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Funding Framework #81

Open rapicastillo opened 7 years ago

rapicastillo commented 7 years ago

I have been asked by multiple people about funding and what our funding framework looks like. Here's the initial look on the funding framework.

Consent is for me to continue moving the direction I'm currently taking

Shared Resources

Server Space, Domain Name support, AWS / Azure / Heroku

Slack Upgrade

Member Success Services

Self-Care services

Progressive Code Strategy Retreats

——

Shared People Resources

Dev Ops

Legal Support

Accounting and Organizational Support

Public Relations Support

Social Media

Leader Amplification

Conference Funding

Progressive Coders Fellowship

Project Amplification

We understand that ProgCode is a community focused on collaboration and not competition. We have seen the amazing effect of the culture we have espoused in that during the Telephony app creators round table, we saw apps with similar functions collaborating and sharing resources with each other.

As such, we will not engage in project specific funding but rather support each project equally and expose them to the network we have. Projects are the ownership of the leaders, so the choices of the leads ought to be respected.

Mechanisms in place that we can utilize is if the team leader chooses to do a crowdfunding process, PRogCode and its partners can then engage with a match funding process.

dave-mahler commented 7 years ago

It seems like there will need to be decisions made regarding which resources are a priority to fund, which resources are subject to sufficient available funds, how we choose between different requests when not all requests can be funded, what sort of reserve fund we need, etc.

What does it mean to give consent to this framework when it's still incomplete? Isn't this really still in the planning phase?

rapicastillo commented 7 years ago

Consent to continue moving the direction I'm taking, @dave-mahler

tricky-coyote commented 7 years ago

Legal Support Organizational advice I heard talk of a Y-Combinator like service in the past, wherein ProgCode would actually have a team that could do the incorporation filings for projects, no?

tricky-coyote commented 7 years ago

incomplete sentence: Application Leaders and staffers who has gained the community’s vote of confidence will get a certain amount of funding for a specified month of

tricky-coyote commented 7 years ago

"but rather support each project equally"

This is a tricky one. First, no matter how much you try to stick to that goal, it's hard in practice. Even by choosing which projects you highlight as ProgCode examples in a Medium article, there is the possibility of expressing a kind of favoritism. Second, it may be that some projects need deeper support from the community, perhaps because their owner/founders are not as experienced as some other leads. Third, it may be that the community might want to favor a project in a certain way, perhaps because it's recognized as critical piece of tech and is time sensitive, or because the founders/owners are coming from a disadvantaged/disenfranchised background, etc.

It may be that establishing a transparent system of evaluation/support could make more sense than attempting to be completely without bias.

-Kipchoge

rapicastillo commented 7 years ago

It's more on funding @tricky-coyote because that really puts in a lot of incentive to compete, imo. For favoritism, I totally see what you mean, and resonate with it. That's why we're building a partner advocacy team whose main interest is the interest of the application and org partners.

jpb5013 commented 7 years ago

I think if we had a mechanism for the community to vote in which projects are most important to them it could be a way to determine funding and support while also mitigating the concern of playing favorites. We could do this in a pretty lightweight way initially and build it into operations tools and maps for change longterm.

And definitely supportive of continuing to explore and flush out this direction.

On Mar 3, 2017 6:36 PM, "Rapi Castillo" notifications@github.com wrote:

It's more on funding @tricky-coyote https://github.com/tricky-coyote because that really puts in a lot of incentive to compete, imo. For favoritism, I totally see what you mean, and resonate with it. That's why we're building a partner advocacy team whose main interest is the interest of the application and org partners.

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rapicastillo commented 7 years ago

@jpb5013 The thing is, imo if a vote is needed then we may be encroaching their ownership as well. – as well as the autonomy of the staff members. I think ProgCode is in itself an entity that serves as a conduit and has its own self interest. And if our self interest is to maximize and amplify projects that we think will serve the purpose of the grassroots then we create a relationship with them. Just like how we are now building relationships with single signon and map based and phone based ones, at the same time it gives us incentive to really amplify those projects that are working hard and "bubbling up". We can't dictate who gets to bubble up, and the community can't vote who should bubble up, so it really is – im hoping – to be a good dynamics of bubbling up and us amplifying those who do. Or pushing those who are strategic to our goals as a whole in the network.

There are still projects that will coexist within us, but we shouldn't force the staff to work on partners but instead encourage partner advocates to align their goals with the goals of the projects.

As we have seen through experiences with myself and @WoobieTuesday

rapicastillo commented 7 years ago

The only issue about funding based on projects is that it – in itself – is untenable if we give it by project basis: it breeds competition; It needs deeper oversight; and further accountability; and, finall, we have to dance around the ownership issues, that it makes more sense to not go down that path, but instead provide assistance if the project themselves wish to go forward on their own.

We may not provide actual funding support , but if the projects goes forward with a fundraising round, we can leverage the network we have or some other creative mechanisms like matching fund or something like that.

jpb5013 commented 7 years ago

Yeah these are all fair concerns, agreed all around. I think the challenge is that it'd be difficult to do so otherwise without bias and judgment, and we also wouldn't want to give the same exact for every project. There needs to be some middle ground so that we can have something concrete to fall back on what we're supporting, though regardless there will be ways to game the system.

The community vote angle would allow us to ask "what projects do you think are most critical to Prog Code's longterm success" and allocate accordingly. I imagine we'll also have perspective, which would influence that and is perfectly fine.

On Mar 3, 2017 6:59 PM, "Rapi Castillo" notifications@github.com wrote:

The only issue about funding based on projects is that it – in itself – is tenable if we give it by project basis, it breeds competition. It needs deep oversight, and further accountability, and dance around the ownership value, that it makes more sense to not go down that path, but instead provide assistance if the project themselves wish to go forward on their own.

We may not provide actual funding support , but if the projects goes forward with a fundraising round, we can leverage the network we have or some other creative mechanisms like matching fund or something like that.

— You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/ProgressiveCoders/functions/issues/81#issuecomment-284040268, or mute the thread https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ALZmq_vlyzIvVRqdZOgXfIDWTK6q5qxIks5riGMRgaJpZM4MMh1L .

dave-mahler commented 7 years ago

Another approach is to set aside a certain amount of money periodically (ex. every quarter, twice a year) and to have projects submit proposals for tasks with defined timelines and budgets. Then the community can collectively decide which proposals to fund.

I could also see another amount of money put aside for the community to collectively decide how to spend, with no restrictions other than legal concerns.

rapicastillo commented 7 years ago

I remember this being done in NYC. Would love to shell this out more in a deeper discussion.

On Fri, Mar 3, 2017 at 4:18 PM, dave-mahler notifications@github.com wrote:

Another approach is to set aside a certain amount of money periodically (ex. every quarter, twice a year) and to have projects submit proposals for tasks with defined timelines and budgets. Then the community can collectively decide which proposals to fund.

I could also see another amount of money put aside for the community to collectively decide how to spend, with no restrictions other than legal concerns.

— You are receiving this because you were assigned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/ProgressiveCoders/functions/issues/81#issuecomment-284072605, or mute the thread https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAYZTHp5gkRH-aK9p_2jop1GYoMMRHfcks5riIOMgaJpZM4MMh1L .

-- -Rapi

jpb5013 commented 7 years ago

Can we broaden strategy retreats to add things like local MeetUp funding?

And can we add project and product management to people management, probably under Organizational Support

dave-mahler commented 7 years ago

I think we need to be very careful about guaranteeing that we can provide services that require people to devote their time. How do people with limited time to contribute prioritize if they are over capacity? It seems the network is built on people volunteering their time, not being obligated to provide services.

rapicastillo commented 7 years ago

This is a good point, I think a change in langauge is in order.

On Thu, Mar 16, 2017 at 9:17 PM dave-mahler notifications@github.com wrote:

I think we need to be very careful about guaranteeing that we can provide services that require people to devote their time. How do people with limited time to contribute prioritize if they are over capacity? It seems the network is built on people volunteering their time, not being obligated to provide services.

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rapicastillo commented 7 years ago

But i think the line is only saying is if we are going to fund people services, if would have to be on a focus on a shared resoure as well.

On Thu, Mar 16, 2017 at 11:11 PM Rapi Castillo rapi.castillo@gmail.com wrote:

This is a good point, I think a change in langauge is in order.

On Thu, Mar 16, 2017 at 9:17 PM dave-mahler notifications@github.com wrote:

I think we need to be very careful about guaranteeing that we can provide services that require people to devote their time. How do people with limited time to contribute prioritize if they are over capacity? It seems the network is built on people volunteering their time, not being obligated to provide services.

— You are receiving this because you were assigned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/ProgressiveCoders/functions/issues/81#issuecomment-287239931, or mute the thread https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAYZTEwoxtvZpsOcFmPxNBF1bJAiKazXks5rmd8ngaJpZM4MMh1L .