# Microgrants

## NEW DRAFT

### Mission statement
“enabling volunteers to do more by overcoming financial barriers”

The following information will guide the first microgrant project. We want to start small and fund a maximum of 10 projects. This will be a learning experience. After this run, the project will be refined. Continuation is of course subject to a positive overall evaluation and availability of funds.
Be bold in your application! The eligibility criteria are limited and exclude the obvious. The list below is just to give an idea of what we would like or not like to see. But do not let yourself be limited by this list.

For the first phase, we will spend a maximum of 50,000 euro in total. Depending on projects received, we will not necessarily spend it all. Further stages of the project will be decided on later on.

Examples of good ideas
• Creating documentation/courses.
• Design work (e.g. leaflets, stock image creation) & updating such digital files.
• Funding for a school or university to integrate mapping in their curriculum, run projects mapping their local area and working with local stakeholders to use their data.
• Funding for shared mapping equipment.
• Merchandise (swag) to recognize exceptional volunteer contributions, or low-cost swag.
• One-off costs related to hosting.
• Outreach to local schools.
• Several small events (e.g. mapping party).
• Software projects that are part of a larger program but have use by themselves.
• Software projects that can be fully completed during the grant period.
• Temporary working space.
• Training programs with a local tech meetup.
• Translation work.

Examples of ideas unlikely to be accepted
• Academic scholarships.
• Improvements to general OSMF infrastructure.
• Merchandise giveaways for all participants in an event or for general outreach, including t-shirts.
• A single large event.
• Prizes for mapping.
• Recurring hosting, rent and other costs.
• Server hardware.
• Support Working Groups directly.
• Traditional payed mapping.
• Travel to a conference / event.

Recurrent hosting and buying server hardware could become acceptable in a further iteration of the project.

## Decision process

### Who will decide
The applications for microgrants will be accepted or declined by the Microgrants Committee.
• The Board will do a call for participants.
• The Board will appoint five people from this group to the Committee. In selecting committee members, board will give preference to applicants with a history of volunteer engagement in OSM, but may also consider external applicants if they are deemed to bring valuable expertise.
• The Committee is assembled on a temporary basis for the duration of the first round of funding.
• The Committee decides on which projects to fund. However, the Board can decide to block the approval of selected projects.
Committee members are expected to encourage community involvement in the selection process. They are expected to follow discussions about the proposed projects and factor them into their decision. The Board expects the Committee to be open by default.

### Eligibility criteria
• Applicants must be OSMF member (but can apply for membership at the same time as the grant application).
• Applicants and beneficiaries must have a history of volunteer OSM activity (at least comparable in scope to the grant project).
• Max 5000 EUR.
• Project length max 12 months.
• Any individual, group, or organization is allowed a maximum of three open grants at any one time.
• Funds for offline activities are typically for direct expenses and not used to pay for people’s time. We strongly prefer enabling volunteers over paying for work. However paid work is not excluded as such, and can be acceptable if the impact is big enough. Funds can be used to pay for people’s time in certain cases, for example on software projects and tools development.
• You must agree to the reporting requirements, be willing to sign a grant agreement, and provide the OpenStreetMap Foundation with information needed to process your funding.
• You must consult with your Local Chapter if applicable.
• Projects that have a local impact should discuss with the relevant local communities
• Personal benefit should be small compared to benefit of outcome. The
application should describe potential personal benefit.
• The initiative you plan to do should be open to a general audience by all means. That is, an event attendance should be free of charge, software must be open-sourced, media must be freely downloadable and published under open licenses (see the definition at https://opensource.org/osd).
• The project or the initiative should be directly related to OpenStreetMap, which should be justifiably stated in its goals.
• Number of people involved in the project or the initiative is not limited (but it would not affect the grant size).
• Project must be shared and discussed widely during the application process, at least on OSMF-talk and with the wider OSM community.
• The project isn’t paying someone to do something that could have easily been done by a volunteer.
• Project participants must adhere to Community guidelines and should be in good community standing.
• Projects can be recipients of other funds of any form, but need to disclose this during the application process. Candidates should have tried to find other possible sources of funding for their project.

There is no language criterium, but applications need to be translated to English before the application deadline. The OSMF will use its network to try to help find translators if needed.

## How to apply
There shall be a template wiki page that you can clone and fill in. Your application form will be a public wiki page. Send a message to [e-mail] and osmf-talk when it’s ready.

## Following up accepted projects

The Committee will follow up accepted projects. They can call for further volunteers to help with the practical issues, and can count on our administrative assistant’s help.

In particular, the Committee will:

* Ensure that the accepted projects will receive funds.
If it is possible to make payments through organizations, rather than personal accounts, this is preferred. It is not required.
* Respond to practical issues a project may face, as well as questions from grant recipients.
The project should communicate any known possible practical issues that might arise during the execution of the project. To help with this task, the Committee shall be provided with a checklist of typical causes of issues. In turn, the Committee should share any lessons learned with their successors.
* Keep tabs on projects' reporting requirements.
Every project is different, so projects need to come up with their own planning and reporting schedule. A first version of this should be part of the microgrant application. Once accepted, the content of that plan can be refined in agreement between the Committee and the project. The project is expected to follow their planning or actively communicate issues as they arise. The Committee can take measures if the planning is not being respected.
~~Reporting is not just on the “technical progress” of the project, it is also expected that project participants will write about their personal experience during the project.~~
Reporting can be hosted on the OSM diaries or other places, but all public reporting should be findable from the main wiki page for the project.
* Assist projects with community interaction, and make sure that the community learns of each project's conclusion.
The community can ask questions during any phase of the projects, and will be kept informed through public reporting. Additionally, at the end of the project, the project operators are expected to start a thread on OSMF-talk about their project, inviting the community to help evaluate the project. ~~The project operators do not have to respond to each and every remark posted there.~~

If the Committee has larger issues with certain projects, it can ask the Board for assistance.

## OLD: Meeting minutes

### minimal framework for following up projects
* evaluation during and after
* in case of "reckless failure", the money could be asked back: the selection committee (SC) can ask the board to ask money back
* Joost will ask Rebecca if HOT has tried this
* reporting requirements
* should be bundled on the wiki page for the project
* some of the reporting can live in other places, like Diary posts. These should be linked from the Wiki though.
* reporting is not just "technical",
* also share experience and progress with community
* community evaluation is a part of the general reporting
* there should be a little bit of structure offered (Mikel), you want to avoid personal attacks etc.
* there is no decisions being made, so no formal process is required (Tobias)
* set some expectations: start a public thread on OSMF-talk, but you do not need to reply to all messages etc.
* selection committee should get board involved during process if there are bigger issues
* SC should ask applicants for potential problems
* Have a checklist of usual causes of problems
* project should make their own timing and stick to it. SC should actively follow up if the recipients do not comply with the reporting requirements

#### Money
Note: how do we send the money to foreign countries? It might be an issue to send it to individuals. There is a cost involved. Do we send installements? Do we prefer to send to organizations?
* installments sounds nice, but is not possible for all projects or requires a lot of technical knowledge. Might also be more expensive
* cost of money transfer: added to cost on OSMF side or recipient side
* if there is an organization available for recieving funds, that is preferable. It is not a requierement, just a thing that can be practical

#### Language
Add clarification that we will try to help find translators if needed.

### and then afterwards
* accept the program
* write up conclusions of meeting of 2/12 in the document and send it to board. Allow a few days for feedback
* first go for community feedback
* next board will need to vote on it. Let's send the draft to current candidates and ask what they think during osmf-talk feedback message.

* turn this into a wiki page
* call for committee
* call for projects & committee selection

## Mission statement
*"enabling volunteers to do more by overcoming financial barriers"*

The following information will guide the first microgrant project. We want to start small and fund a maximum of 10 projects. This will be a learning experience. After this run, the project will be refined. Continuation is of course subject to a positive overall evaluation and availability of funds.

Be bold in your application! The eligibility criteria are limited and exclude the obvious. The list below is just to give an idea of what we would like or not like to see. But do not let yourself be limited by this list.

## Examples of good ideas

* Creating documentation/courses
* design work (e.g. leaflets, stock image creation) & updating such digital files
* funding for a school or university to integrate mapping in their curriculum, run projects mapping their local area and working with local stakeholders to use their data
* funding for shared mapping equipment
* Merchandise (swag) to recognize exceptional volunteer contributions, or low-cost swag
* one-off consts related to hosting
* outreach to local schools
* several small events (e.g. mapping party)
* Software projects that are part of a larger program but have use by themselves
* Software projects that can be fully completed during the grant period
* temporary working space
* training programs with a local tech meetup
* translation work

## Examples of ideas unlikely to be accepted

* academic scholarships
* improvements to general OSMF infrastructure
* Merchandise giveaways for all participants in an event or for general outreach, including t-shirts.
* A single large event
* prizes for mapping
* recurring hosting, rent and other costs
* server hardware
* support Working Groups directly
* Traditional payed mapping
* Travel to a conference / event? If presenting?

### Original table (for reference only)
| Type | Yes | No | Drop |
| -------- | -------- | -------- | -------- |
| Travel to a conference / event? If presenting? | | I |
| Software projects that can be fully completed during the grant period | I | |
| Software projects involving contracting developers *Note from Joost: This was marked as NO but should probably always have been a YES* | | | I
| Software projects that are part of a larger program but have use by themselves | I | |
| Traditional payed mapping | | I |
| server hardware | | I |
| server hardware that becomes OSMF property after | I | | I
| recurring hosting, rent and other costs | | I |
| one-off consts related to hosting |I | |
| improvements to general OSMF infrastructure | | I |
| support Working Groups directly | | I |
| Starting a local chapter | I | I |
| outreach to local schools | I | |
| training programs with a local tech meetup | I | |
| prizes for mapping | | I |
| academic scholarships | | I |
| funding for a school or university to integrate mapping in their curriculum, run projects mapping their local area and working with local stakeholders to use their data | I | |
| funding for **shared** mapping equipment | I | |
| temporary working space | I | |
| Merchandise (swag) to recognize exceptional volunteer contributions, or low-cost swag | I | |
| Merchandise giveaways for all participants in an event or for general outreach, including t-shirts. | | I |
| several small events (e.g. mapping party) | I | |
| one large event | | I |
| translation work | I | | I
| design work (e.g. leaflets, stock image creation) & updating such digital files | I | |
| Creating documentation/courses | I | |
| Buying software licenses | | I |

## Decision process

### Who will decide

The applications for microgrants will be accepted or declined by the Microgrants Committee.

* The Board will do a call for participants.
* The Board will appoint five people from this group to the Committee. In selecting committee members, board will give preference to applicants with a history of volunteer engagement in OSM, but may also consider external applicants if they are deemed to bring valuable expertise
* The Committee is assembled on a temporary basis for the duration of the first round of funding
* The Committee decides on which projects to fund. However, the Board can decide to block the approval of selected projects

Committee members are expected to encourage community involvement in the selection process. They are expected to follow discussions about the proposed projects and factor them into their decision.

> Original options for committee creation
>1. The OSMF board (for now)
>2. People can nominate themself, and the board decides who is selected to the panel
>3. The board defines "slots" and finds people to fill them: by region and/or by background (local chapters, members, expertise, board)
>4. Vote by membership on representatives

#### Eligibility criteria
- Must be OSMF member (but can apply for membership at the same time as the grant application).
- Applicants and beneficiaries must have a history of volunteer OSM activity (at least comparable in scope to the grant project).
- Max 5000 EUR
- Project length max 12 months
- Any individual, group, or organization is allowed a maximum of three open grants at any one time.
- Funds for offline activities are typically for direct expenses and not used to pay for people’s time. Funds can be used to pay for people's time in certain cases, for example on software projects and tools development.
- You must agree to the reporting requirements, be willing to sign a grant agreement, and provide the OpenStreetMap Foundation with information needed to process your funding.
- You must consult with your Local Chapter if applicable
- Personal benefit should be small compared to benefit of outcome
- The initiative you plan to do should be open to general audience by all means. That is, an event attendance should be free of charge, software must be open-sourced, media must be freely downloadable and published under open licenses.
- The project or the initiative should be directly related to OpenStreetMap, which should be justifiably stated in its goals.
- Number of people involved in the project or the initiative is not limited (but it would not affect the grant size)
- You must exhaust all other reasonable sources of grant money before applying to this program, including but not limited to:
- Your local OSM Chapter or organization
- Other local institutions or organizations known for supporting open initiatives
- Your employer

- Project must be shared and discussed widely during the application process, at least on OSMF-talk aand with the wider OSM community
- The project isn't paying someone to do something that could have easily been done by a volunteer
- Project participants must adhere to Community guidelines and should be in good community standing
- Applicants must agree to the reporting requirements, are willing to sign a grant agreement and can provide OSMF with information needed to process their funding

There is no language criterium, but applications need to be translated to English before the application deadline.

Note:
- ~~**Project must have been shared and discussed before the grant submission start**~~ *> suggesting to drop this, as this is hard to prove*
- Software projects related to core OSMF infrastructure have to be EWG approved

## How much will this cost

For the first phase, we will spend a maximum of 50.000 euro. Depending on projects recieved, we will not necessarily spend it all. Further stages of the project will be decided on later on.

## How to apply

There shall be a template wiki page that you can clone and fill in. Send a message to [e-mail] and osmf-talk when it's ready.