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

[Mikel Maron]

> 1. Humanitarian purposes are out of scope.  HOT and many others cover that aspect pretty well.

How are “humanitarian purposes” defined in this statement?

Mikel

On Sunday, October 24, 2021, 5:54 PM, Craig Allan <allan at iafrica.com> wrote:

 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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