Regular Meeting of the GNOME Foundation Board of Directors, 11 January 2023, 08:00 PST

Attendance

Attending

Regrets

ErikAlbers (Chair)

Missing

ReginaNkenchor

Consent Agenda

Acknowledge receipt of:
- Executive Committee Minutes (see #511)
- Finance Committee Minutes: Not received
- Governance Committee Minutes: Not received
- Written report from Executive Director (see #511)
Approve the minutes of the previous month's meeting
Aryan Kaushik to join Internship Committee
Sonny Piers to join Travel Committee to assist Meg Ford in making it sustainable

Discussion Agenda

The meeting was called to order at 08:06 US/Pacific.
Michael was appointed Chair for the meeting.
Sammy joined the meeting.
VOTE: The consent agenda was presented and passed unanimously.
VOTE: Approve (or amend) below agenda (proposed by Secretary). Passed unanimously.

Old Business

There was no old business deferred from the last meeting.

New Business

Details on written report from executive director (Holly)
- Holly will be presenting a written report monthly at each meeting for the Board's reference, and will be stored in a shared folder on Nextcloud.
- FOSDEM preparations underway. Staff busy planning booth and other events. Will have a meeting room near the ULB campus for "office hours".
- Organizing Board and Advisory Board meetings prior to conference.
- Staff is organizing everything.
- Hosting a small dinner for some key relationships to discuss early work on strategy plan. Guest list TBD; capped by size of venue and will be trying to prioritize and get diverse attendance. Suggestions of invitees welcome.
- ACTION: Any Board members needing travel assistance should talk to Melissa ASAP. Foundation will cover Directors' travel expenses.
- Work underway developing a strategic contact spreadsheet which has been shared with Board. Will try to meet with people during (or after) FOSDEM.
- Draft strategic plan (to be covered later in this meeting) in underway. Will have a full toolkit to support fundraising. Two contractors available to help with prospects and grant writing (budget approved).
- Bookkeeping - complexity is increasing due to more revenue and no longer needing defect spending. Financial reports to be provided to Board quarterly.
- ACTION: Holly to check on when the quarterly reports will be ready so we can pre-plan agenda for Board meetings.
- Foundation website refresh/improvements are planned.
- GUADEC Denver planning is underway, as is LAS. Weekly organizing meetings are happening.
- Staff development is happening with refreshing job descriptions and looking for any gaps in coverage.
- Looking at ways to support internship committee. Staff support may be available.
  - ACTION: Sonny will discuss with the team and get back to Holly.
- Job postings are being finalized for administrative coordinator and a new GNOME Project developer position.
- Grants: First payment from a new grant is coming in next month. STF grant progress is underway and communication lines are open.
  - Sonny provided some feedback for future consideration on how to source new talent for grant work and increasing diversity of participation.
  - Rob shared some background on the current grants and their constraints for staffing.
  - ACTION: Board tickets that come in that should be handled by staff should be referred to Holly.
  - ACTION: Michael to look at alternative email address that may or may not go to staff, and what are advertised, with the goal of helping people more quickly get to staff vs. board.
Preparation for FOSDEM Workshop:
- Discussion about potential governance improvements (Rob & Holly)
  - Executive committee had a discussion about potential ways to increase community participation in leadership roles, increase global representation, etc.
    - Potential to appoint more people into committees
    - Potential to appoint non-Director (i.e., non-voting) officers on the Board to focus and lead on specific key areas (e.g., diversity, legal, accessibility, etc.)
    - These additions to leadership wouldn't require changing bylaws and could work within our current structure.
    - Holly feels that our Board is quite small for the global and broad goals that the Foundation has. Board was larger in the past, and currently doesn't have great global representation. Additional people could help with more representation, communication, transparency.
    - How we do this is an open question for the Board to consider.
  - There has been some history with self-appointment into leadership roles, so we need to be careful to avoid similar problems in the future.
  - Rob pointed out that leadership responsibility needs to also include clear accountability.
  - There are many benefits to having more voices shared in the Board meetings, and would better inform Board votes.
  - Having more people on the Board would also improve our ability to fund-raise and find access to resources. New leaders could help on Board cross-cutting task forces.
  - Volunteers try to do the right thing, but without management they can "spiral off" into work that is not desirable. Given the right oversight, people can be incredibly productive.
  - We need to have clear goals for increasing leadership roles. Perhaps a need to explore paths to get more productive community members as we consider any new roles.
  - The number of users can be a clear impact factor to motivate contributors.
- Initial orientation and discussion about strategy document (Holly)
  - Holly shared the current draft of the "GNOME Three-Year Strategic Plan" document. (Available in Nextcloud.)
  - Three overall strategic goals (people, initiatives, capacity/infrastructure), each with multiple objectives, and each objective with specific tasks.
  - Does not set quantitative goals yet.
  - Eventually this should lead to specific measurable goals.
  - Inviting Board & Staff to provide critical feedback on draft.
  - After that phase, then will circulate among Foundation members and larger community to allow public feedback.
  - Initial reactions:
    - Making sure to cover getting resources to people from diverse backgrounds to enable contribution. (O2?)
    - Need to ensure we can support & nurture commercial partnerships. (O3?)
    - ACTION: Board members should review for initial comments and share with Holly before FOSDEM (publicly or privately), and the group will discuss more in the workshop.
  - Important to understand the interactions with other actors/organizations in the community (partners and external orgs).
  - Key question: What do we what GNOME to be?
  - ACTION: Board members should review the contacts spreadsheet and add in potential people for Holly to connect with. Also in the Nextcloud folder.
- Event logistics currently known
  - See above comments from Holly's report regarding travel support.
  - Holly will provide announcements and key information as to where to be and when.
  - ASAP work with Melissa on travel!
  - Thursday 09:00 on strategic plan & support, lunch, governance PM.
  - ACTION: TBD Holly birthday sweets/celebration for on the 1st? (Waffles? Chocolate?)
Should we still have our regularly scheduled February meeting in addition to the FOSDEM Workshop? (proposed by Secretary)
- The regular meeting would be 8 February, only a few days after FOSDEM.
- Consensus to cancel the regular meeting for typical business.
Continue discussion of foundation performance metrics. (#436)
- No feedback was provided on this topic since last meeting.
- Rob thinks that creating measurement indicators against the objectives & tactics on the Strategic Plan would help in this evaluation work.
- Different scales of measurement: Some items are more binary (working or not) and some are more evaluative.
- Annual review of executive director is one way to roll-up these measurements. Two-way reviews help to understand the Board's role in levels of Foundation success.
- Strategic plan helps to create shared goals.
- There may not be clarity on how best to triage broad open-ended questions. Perhaps something better served by a committee work session or a task force to be created.
- When we decreased the frequency of Board meetings, we initially kept time reserved for brainstorms. Working group time, brainstorming. Governance questions.
- ACTION: The Board should discuss the broader issue of how to handle "big picture" requests for brainstorming, during the FOSDEM workshop PM governance session.
The meeting adjourned at 09:30 US/Pacific.