User:Wonderchook/2016 OSMF Board Elections Manifesto

I'm completely my third year serving on the OSMF and I've been reflecting on what we've accomplished and also what I would want to do in the coming year if re-elected. OSM is an amazing project and I'm honored to be able to support it through my service on the OSMF board. 

Things I'm proud of that the OSMF accomplished and I had some role in:

• Updating the corporate membership. My hope is this will provide a steady income stream in the years to come for the Foundation

• Hiring of admin help for the OSMF. I really think this will help us stay organized and continue to grow as an organization. 

• Becoming a functional board. When I first joined the OSMF board there was much conflict between board members. It made it difficult to get excited to do things and also sometimes blocked forward progress. I'm proud to say we are no longer in such a position and I think this has been positive for the project as a whole. 

Things that I would like to work towards if re-elected:

• Diversity: Simply put OpenStreetMap's aim is a free map of the entire world. Our participants should match the world that we are mapping. This should include women, minorities, people with varied mapping differences and others. Everyone who is willing to participate in civil discourse and work towards consensus should be able to participate. One thing I've done and will continue to do is to make and effort to meet with communities that have less contact with the OSMF. For example I attended and spoke at SotM-Asia this year rather than attending SotM.

• Continue to grow the funding stability of the OSMF. We've just done our first open fundraiser and updated the corporate membership. I'd like to look for additional methods to fund the organization. Part of that however is first determining what other things people need funding for. 

• Support Mapper Projects Financially: The resources between different locations vary, but the different approaches, views and methodologies are great. Their should be a more clear path for the OSM community to ask for assistance in their projects. This could be things such as the OSMF helping with hackathons, swag, printing, travel or other things communities think up. 

• Find a way to bridge the divide between the "craft mappers" and "armchair mappers": As stated above there are beautful diverse projects within the OSMF. We should be able to respectfully experiment within the project and respect everyone's contributions. We need to work towards have a better idea of what the various communities want and not just the people that happen to speak English, use mailing lists and can afford to travel to SotM.