Regular meeting of the GNOME Foundation Board of Directors, 8 December 2022, 15:00 UTC

Attending

Missing

ReginaNkemchorAdejo

Consent Agenda

Acknowledge receipt of:
- Executive Committee Minutes, November 2022
- Finance Committee Minutes, November 2022
Acknowledge that Jordan Petridis has stepped down from the Circle committee, and thank him for his help
Approve the minutes of the October board meeting (there was no November board meeting; cancelled due to lack of quorum)

Discussion Agenda

Executive Committee updates (10 min)
- Rob: lack of momentum on ED recruitment.
- Jeremy: Can we look among community members?
- Rob: The majority of candidates are external but not well-matched to role.
- Rosanna & Rob: We're tying to look outside skill set of our current community. More importantly on funding.
- Thib: GIMPnet to Libera.Chat migration completed.
Reminder to book a slot in your schedules for an in-person board and advisory board meeting at FOSDEM (2nd and 3rd February in Brussels), and in Riga (Latvia) for GUADEC (July 26th to 31st 2023) - contact Melissa (mwu@gnome.org) for travel and block hotel booking
- Rosanna: Will follow up with details over email.
Review/approval of 2022/2023 budget
- Rosanna: Column H planned for the year.
- Rob: Basically the same as current year. Secured grant from Dalio P. Various slight increases, interns, health coverage costs, and others.
- Rosanna: The budget is above the reserves policy.
- Jeremy: Where is the deficit coming from?
- Rob: Last 3 years we got large donations. We grew the staff on top of that (as a mandate).
- Jeremy: What's our runway.
- Rob: 18 months past end of current fiscal year.
- Jeremy: What would it take to bring volunteers back?
- Rob: Thib and I were looking on details to meet our goals. Get more from our staff, to show our track record before we ask for grants. But perhaps we could find some.
- Jeremy: Involve the community, ask for help.
- Rosanna: We tried, but got near to zero help.
- Jeremy: Asking for time is harder than asking for money.
- Thib: Our community thinks that if we don't invest in development it's not well-spent. There's a trust issue.
- Jeremy: Change focus to regaining trust.
- Rob: People are biased towards spending money on things we were already working on.
- Jeremy: Pitch on keep funding the what-we're-already-doing.
- Rob: Many individual contributors don't see the justification in donating to the Foundation.
- Thib: Suggest continuing this discussion offline. Is it critical to approve or not the budget.
- Rob: No, due to future events keep us busy, no perfect time.
- Rob: Wait for new ED and seek for strategies to grow volunteer base.
- Thib: Do we all approve the budget?
- VOTE: Approve FY2023 budget. Vote passes, nem. con.
  - Jeremy: In the absence of better, yes. Not looking good.
  - Martin: Yes.
  - Rob: Yes.
  - Sammy: Yes.
  - Philip: Abstain, joined meeting in the middle of discussion.
  - Thib: Reluctant, but yes.
Discussion of OpenCollective
- Fiscal sponsorship for Circle apps, https://gitlab.gnome.org/Teams/Board/-/issues/257
- Rob: Planning to sign with OpenCollective to handle paying for a variety of things.

Executive Committee Minutes, November 2022

Rob and Thib would like to have a better understanding of the operational capacity of the staff at the moment. This will help us define actionable items for the staff, best fitted for their strengths
They want to meet individual members of staff to discuss what is keeping them busy at the moment, what is their understanding of our mission, and talk about their aspirations and expectations
They emphasize that Rosanna has been providing us with high quality reports of what's happening in the Foundation, and fully trust her to keep the foundation running.
Andrea and Thib have followed the GIMPnet -> Libera Chat migration plan (https://hdoc.ergaster.org/_5d5JeAPQhexdwkZVNsMBQ) and we should now no longer depend on GIMPnet for the IRC side.

Finance Committee Minutes, November 2022

Zana and Sammy reviewed budget in-person at GNOME Asia.