Haskell Foundation Board Meeting
9 September 2021
Attendees
- Niki Vazou
- Richard Eisenberg
- Scott Conley
- Emily Pillmore
- Simon Peyton Jones
- Ryan Trinkle
- Andrew Boardman
- Tom Ellis
- Théophile Choutri
Absent
- Michael Snoyman
- José Pedro Magalhães
- Andrew Lelechenko
- Alexander Bernauer
- Edward Kmett
- Wendy Devolder
- Chris Dornan
NB: This meeting was flagged as an optional brainstorming session around individual donations; board members were invited to skip if they did not wish to discuss these details.
Brainstorming discussion around individual donations
As of a week ago, only 13 individual donors. They were a little demoralized.
Individual donor incentives:
- we don’t want to be controlled by corporate overlords
- wanting to “give back” to the community
What would individual donors get? Can we offer something?
- Even a social event?
- A card?
- Partner with online forums to add “flair”/badge to donors.
- But maybe _not _linked to “power” (e.g. voting rights).
Scale: let’s have a specific level of ambition. E.g.
- 200 donors
- $10/month
- gives $24k/yr, which starts to be significant.
An important goal: this is _our _Foundation. Making regular donations can be a form of “belonging”. We want to prioritise this in all our messaging around this… seen only as a fundraising effort, it might not be that cost-effective.
An idea (from Chris Smith): the Haskell Foundation Community Fund
- As a way to motivate individual donors: ring-fence individual donations to go back to the community, not to HF infrastructure or staff.
- Earmarks can get complicated; we would not, for example, want to allow someone to earmark their donation for a particular project
- Lightweight process, relatively low bar, relatively small sums of money.
- Theophile already wanted a Documentation Fund … more flexible than Haskell Summer of Code $$.
- Require a final report of some kind – e.g. blog post, video. No report, no next grant!
- We have a web page showing what projects we have funded, which are ongoing, which are done; and the final report
- Treat the grant as an “honorarium”. It’s not paying you to do the work (not consulting fee, not stipend), it’s publicly honouring you for the efforts you have made.
- Can you get a grant for work you have done already? Hmm.
- Risks:
- What if you apply and are rejected? Might that make you feel annoyed?
Finding ways to recognise and praise big contributors
- Recognise Haskell contributor of the year? Or month? Or do 5/year in an annual process. (5/year is better)
- With a golden lambda plaque like the one that was given during Haskell eXchange? Java Champions & Erlang User of the Year exist elsewhere.
Process
- Invite Matthias Toepp (@human154) and Chris Smith (@cdsmith) to lead a working group to take these ideas forward
- Specifically to develop a concrete proposal to bring back to the board.
- Need one or two board members to participate, as members not as chair. (Andrew, plus Scott and SPJ indicated general willingness.)
Come back to this, as a board, end Oct. Andrew has the token until then.