[foundation-board] OKF-DE proposal

[Laura James]

Just to pick up on a couple of things...

Jason agreed to follow up with Omidyar on the sub grant question.

The Kat/Rufus/me call produced a draft plan for how local interest
groups could develop up into Chapters, and also a proposal for how
seed funding to support chapter formation might be organised (subject
to the sub grant question).  Kat is writing up our rough notes on that
- then there will be a clean proposal circulated to the board for
feedback.  We did not manage to address the question of other forms of
funding and need to meet again to discuss that; this should probably
wait until we have clarity on the Omidyar terms.

Laura




On 23 December 2011 11:42, Becky Hogge <becky.hogge at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 22 December 2011 13:08, Rufus Pollock <rufus.pollock at okfn.org> wrote:
>> Hi Becky,
>>
>> Thanks for pulling this together -- I'd held off on the response as
>> I'd been initial liason ...
>
> Indeed. Thanks for the clarifications and encouragement below. It
> would be useful to get the perspective of other Board members before I
> take this to Daniel.
>
> Response continues...
>
>> On 17 December 2011 10:48, Becky Hogge <becky.hogge at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Hi all
>>>
>>> Further to our discussion of the OKF-DE proposal at this week's Board
>>> meeting, here's the feedback I would propose we send to OKF-DE. As
>>> discussed, I am in Berlin later this month, and happy to connect with
>>> Daniel Dietrich if that's helpful for OKF-DE to understand our
>>> concerns.
>>
>> That would be great.
>>
>>> The proposal I'm talking about is here:
>>> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fKvdB7r0a3QpADFt72UCPmJgXAf4-M3qq-clsLST6HA/edit?hl=en_GB
>>> (shared with okfn.board)
>>>
>>> Since the meeting, I've also had a chance to look at the proposed
>>> budget for the project here, which was linked to from the document:
>>> https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0ApbQZxbNri2RdFZEdE9XMmoxdWpqR01RempLTW1GX1E&hl=en_GB#gid=0
>>>
>>> Sidenote: I missed the budget initially, as it was just a link in the
>>> document. I'd prefer it if all vital information the Board needs to
>>> review for any given proposal is contained in a single document.
>>
>> +1
>>
>>> Okay, so here's the feedback:
>>>
>>> 1) The proposal needs to be clearer about what it's asking for, and
>>> what it intends to deliver against that. Right at the top it needs to
>>> say "We're asking for x euros to fund us for y time to achieve z" This
>>> is not just window-dressing - OKF Board central need to be able to
>>> look at this document at the end of 2012 and evaluate whether the work
>>> following from this proposal was successful. Clarity here will aid
>>> accountability down the line.
>>
>> Yes.
>>
>>> ---Having dived into the materials, it's still not clear to me how
>>> much they want and what they're going to do with it. There's a
>>> document called "2 year operational plan" (why 2 years, when the grant
>>> is for one year?), linked out to from the proposal
>>
>> I think because the grant is one part of their longer strategic plan.
>> That is, that strategic 2 year plan was not pulled together just for
>> the grant/loan from OKFN central.
>
> As noted below, the strategic 2 year plan is cryptic to me, by which I
> mean it makes absolutely no sense to me at all. I'd be interested to
> know how you interpret it.
>>
>>> (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AtMts_R3W2qxdEpHdFR4b20ycG12S183VDk5ZUJBZFE&hl=en_GB#gid=0)
>>> that is cryptic to me. And the budget appears to suggest that in the
>>> worst case we give them 60K Euros in 2012, and in the best, we give
>>> them that plus 37.5K euros for a chapter coordinator in 2012.
>>
>> Yes. I have to say I don't know where the higher set came from. 60k
>> was already supposed to be max.
>>
>>> 2) Matching the funding: Looking at the budget, OKF-DE appear to be
>>> saying they have guaranteed income of 35K euros from two organisations
>>> labelled KfW and OIW. They also think it's possible to raise a maximum
>>> of 120K euros from other organisations. But they don't appear willing
>>> to adjust their outgoings depending on how successful they are.
>>> Instead, they posit that in the worst case scenario, they will lose
>>> 41.25K euros, and in the best, they'll end the year 116.24K euros in
>>> the black. The former seems unfeasible and the latter seems like a lot
>>> of cash to be sitting on. I don't think they've thought this through.
>>
>> It may be that budget spreadsheet is not as up to date as it should be
>> (in general the OKFN DE board have a fair degree of competence here --
>> e.g. they have Daniel, Marcus Dapp, Christian Kreutz -- the later two
>> having experience in running organizations). I imagine that with
>> constructive feedback of the kind we are generating here they should
>> be able to respond and adapt/improve as necessary quite rapidly.
>>
>>> My recommendation is that we ask the OKF-De team to address the
>>> proposal in these two areas. Essentially, we probably want them to
>>> come back with a proposal that is shorter and clearer more generally
>>> plus a budget that adds up in the worst case scenario.
>>
>> Agreed.
>>
>>> We also need to think about how to encourage sustainability. One idea
>>> might be to release the budget in two tranches, with the second
>>> tranche contingent on them achieving the matched income they say they
>>> can achieve from KfW and OIW. This could be a principle we apply more
>>> generally in making grants to chapters
>>
>> Yes. I do know that, sadly, one item in their budget has not come
>> through (the Germany Data Portal which I believe went to Fraunhofer
>> (though Fraunhofer are also using CKAN!)). That said, I also
>> understand they already have revenue from some sources not listed
>> there. I think it is very clear that they need to update and improve
>> the budget sheet.
>
> Would you be in favour of making the second tranche of funding
> contingent on finding matched funds? What do other Board members think
> about this idea? What about those closer to the ground? Did it come up
> in the call yesterday?
>>
>>> Two things that someone closer to the ground needs to do on our side
>>> before we can progress this is:
>>> -Provide the Board with a rough breakdown of the demands they expect
>>> on the Omidyar pot in 2012 (how many other chapters do we want/need to
>>> fund in that year? How much are we reserving for core?) - Is Kat the
>>> best person to approach here?
>>
>> Laura, Kat and I had a chapter review and planning session yesterday.
>> Laura and Kat had some notes from this. We also worked on the (still
>> very alpha) chapters budget:
>>
>> https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Aon3JiuouxLUdFZSUUZFZlVwZEwyNXdMRlhDQjNQeGc
>
> I appreciate this doc is in alpha so won't comment on it yet, but to
> note that loan idea is persisting in it - can we have some background
> here? How much due diligence has been done on what this would mean for
> OKF as an organisation? Are bodies who loan money regulated in some
> way which we need to consider? What would the management overhead of
> loaning be, as set against that of granting? What is the strategic
> thinking behind offering this as a loan, not a grant?
>
>>> -Get clarity on whether we need a change to the Omidyar contract in
>>> order to fund chapters like this - Is Jason the best person to
>>> approach here?
>>
>> I would note that we could always route around the sub-grant issue by
>> simply making direct payments to people the chapter or regional group
>> suggests.
>
> This is setting off alarm bells for me. Given the management load we
> are already saddling, I'm worried that taking on more to manage
> day-to-day cashflow of other chapters is not feasible. I'd like to
> hear what others think, and I'd like to know who has been tasked with
> approaching Omidyar on this point.
>
> However, definitely worth clarifying with Omidyar on general
>> point.
>>
>>> If Rufus is confident that the two points above are actionable, then
>>> we can undertake them in parallel to advising OKF-DE on their revised
>>> proposal.
>>
>> I think so.
>>
>>> Finally, if we expect to receive proposals like this from other
>>> chapters over the coming years, I'd be pleased to work with Kat on
>>> developing guidelines for how they should be structured, so that this
>>> process can be as painless as possible for all concerned in the
>>> future.
>>
>> That would be great Becky. It would be really useful to have you on a
>> call like the one yesterday which Laura and Kat had organized.
>
> To be clear, I'd rather keep my involvement targeted to providing
> advice on the specific point of disbursing money to chapters. I do not
> want to become part of the operational team on this, or any other, OKF
> project.
>
> Cheers
>
> Becky
>
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