Cluster D

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Home page for Strategic Planning >  Strategic Planning Outline 2023 Cycle

Strategy Cluster D: Financial Management and Fundraising

Strategy D1: Financial Expenditure Matters

Task D101: Policy for Funding Projects

• Description: Financial scalability. Establish a framework to match funds to projects. It should be possible to earmark donations to fund specific projects. Project developers should match their operational duration to the duration of funding allocated
• Action:
• Priority:
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Task D102: Policy for Funding Operational Expenses

• Description: Avoid funding running expenses with exceptional income

Strategy D3: Maintain and Develop Corporate Sponsorships

• Note: This is duplication with Community actions in building relationshps with corporates. Repeating is bad. Provide a link here to an existing task elsewhere in the plan. See Section B602 Maintain_Corporate_relations Suggest that this is not directly financial and should be deleted.

Task D301: Maintain Corporate Sponsors

• Description: Engage with existing Corporate Sponsors to continue their support of the OpenStreetMap movement
• Actions:
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Task D302: Recruit Additional Corporate Sponsors

• Description: Engage with the Mapping Industry to encourage their support of the OpenStreetMap movement
• Actions:
• Priority: No data
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• Start date: No data
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Strategy D5: Prepare Contingency Plans for Financial Emergencies

Task D501: Prepare a Financial Reserve Policy for OSMF

• Description:

A financial reserve ensures OpenStreetMaps sustainability. The reserve fund will serve a buffer role to cover temporary gaps in funding. By establishing a reserve fund OSMF will protects the ongoing operations of the technical core, avoids opportunity costs and avoids contract termination costs. The policy should identify pre-emptive financial steps to be taken in a pending emergency, to avoid reaching a point where reserve use is considered. The size of the reserve should be scaled to be proportional to the size of the budget.

A more granular approach to using reserve funds, where parts of the reserve are earmarked for specific purposes should be considered. (More details please)

The reserve fund will become part of the financial Doomsday contingency plan to sustain OpenStreetMaps through a disaster scenario.

A thoughtful formal approach to the reserve fund will reassure stakeholders, among which are OSMF members, donors and community volunteers that the OSMF is taking serious measures to ensure sustainability. In times of crisis, a formal, approved policy document has a stabilising effect.

• Action: The Board shall commission a formal financial reserve policy.
• Priority: No data
• Assigned to: No data
• Start Date: No data
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• Deliverable: Approved Financial Reserve Policy

Task D502: Prepare a Financial Doomsday Plan

• Description""": Given the donor funded nature of OSMF and the possibility of financial collapse of OSMF in an unpredictable disaster, it is necessary to prepare for the continuation of the broader OpenStreetMap movement under circumstances that may bankrupt OSMF.

This would involve a fallback to core OpenStreetMap which defines the barest minimal OpenStreetMap that remains OpenStreetMap. In preparation OSMF should define and calculate a minimal core gross burn rate for OpenStreetMap and provide for a disaster-proof insulated operational reserve to fund a transition to a state of financial thrift.

• Action: Prepare a contingency plan to guide the OpenStreetMap Foundation through a financial crisis requiring a sudden down-scaling of expenditure.
• Priority: No data
• Assigned to: No data
• Start Date: No data
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• Deliverable: Approved Financial Disaster Management Plan

Strategy D6: Set up functional financial infrastructure

Task D601: Eliminate International Banking Problems

• Description: Banking in multiple currencies remains challenging and time-consuming – it is unusual for a small organisation like the OSMF to have such a broad international financial context.
• Actions: Take steps to make banking in USD and EUR easier. Conduct or commission research. Contact financial institutions that may have appropriate inter-currency experience.
• Priority: No data
• Assigned to: No data
• Start date: No data
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• Deliverable: Stable Simple International Banking Arrangements

Strategy D7: Fundraising for OSMF

Unplaced text:

• fundraising and budgeting
• strategic diversification and leverage of OSMF’s unique position
• limits on expenditures and growth of overhead
• Administrative support for the Board

Task D701: Fundraising Pitch Document

• Description: A document that records the selling points and sales media to be used by OSMF volunteers approaching potential donors. The Pitch document, and amendments to the document, must be approved by the OSMF Board
• Action:
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Task D702: Fundraising Policy Document

• Description: A document that defines the range of acceptable and unacceptable fundraising practices as approved by the OSMF Board
• Action:
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Task D703: Fundraising Guidelines Manual

• Description: A manual for people engaged in fundraising. It sets out best practice for fundraising as well as practical advice on how to maximise fundraising opportunity, sustain committed funders and avoid alienating funders.
• Action:
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Task D704: Donor Relations Management

• Description: Software, similar to CRM software, that allows recording of contacts made with potential and existing funders and a log of the outcomes of such contacts. Serves as institutional memory to ensure volunteers working on successive fundraising rounds done over many years are aware of previous donations (or refusals) by any one potential or confirmed donor.
• Action:
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Task D705: Learning to Work with Donors

• Description: Donor funding from outside the mapping industry has long supported OSMF. It is common that Donors like to know their funds are in good hands. Corporate reputation is very important when making funding applications. OSMF has to be consciously aware of the information needs of most corporate donors and must provide to them the basic financial and project information that they require to support any application for funding. Donor preferences are quite varied. Some prefer funding discrete projects. Others may be open to funding operational expenses or might be interested in funding an endowment to enhance the financial resilience of OSMF.
• Actions: Determine the operational and financial data, organisational profile and reputational information that will be required by the majority of OSMF relevant donors.
• Priority: No data
• Assigned to: No data
• Start date: No data
• End date: No data
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