[Osmf-talk] Consultation on fundraising strategy

Mikel Maron mikel.maron at gmail.com
Tue Mar 21 13:38:53 UTC 2023


Olivier asked> Do we have materials that explain in a quick/effective way what is OSM and how the money they will provide will be used?
Yes, developing new communication materials is part of the campaign. This is an area where help from writers and designers, from all over the world, will be key.
Rocha suggested> propose to the board vote about being willing to accept government donations
No need to vote, we'll gladly take government money. This fundraising campaign will focus on diversification. Expect public sector money will take a long term effort to produce results. There are opportunities with governments and multilaterals like UN OCHA, mainly as programmatic grants. For example, there are some programs in the EU that support open source. If anyone comes across something that might fit, please let us know. We will look into these opportunities, and see what might fit.
-Mikel
* Mikel Maron * +14152835207 @mikel s:mikelmaron 

    On Tuesday, March 21, 2023 at 02:12:14 AM EDT, Emerson Rocha via osmf-talk <osmf-talk at openstreetmap.org> wrote:  
 
 I would propose to the board vote about being willing to accept government donations: several are directly and indirectly using OpenStreetMap data for years, even if to revalidate their own geodata.

Examples of how is used:

1. Going on use country by country varies. It's not straightforward to summarize, however it does exist, just not explicitly organized editing. I think they're likely to focus on fixing/improving features which are relevant for what department they work in, which both non international administrative boundaries (often the very first edits) and roads network be a common trend. Likely places with far more content, there's more heavy use. (this is something that could eventually be documented upfront on the OSM wiki)
2. But at international level, just to give an idea of tip of the iceberg: OpenStreetMap data is the second major dataset provider on UN OCHA data portal https://data.humdata.org/organization?sort=datasets%20desc, just after the World Bank (which is mostly for statistics, not what goes on OpenStreetMap). And from a significant amount of datasets by organization uploaders, quite often OpenStreetMap data and directly related ecosystem of tools are used in part of their data workflow (not hard to think, considering the world-level alternative tends to be proprietary or shapefiles). Also, the idea of "Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team United States Inc" be some kind of a bridge between humanitarian sector and OpenStreetMap is erroneous: first, by far, most used data from OpenStreetMap are from non organized editing at all, and then, from what HOTUSI actually brings for data on OpenStreetMap, buildings without any metadata (not even if they if they're a house) while take space on map and is viable have large numbers, have no use at all in emergency response (one starting point for what is used: https://humanitarian.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/imtoolbox/pages/242090029/Natural+Disaster+CODs); not even UN OCHA have any documented use for these generic buildings promoted by HOTUSI as "humanitarian mapping", but they have for so much more which OpenStreetMap have. I could talk much more here, but I'm keeping it short.
 
> Frederik Ramm said:
> I'm not advocating for either, just pointing out that the need for funds
> is not god-given. Frequently on these mailing lists, a knee-jerk
> reaction of people to various problems is not "how can I help" but "the
OSMF should pay someone to do it" (...)

I'm anxious to help on this, and do it for free, pro bono publico! Then we could go for others to use their contact network with governments, but even without more people with me, it is feasible I get some sorts of "letters of recommendation" from trusted professionals on how OpenStreetMap data is so essential. It's also a "low risk, high reward" approach, not just because it's a niche which OpenStreetMap is become the open alternative without replacement (even comercial alternatives which, for example, can deal with "world views" on disputed borders depend on OSM data), but because is would be very, very weird go for government donations (which can sometimes even be predictable commitment 3 to 5 years ahead) while would be public know someone would take a %. The logic is similar to why individual OSMF membership donations would cause trouble as part of this paid fee job, but in case of going through this kind of donations, a bigger network of contacts is better.

> Steve Coast says
> One of the many advantages of this is that companies often find it easier to fund something if there is a reason, something they get in exchange, like conference slots and so on, rather than throwing money into an eternal black hole, with nothing to show for it.

No idea how others here have about the government, but to say upfront, how the government spends money is different from commercial companies. This thinking is partially applicable. Assuming one is able to prove OpenStreetMap as a public good (and I personally would focus as country/province/municipality level, not as foreign aid) then implies is can suffer Free-rider problem <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-rider_problem>, which means the government can do it, if not profitable from a market perspective. However, the reason I partially agree is, similar to how companies as donors would try to act in self interest, a government could naively attempt to try to influence things related to disputed territories and the default place names, so it may totally be worth reinforcing things upfront (but this might already be ready, on this document from 2013 https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/w/images/d/d8/DisputedTerritoriesInformation.pdf). Governments also often are a source of reference data, so it can be stimulated to explicitly make it compatible to add to OpenStreetMap, even if it is not granted if it will be imported. Maybe there's other things which could be acceptable in exchange (even if it means those who do it are also volunteers), without any new compromise than already is possible. I also think that this is a moment of going after governments, even if lower values are given to OSMF, and then use the contacts to get rights with a more formal way to import data *to OpenStreetMap* (it's better than letting potential future competition do it alone). It's up to suggestions of others any other point I'm missing.

As last comment, others may see less problematic, but for government (if the contacts are the ones who would think as "aid", not internal use), I believe is better not accept "earmarking donations'' (WikiMedia Foundation is successful in avoiding it, but charitable organizations often not) and while is obviously good multi-year commitment, consider limit how my any single government could donate per year (this reduces incentives to make threats of stop donations to force some decision). While (at least if considering foreign aid) it is easy to find massive numbers, by going with a lower average, it simplifies use of contact networks to make more countries/provinces/municipalities get engaged and reduce the need for higher justification on those which could pay more.

Att.
Rocha
-- 
Emerson Rocha
Full stack developer at Alligo
Transdisciplinary researcher at Etica.AI
Member of  The IEEE Special Interest Group on Humanitarian Technology (IEEE SIGHT)
Member of The IEEE Global Initiative on Ethics of Autonomous and Intelligent Systems_______________________________________________
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