Foundation/AGM2024/Election to Board

OpenStreetMap Foundation (OSMF) members will vote to elect a new board at the Annual General Meeting in October 2024.

If you want to get notified about any changes to this page, please (create an OSM wiki account and) add the page to your watchlist (press the star on the top of this page or alt+shift+w).

2024 Annual General Meeting and election to OpenStreetMap Foundation board - general information

Date and time of Annual General Meeting - voting closes

The next Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the OpenStreetMap Foundation will take place online on Saturday 19 October 2024, 16:00 UTC (countdown), unless rescheduled. This is also the time when voting for the board election will close. Voting will open exactly one week before the General Meeting.

Seats available

This meeting will have a board election, with four seats available (of Arnalie Vicario, Craig Allan, Mateusz Konieczny and Sarah Hoffmann, whose board terms are ending). The terms of Dani Waltersdorfer, Guillaume Rischard and Roland Olbricht will continue. There are seven seats on the foundation board.

All board members are volunteers.

Board members, when elected, typically serve for two years until their seat is up for re-election.

What the board is/is not, rules and responsibilities

• Scope of the OSMF board.
• Board rules of order.
• These were the roles and responsibilities for the OSMF board, agreed in the 2014 board face-to-face meeting.
• General duties of directors, according to the UK Companies Act 2006.
• OSM Foundation's Strategic Plan

A lot of the foundation's work is done by the volunteers of our working groups, and if you want to help the foundation, you can also look at joining those.

Time commitment
This is variable. Officers are expected to have additional tasks. Mateusz Konieczny tracked the volunteer time devoted to board work during his 2 year term, and it was over 600 hours, which is about 6.7 hours per week.

Personal views

• 2024-07 Sarah Hoffmann - current board member
• 2023-06 Mateusz Konieczny - current board member: "OSMF board – what are they even doing?" - talk
• 2022-10 Mikel Maron - past board member
• 2022-08 OSMF board - ask us anything session
• 2021-08 Why run for the board - opinions of board members before the 2021 election
• 2019-11 Frederik Ramm - past board member
• 2019-11 Heather Leson - past board member
• 2019-10 Joost Schouppe - past board member
• 2017-09 Frederik Ramm - past board member

Additional OSM Foundation resources

• OSM Foundation mission statement
• OSM Foundation responsibilities

Board candidates Election results See https://osmfoundation.org/wiki/Annual_General_Meetings/2024/Election_to_Board. Answers and manifestos Please see: Foundation/AGM2024/Election_to_Board/Answers_and_manifestos List of board candidates Candidates are ordered according to the order of their self-nominations. Self-nominations that are not eligible for board candidacy will be moved below the table, with a reason provided. Result Name Nationality Country of residence OSM Foundation member since (will be confirmed*) OSMuser links {{User|OSM_username}} Elected Craig Allan South Africa Kenya/South Africa/USA 2016-12-19 (confirmed) CRaIgalLAn (cRaIgalLAn on osm, edits, contrib, heatmap, chngset com.) Brazil Singh Bangladeshi Bangladesh 2024-04-14 (confirmed) Brazilsingh (Brazil Singh on osm, edits, contrib, heatmap, chngset com.) Courtney Cook Williamson United States United States 2023-07-22 (confirmed) CourtneyCW (courtiney on osm, edits, contrib, heatmap, chngset com.) Elected Maurizio Napolitano Italy Italy 2011-2017, 2017-2019, 2024-04-21 (confirmed) napo (on osm, edits, contrib, heatmap, chngset com.) Can Ünen Turkey Turkey 2020-04-21 (confirmed) Unen (unen on osm, edits, contrib, heatmap, chngset com.) Michael Montani Italian and Romanian Italy 2020-07-06 (confirmed) Michael Montani (on osm, edits, contrib, heatmap, chngset com.) Andrés Gómez Casanova Colombian - French Colombia 2017-2019, 2020-09-22 (confirmed) AngocA (on osm, edits, contrib, heatmap, chngset com.) Elected Laura Mugeha Kenyan Kenya 2019-11-19 (confirmed) Laura Mugeha (on osm, edits, contrib, heatmap, chngset com.) Elected Héctor Ochoa Ortiz Spanish Italy 2020-09-01 (confirmed) Robot8A (on osm, edits, contrib, heatmap, chngset com.) Arun Ganesh Indian India 2015-09-18 (confirmed) PlaneMad (on osm, edits, contrib, heatmap, chngset com.) Community questions for the candidates, upon which the official set of questions was based -- Official set of questions Answers to the official questions and manifestos Detailed election results * If you can't find the start date of your OSMF membership please email the Membership Working Group or dorothea@osmfoundation.org from the email address associated with your OSMF membership. Confirmation of normal membership and start date by the Membership Working Group or the OSMF Administrative Assistant. Please do not confirm yourself. Self nominations that have been withdrawn <placeholder> Self nominations that are not eligible for this election Md Atikuzzaman Limon, Bangladeshi, Bangladesh, Md Atikuzzaman Limon (on osm, edits, contrib, heatmap, chngset com.) Reason for no eligibility for this election: Membership start date is 7 July 2024, which is after the deadline of 180 days before the Annual General Meeting. Eligibility criteria for board candidates Any person may be elected to become a board member, provided that: They are normal OSMF members1 28 days before the General Meeting, and they have been a normal member or associate2 member during the full 180 days before the General Meeting, and are willing to act as a board member, and are permitted by law to do so.3 1 Normal members provide their full residential address and can vote on all issues. Their residential address may be disclosed to other members. 2 Associate members provide just their country of residence and can vote - but not on all issues. More information here. 3 See the UK Companies Act 2006, including Part 10, Chapter 1 "Appointment and removal of directors". Finding the type of your OSMF membership (normal/associate) If you want to find out the type of your membership (Normal or Associate), please check the most recent approval/renewal membership email before emailing the volunteers of the Membership Working Group at membership@osmfoundation.org from the email address which is associated with your OSMF membership. Associate members who want to become board candidates You can change your OSMF membership from associate to normal membership by emailing the volunteers of the Membership Working Group at membership@osmfoundation.org Send your email from the email address which is associated with your OSMF membership. It is necessary to provide your residential address, which will be available to other OSMF members. Please change your membership type before adding your self-nomination to the candidates' table below. If you decide to be a candidate at the last minute, you can still add yourself as an associate member, but you have to change your membership type immediately after the submission period of self-nominations closes. In this case please email both membership@osmfoundation.org and dorothea@osmfoundation.org Thank you. No membership fees for active contributors: If you got your membership granted via the "Active contributor" program, you are an Associate member. If you change your membership to Normal, you don't need to pay any membership fees, either at the time of change, or during membership renewals. You do need to renew your membership every year - which is by default done via the active contributor program. Submission of self-nominations Submission of self-nominations closed on 13 August 2024 at 23:59:59 UTC. You can put yourself forward for the board election by adding your information to the table. Please first check the eligibility criteria mentioned above. To edit this page you will need an OSM wiki account (create one here), which is different from your account on www.osm.org. If you need help, please email dorothea@osmfoundation.org with subject "2024 board election: self-nomination". The ordering of the answers and manifestos will follow the order of candidate self-nominations. Answering the official questions and writing a manifesto Facilitator for the official questions: Brian Sperlongano. See the section "Questions to Candidates" for the process. Candidates will be expected to send: their answers to the official questions (a .txt template file will be sent to them by the administrative assistant, to add their answers in) and their manifestos (position statements) ..to Brian Sperlongano (facilitator) and Dorothea Kazazi (Administrative Assistant) (dorothea@osmfoundation.org) before 2024-09-20 at 23:59 UTC. The official questions (based on community questions) will become available by the end of September 6th. Formatting the answers and manifesto: Candidates will be asked to send their answers and manifestos in .txt files - a template .txt file will be sent to them to add their answers. Candidates can use the following MediaWiki formatting options: links, ordered/unordered lists, subheadings of level three (=== Subheading ===) or more, bold and italics. Kindly note that other MediaWiki formatting options, emojis and over-formatting will likely be removed. This is to make sure that answers have similar readability due to formatting. Thank you. See https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Cheatsheet for examples (not all options on that page can be applied here). The Administrative Assistant will send to the candidates a guide with information on how to check how their formatted text will look like. Manifesto (position statement): First time writing a manifesto? You can check manifestos of previous board candidates: 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018. Expected time needed to answer official questions: 3-11 hours (based on estimates provided by previous candidates). Expected time needed to write a manifesto: Unknown (previous candidates: feel free to add your estimates).

For OSMF members Who has the right to vote All normal members and associate members (including members who joined via the active contributor membership program) have the right to vote provided that: they were a member or associate member throughout the period of 90 days4 prior to the date on which the meeting is held; and their membership account was not in arrears 7 days prior to the date on which the general meeting is held 4 90 days = Start date of your current membership is before 21 July 2024 in UTC, if the Annual General Meeting takes place on 19 October 2024, as scheduled. Active contributors: If you have an active contributor membership not based on mapping but on other contributions (had to be voted by the board) which ends between 7th September to 19th of October 2024, make sure to renew it in time, as processing the renewal might take two weeks or more. Voting process The voting process will be similar to previous years. Members of the OpenStreetMap Foundation who are eligible to vote will receive one or two emails from the online voting service after 2024-10-12 16:00 UTC: one email for voting for the board election and on any normal/ordinary issues (possibly) a second email to vote for any special issues suggested by members (special resolutions). Only normal OSMF members can vote on special resolutions. The email will have a link to the online ballot. The election will follow the single transferable vote rules (STV - more at the link below). Each foundation member will vote by ranking candidates according to their preference. A maximum of four candidates will be elected. Please see the warning box at the top of this page. The page voting information and instructions has more details. The election results of the OpaVote platform will be independently verified by "pending. Voting on changes to the Articles of Association (AoA) or other changes Resolutions proposed by the board There are no resolutions proposed by the board yet. Resolutions proposed by OSMF members (need support by at least 5% of members eligible to vote) OSM Foundation members can submit resolutions and ask the membership to vote on them. Please read: Companies Act 2006: Members' power to require circulation of written resolution and see the key dates below. Questions to candidates Community members can submit questions to the board candidates, upon which the official set of questions will be based. The submission period will open on 28 July 2024 and will close on 24 August ("by end of", in UTC). Questions will be added to the talk page or could be sent to the osmf-talk mailing list (for OSMF members - archive of emails viewable by all here). This year, as in previous years, we will have a structured question gathering process. We invited members to post their questions to Talk:Foundation/AGM2024/Election_to_Board, from 2024-07-28 up to 2024-08-24 ("by end of", in UTC) (see the bottom of this page for other key dates). The facilitator will gather the community questions, organise them and publish an official set for the candidates at Talk:Foundation/AGM2024/Election_to_Board. Candidates then will submit their answers to the official questions and their manifestos directly to the facilitator and cc our administrative assistant. It will be up to the candidates to answer all the questions or just a few of them, but our suggestion is to answer all of them. All answers and manifestos will be compiled and published at once by the Administrative Assistant, Dorothea Kazazi. Discussion then will commence, until 2024-10-12 16:00 UTC when voting will open. "We expect this to be the official election campaign process. We won't restrict members to continue to talk on our members' mailing list nor will we restrict candidates to continue discussions, but we don't encourage them to do so. The official answers and questions thereof should be what voters use to judge." Facilitator for the questioning process The board has asked Brian Sperlongano to be the facilitator. Brian Sperlongano is a map hobbyist from Rhode Island, USA, who has contributed to OpenStreetMap since 2010, when he began mapping hiking trails. From 2022-2024 he served on the OpenStreetMap US board of directors, serving as Secretary and Vice President. He runs StreetFerret, an OSM-based tracking and statistics service for athletes. His other initiatives include the OSM Americana map style, a community vector tile server, a wikidata error checker for US boundaries, and browser plugins for displaying human-readable wikidata on osm.org. He has shepherded five proposals through the OSM proposal process and given several talks on OSM-related topics at conferences and OSM mappy hours. Community reviews/discussions Links to related posts written by the community, combine with your own judgement. <placeholder> CiviCRM issues For context: CiviCRM is an open source, internationalised suite of computer software which the OpenStreetMap Foundation (OSMF) self-hosts and uses to manage the Foundation's membership database and send emails to OSMF members (such as Annual General Meeting announcements). Announcement by Arnalie Vicario on osmf-talk@openstreetmap.org (membership mailing list): "I'd like to inform you about two separate issues detected regarding our membership software that can affect the upcoming OSMF Board Elections. Issue 1: As we became aware from the last election, some members who are eligible to vote did not receive a ballot due to a bug in our membership management software and PayPal payments. The Board (Sarah and I) are working with the Membership WG to detect and monitor potentially affected renewal. A consultant is also working on the issue. We will notify everybody when ballots are sent out, so that you make sure, you receive your ballot and let us know if there are issues. Issue 2: As mentioned during board meetings, it was discovered that active contributor memberships were automatically granted after people applied, even in cases where they were not eligible (number of mapping days in past 365 days less than 42). The software bug has been recently fixed. The Board and the Membership WG will notify affected applications. We hope to do this by the end of this week. Thank you for your cooperation and understanding."

Key dates

- Online calendar Please check the description of each event for exact dates and times. The table below is the authoritative source for any dates.

Dates/period	Notes/activity
until 2024-07-27	[Board] Arrange facilitator for candidates' questions and answers.
2024-07-28	[Community/Members] Start of submission of questions to board candidates.
2024-07-28	[Candidates] Start of submission of self-nominations on this OSM wiki page.
2024-08-01	[Board] Publication of any board-suggested draft resolutions for discussion by the membership.
2024-08-13 23:59 UTC	[Candidates] Deadline for members to put themselves forward for the election by adding their information on the candidates' table of this OSM wiki page.
until 2024-08-24	[Community/Members] Discussion about any special/normal resolutions proposed by the board or some of the members.
2024-08-24	[Members] Deadline for getting support for any member-suggested resolutions.
2024-08-24	[Community/Members] Deadline for adding questions for the candidates to the talk page or to the osmf-talk mailing list.
2024-09-03	[Board] Deadline for finalisation of the text for any special/normal resolutions.
2024-09-06	State of the Map 2024 starts
2024-09-07	[Board] Deadline for drafting the official General Meeting announcement, mentioning any special/normal resolutions suggested by either the board or the members.
2024-09-08	State of the Map 2024 ends
2024-09-07 23:59 UTC Published on 2024-08-29	[Candidates - Facilitator] The facilitator's official set of questions to the candidates (based on community questions and questions from past years) to be published by the facilitator or the Administrative Assistant. The board candidates will also be notified via email.
2024-09-14 00:01 UTC	[Administrative Assistant] Soft deadline for official Annual General Meeting notice, including the text of resolutions. The official notice will be sent to all members of the OpenStreetMap Foundation via email.
2024-09-20 23:59 UTC	[Candidates] Deadline for candidates to send answers to the official questions and their manifestos to the facilitator and copy the email to the administrative assistant.
2024-09-28	Publication of candidates' 1) answers to the official set of questions and 2) their manifestos by the facilitator or the administrative assistant.
2024-09-292024-09-27 to 2024-10-12 16:00 UTC	[Community/Members] Discussion about candidates' answers and manifestos.
2024-10-12 16:00 UTC	[Members] Voting opens for the board election and any resolutions (exactly 1 week before the Annual General Meeting).
2024-10-19 16:00 UTC	[Members] Start of the Annual General Meeting on IRC (join via browser).

The table above does not include most administrative tasks, such as documenting the election process on the OSM wiki, OSMF website, creating and testing of the OpaVote election, compiling and checking the list of OSMF members eligible to vote and other tasks.

Activity	Dates and times	Duration
[Community/Members] Addition of questions by community/members to OSM wiki of the ~28 days, the candidates' names will be known for 11 days).	2024-07-28 to 2024-08-24 23:59 UTC	~28 days (extended from 19, to allow ample time for non-EN communities to contribute.)
[Candidates] Submission of self-nominations on the OSM wiki.	2024-07-28 to 2024-08-13, 23:59 UTC	~17 days (extended from 7)
[Members] Get support for any member-suggested resolutions (the wording must be already finalised).	Until 2024-08-24
[Community/Members] Discussion about any special/normal draft resolutions proposed by the board or some of the members.	2024-08-01 to 2024-08-24	~23 days
[Facilitator] to complete compiling the set of the official questions to the candidates.	2024-08-31 to 2024-09-06 23:59 (UTC)	~12 days (extended from 8 day)
[Candidates] Board candidates to send their answers to the official questions and their manifestos to the facilitator and copy the email to the administrative assistant.	2024-09-08 to 2024-09-20 (end of)	~14 days (extended from 7)
[Administrative Assistant] to complete compiling the candidates' answers and manifestos and publish them.	2024-09-21 to 2024-09-28	~8 days
[Community/Members] Discussion about candidates' answers and manifestos.	2024-09-282024-09-27 to 2024-10-12 16:00 UTC	~13 days
[Members] Voting for board candidates and any resolutions.	2024-10-12 16:00 UTC to 2024-10-19 16:00 UTC	7 days