Exciting Updates on the GNOME Development Initiative and Sovereign Tech Fund

[Chenriksen (Caroline Henriksen)]

GNOME Foundation Executive Director Holly Million had a call this week with Tara Tarakiyee, our program manager at Sovereign Tech Fund (STF), providing him with an update on the project work taking place under the Foundation’s current contract with STF and the Foundation’s plans to continue and expand the work. We’re thrilled to share those updates with the greater community here!

Key Updates

• The contracted work continues to progress, and the Sovereign Tech Fund is very encouraged by what has been accomplished to date.
• The areas of work currently being funded by STF are planned to continue and to be strengthened and expanded as part of our new, permanent GNOME Development Initiative, as described in our draft strategic plan: foundation.gnome.org/strategicplan
• The Foundation is reorganizing the project and hiring an additional program manager to work with current managers on the new Initiative. We are finalizing a contract for transitional work with the new manager and will make a formal announcement next week.
• We hope to significantly increase the amount of development work happening through the Initiative with a process that allows community suggestions for needed work and an application process for grants for proposed work.
• The Foundation recently applied to the Open Tech Fund to strengthen the Initiative, including proposing to hire a permanent full-time program manager and to invest in other important work to support our community
• The Foundation will apply for a new round of contract funding when the Sovereign Tech Fund reopens for applications in mid-June.
• We have launched the GNOME Development Fund, which will raise additional support from the community to fuel the development work possible through the Initiative. Starting immediately, all donations made through the Fund will build the Initiative. This Fund page will continue to develop, with counters, a backer list, tiered benefits for backers at differing levels, and badges coming next. Donate today to support the future of GNOME. gnome.org/donate

In other exciting news, the Foundation has new professional bookkeeping systems in place, completed a financial review in preparation for a required financial audit next year, and at the completion of the second quarter of this fiscal year, the Foundation is performing under budget and is on track in our commitment to having a non-deficit year. We will share more details, including graphs and financial details in a separate update soon.

Learn More about the GNOME Development Fund

[thibaultamartin (Thib)]

Thanks for the update; it’s a breath of fresh air to get (exciting) news from the Foundation! Particularly thrilled to see that one of the most successful initiatives of the last decade is going to continue, and that the foundation should be operating without deficit this year!

It would have been nice to acknowledge the incredible work pulled by @sonny and @tbernard to together the initial grant, and carry out the initiative so far

Are there prospects for the program manager role? Is there a job description posted somewhere, where community members could apply?

[pcgomez (Pablo Correa Gomez)]

Such good news that the foundation is moving forward with continuing a successful collaboration! I really hope that whoever is hired is a current GNOME Foundation member and a trusted member of the community. We do have a lot of people with the skills and the knowledge to act as program managers. And the candidacies in the current election period have shown that the community is involved, interested in being part of the foundation, and in part worried that the foundation is not coordinating and working close enough with the community.

[zeenix (Zeeshan Ali)]

This is awesome and fills me with a lot of hope for GNOME’s bright future. Kudos to everyone involved!

@thibaultamartin

It would have been nice to acknowledge the incredible work pulled by @sonny and @tbernard to together the initial grant, and carry out the initiative so far

May I ask why this acknowledgement/credit was missing from this announcement both here and on Mastodon? Moreover, why nobody apologised for this omission after Thib pointed it out?