[foundation-board] Blog post to accompany publication of Board minutes

Wed Jan 12 09:27:14 UTC 2011

Thanks to all for quick responses and comments. Do Jo, James, Martin or
Paula want to comment on this before I start work on a second draft?

Cheers

Becky

On 11 January 2011 09:38, Jonathan Gray <jonathan.gray at okfn.org> wrote:

> This is great to see - thanks so much for taking the time to do this Becky!
>
> For what its worth, I would personally not be so inclined to emphasise
> that we have a big surplus of funds that we are puzzling over what to
> do with. Partly as this might increase external pressure to fund a
> whole bunch of people's stuff, or even people asking us to hire them.
> As we've not had a great deal of public discussion of money, and there
> are now quite a few readers of the blog, this kind of discussion could
> have a significant impact on the way people think about the OKF's
> financial health and financial activities.
>
> I guess my feeling is that even if we do have a surplus, as a
> Foundation we are playing a long long game and want to still be around
> in 5 or 10 years time. We have no idea what the future holds regarding
> the continuation of funding from various sources from which we
> currently receive it. E.g. we don't know what the next few years of EU
> funding wil hold (I suspect there may be a bit less cash in the system
> than there is at the moment), 4IP has just shut down, we don't know
> what will happen to JISC, and so on. Furthermore, as has been
> previously discussed, I don't think we want to build up a dependency
> on having a certain general annual turnover to keep things ticking.
> The big challenge in my mind is how to we make an organisation that
> successfully run on empty (i.e. with next to no money) by default, and
> still receive money from external parties to fund certain projects if
> this helps to promote open knowledge in a given area (e.g. Farm
> Subsidy or Access Info work), or accelerate work on something we
> wanted to do anyway (e.g. CKAN with UK Gov, EU, etc.).
>
> In any case, I'm starting to ramble!
>
> All the best,
>
> Jonathan
>
> On Mon, Jan 10, 2011 at 10:12 PM, Ian Brown <ian.brown at oii.ox.ac.uk>
> wrote:
> > Agree with Jordan below. Becky, personally, I would remove about 75% of
> the below as a narrative that I'm not especially comfortable with, and
> simply state the facts of the situation.
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Ian.
> > --
> > http://people.oii.ox.ac.uk/brown/
> >
> > On 10 Jan 2011, at 20:22, Jordan S Hatcher wrote:
> >
> >> Hi Becky
> >>
> >> Thanks for putting this together -- really great stuff! My only comment
> is:
> >>
> >>>> discussed three promising looking income
> >>>> streams: consultancy projects (whose operating profits could be
> >>>> "tithed" back to the community), grants, and fundraising from the
> >>>> network.
> >>
> >> Sorry to keep banging on this drum but can we please please erase
> "tithe" from our vocabulary?  "Profit" too as we are a non-profit.
> >>
> >> We do projects that generate a **"surplus"** (not a profit) that we then
> use to support the mission of the OKF to promote open knowledge. It is not a
> tithe. We are not supporting the church and clergy with one tenth of our
> earnings taken as a tax. We are doing perfectly reasonable and normal
> contracting work that meets our goals of open knowledge based on our
> expertise and using any surpluses to fund our unfunded open knowledge
> projects.
> >>
> >> Thanks!
> >>
> >> Jordan
> >>
> >>
> >> On 10 Jan 2011, at 18:26, Rufus Pollock wrote:
> >>
> >>> On 10 January 2011 15:55, Becky Hogge <becky.hogge at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>> Hi everyone
> >>>>
> >>>> I've worked up a draft blog post to accompany the publication of the
> >>>> minutes we approved last meeting. Comments and suggestions for
> >>>> improvement welcome.
> >>>
> >>> Really great post -- and I really like the way it gives a sense of
> >>> what has has happened too. Couple of minor comments inline below.
> >>>
> >>> Rufus
> >>>
> >>>>
> >>>> Begin blog post//
> >>>>
> >>>> It is with a mix of regret and pride that today, on behalf of the OKF
> >>>> Board of Directors, I'm publishing minutes of OKF Board meetings
> >>>> dating back to May 2009. Regret because these minutes should have been
> >>>
> >>> Worth pointing out that we had published quite a few sets of minutes
> >>> including some of the most significant (e.g. May 2009, Aug 2010)
> >>> already up on the website. Not saying that we haven't been a bit
> >>> delinquent but we shouldn't overdo it :)
> >>>
> >>>> made public much earlier than now, and it's just been one of those
> >>>> items on the Board's to do list that has been put off and put off
> >>>> again in favour of other items, either more immediately pressing or
> >>>> more exciting. And pride because together this set of minutes
> >>>> documents, if only from one rather dry perspective, the growth and
> >>>> development of an organisation and community that has achieved rather
> >>>> a lot in the last 18 months.
> >>>>
> >>>> It's a story worth telling. In May 2009, the OKF Board met face to
> >>>> face in the Cambridgeshire countryside for a day-long brainstorming
> >>>> session about how best it could contribute to the network's future.
> >>>> Here, we outlined a shared vision for the organisation as one that
> >>>> supports autonomous projects loosely joined by their endorsement and
> >>>> promotion of open knowledge (as set out in the open knowledge
> >>>> definition). We looked in detail at compliance issues, sketched out
> >>>> projected outgoings, and discussed three promising looking income
> >>>> streams: consultancy projects (whose operating profits could be
> >>>> "tithed" back to the community), grants, and fundraising from the
> >>>> network.
> >>>>
> >>>> That meeting defined much of the work that was to come. That Summer,
> >>>> while Jordan Hatcher put in a lot of pro bono time cementing
> >>>> compliance processes, I produced a selection of potential financial
> >>>> plans, and Paula le Dieu worked up a more detailed reflection of the
> >>>> OKF vision that would eventually be put out for consultation with the
> >>>> community at the end of the year. In the meantime the OKF began
> >>>> working with the Cabinet Office, 4IP and others (such as
> >>>> farmsubsidy.org and aid.info), contributing legal and technical
> >>>> expertise to realise various projects, including data.gov.uk and
> Where
> >>>> Does My Money Go? Rufus Pollock maintained an overview of this work,
> >>>> reporting financial and legal issues to the Board at monthly
> >>>> conference call meetings, while Martin Keegan contributed accounting
> >>>> expertise, helping prepare for the year-end accounts, submitted  in
> >>>> February 2010.
> >>>>
> >>>> The following August, when the Board met again for an away day in
> >>>> Cambridgeshire, the organisation it was discussing was in radically
> >>>> different shape. Thanks to a number of ongoing consultancy projects, a
> >>>> significant cash surplus had been accrued. And the profile of the
> >>>> organisation had increased dramatically. Rufus Pollock was on the
> >>>> verge of accepting a year-long fellowship at the Shuttleworth
> >>>> Foundation to continue driving forward the open data agenda. The
> >>>> number of potential consultancy and grant-funded projects had
> >>>> multiplied, and now included significant EU grant funding on the
> >>>> horizon.
> >>>>
> >>>> It was all good news, but it did present the Board with a number of
> >>>> new challenges. Firstly, the proliferation of projects combined with
> >>>> his new role at Shuttleworth made it clear that Rufus could no longer
> >>>> act as liaison between the day-to-day operations of the various arms
> >>>> of the OKF, and the Board. So we resolved to recruit for a new role -
> >>>> that of Project Coordinator. Seen as a compliment to the excellent
> >>>> work conducted by Jonathan Gray as Community Coordinator, the Project
> >>>> Coordinator would keep an eye on all contracted and grant-funded
> >>>> projects and report back to the Board so that we could continue our
> >>>> legal and finacial oversight role.
> >>>>
> >>>> The second - and nicest - challenge was how best to manage the
> >>>> operating surplus so that we could distribute it to those parts of the
> >>>> community that could do with it most. Our attempts to address this
> >>>> challenge remain ongoing, but at the August meeting we resolved to
> >>>> take an incremental, experimental approach, devolving discussion of
> >>>> the possibilities to the Coordination Committee, chaired at that time
> >>>> by Board Member Jo Walsh.
> >>>>
> >>>> The third challenge is in some sense the driving force behind this
> >>>> blog post. Since that meeting in May 2009 we have been acutely aware
> >>>> of the qualities that set OKF apart from other organisations, and of
> >>>> our duty as a Board to maintain those qualities. OKF is first and
> >>>> foremost a community, and thus the Board's role in shaping OKF's
> >>>> future should be limited to maintaining the financial and legal
> >>>> viability of the organisation. The Board has consciously avoided
> >>>> appointing anyone as its Executive Director. We feel that the
> >>>> strategic direction in which the organisation travels should be
> >>>> defined as far as possible by active members of the OKF community.
> >>>>
> >>>> It may seem odd, then, that we have not published these minutes
> >>>> sooner. And it is odd - in fact, the number of times an ACTION item is
> >>>> listed in these minutes to "progress publishing the minutes" is almost
> >>>> comical, if it weren't, from the Board's perspective, so regrettable.
> >>>
> >>> I reiterate my point above. Not sure we really need this level of self
> >>> flagellation. Some of our meeting minutes *have* been put up
> >>> (including the 2 most significant meetings ...)
> >>>
> >>>> We have delayed publishing minutes of our discussions from the past 18
> >>>> months not from lack of will, but from lack of time, as we have been
> >>>> running to keep up with the pace with which open knowledge has
> >>>> rocketed up the national and international agenda. As well as
> >>>> resolving to publish the minutes as soonas they have been officially
> >>>> approved and adopted, this year the Board will be focussing on more
> >>>> ways to get the community involved in strategic decision-making at
> >>>> OKF. We're already speaking with members of other collaborative
> >>>> organisations, such as the Apache Software Foundation, about models
> >>>> that we could adapt or adopt.
> >>>>
> >>>> As a read through of the last 18 months' worth of minutes will
> >>>> confirm, governance is rarely sexy. But speaking as one person who has
> >>>> been part of this Board during this exciting phase of OKF's
> >>>> development, I think it can still be rewarding. I hope that if you do
> >>>> take time to read through the minutes we've published, you're inspired
> >>>> by the work that we've done. After all, the reason we come together
> >>>> regularly to discuss VAT registration, financial compliance, and
> >>>> contractual committments is because we're inspired by the work that
> >>>> you do.
> >>>>
> >>>> //ends
> >>>>
> >>>> _______________________________________________
> >>>> foundation-board mailing list
> >>>> foundation-board at lists.okfn.org
> >>>> http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-board
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> --
> >>> Co-Founder, Open Knowledge Foundation
> >>> Promoting Open Knowledge in a Digital Age
> >>> http://www.okfn.org/ - http://blog.okfn.org/
> >>>
> >>> _______________________________________________
> >>> foundation-board mailing list
> >>> foundation-board at lists.okfn.org
> >>> http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-board
> >>
> >> ____
> >> Mr. Jordan S Hatcher, JD, LLM
> >>
> >> More at: <http://www.jordanhatcher.com>
> >> Co-founder:  <http://www.opendatacommons.org>
> >> Open Knowledge: <http://www.okfn.org/>
> >>
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> foundation-board mailing list
> >> foundation-board at lists.okfn.org
> >> http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-board
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-board mailing list
> > foundation-board at lists.okfn.org
> > http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-board
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Jonathan Gray
>
> Community Coordinator
> The Open Knowledge Foundation
> http://blog.okfn.org
>
> http://twitter.com/jwyg
> http://identi.ca/jwyg
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-board mailing list
> foundation-board at lists.okfn.org
> http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-board
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.okfn.org/mailman/private/foundation-board/attachments/20110112/a43749de/attachment.html>