> 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
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