[Chapter-delegates] On funding dedicated to chapters

Fri Oct 1 11:03:56 PDT 2021

Hi all,

These are some of the numbers for 2020 for the foundation:

Program/total amount
Beyond the Net $459,379
Research $1,736,264
Resilience $1,931,177
Scills $1,235,458

% of funding going to chapters ex admin funding: 8.57%

In 2020 there was not one chapter successfully applying for one of the
other programs, so chapters having this opportunity in practice made no
difference.
Therefore, 90% of the money going to other external parties pretty
accurately depicts the situation of 2020.

About not becoming the everything society: if you look up a couple of the
grants, you will probably find (like I did) that though certainly
admirable, many of the organisations and projects receiving these have a
very loose connection to the internet, if there is such a connection at
all. At the same time, chapters seem to be on a short leash; my example of
my chapter's "excellent" project being denied funding because of
disinformation being off-limits speaks volumes in this respect.

Met vriendelijke groet,
Kind regards

Alexander Blom
ISOCNL

Op vr 1 okt. 2021 om 00:29 schreef Flávio Rech Wagner via Chapter-delegates
<chapter-delegates at elists.isoc.org>:

> Hi Andrew
>
> In order that we have a more solid basis for our discussion on the grants
> chapters are receiving, and taking final figures from 2020, could you
> please tell us in a very concrete way:
>
>    1. How much money went to “small grants” of the BtN program in total
>    in 2020? How many projects have been approved? How many chapters benefited
>    from “small grants”?
>    2. How much money went to “large grants” of the BtN program in total
>    in 2020? How many projects have been approved? How many chapters benefited
>    from “large grants”?
>    3. Which was the total budget of the BtN program in 2020?
>    4. How much money went to chapters through other programs of the ISOC
>    Foundation in 2020?
>    5. Which was the total budget awarded by the various programs of the
>    ISOC Foundation in 2020, including BtN?
>
> I must say that ISOC Brazil is very happy to receive small and large
> grants from the ISOC Foundation. They have been instrumental for many of
> our activities and have helped us leverage additional funding from other
> sources. I must also say that we have a very good relationship to the ISOC
> Foundation staff, which is always available and very helpful. And I agree
> that things are becoming much easier, for submitting both applications and
> final reports.
>
> So, from my perspective, this discussion is not about the quality of the
> work done. It is about strategic decisions on the distribution of the
> overall budget and about the relative weight of the chapters.
>
> Best,
>
> Flávio
>
> Hi,
>
> I have the impression that the information I posted was not helpful to
> you, and I regret that I have not been as helpful as you would wish.
>
> On Thu, Sep 30, 2021 at 11:22:55PM +0200, Alexander Blom wrote:
>
> With 90% of the money going to other external parties
>
>
> That is, as I tried to point out in this message, not an accurate
> portrayal of the situation.  There is nothing whatever preventing chapters
> from applying (or _also_ applying) for grants outside the BtN program.  But
> BtN is reserved _only_ to this community.  Some chapters have applied to
> the other progams and been successful, and there is no reason why that
> can't be true for other chapters as well.  (Some chapters, of course, are
> not eligible for these grants because those chapters are not the equivalent
> of US 501(c)(3)s.  That is a structural problem related to US not for
> profit law.  The Internet Society can't currently act as an intermediary on
> the larger grant programs.)
>
> grant-making activities." On the contrary, I think that Nazar is right:
> why
> does the foundation and in fact all of ISOC does not concentrate on its
> core constituency, the chapters, and its core cause, the internet?
>
>
> It is certainly the case that there are people doing work on Internet
> issues who are not and who do not wish to be or cannot be chapter members,
> so I don't think it would serve the Internet to insist that a chapter be
> involved in everything.  For instance, there are countries where anything
> resembling a chapter would be illegal, but we can work with individuals
> there.
>
> I admit that I don't understand the concern that we're not concentrating
> on the core cause of the Internet.  The board that hired me and every board
> since has been crystal clear that they do not want us to be the everything
> society, and it has been a consistent hallmark of my time here that topics
> that are vaguely related to technology but are not really Internet topics
> are not things that we pursue.  Yes, the Foundation will fund things that
> have to do with the application of the Internet to particular problems, but
> unless the Internet is at the core of each application the application
> won't get far.
>
> If
> Afrinic is truly going through a rough time, why is ISOC not jumping in?
>
>
> Given that there are active law suits going on, if the Internet Society
> were helping do you think it would be wise for us to post about it on a
> list that could be shared very widely?  This is a hypothetical question, of
> course.
>
> And why is only 30% of project applications successful?
>
>
> Well, that is the rate so far this year, but as I said we are working to
> improve the problematic applications so that this rate can get better.  I
> don't think I was suggesting that this is a good result, and I believe it
> will improve as we continue to work with applicants.
>
> Best regards,
>
> A
>
> --
> Prof. Flávio Rech Wagner		
>
> Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul      flavio at inf.ufrgs.br
> Instituto de Informática                       Fone: +55-51-3308 9494
> Porto Alegre, Brasil                           http://www.inf.ufrgs.br/~flavio
>
> Presidente da Internet Society Brasilflavio at inf.ufrgs.br, info at isoc.org.br          Fone: +55-51-3308 9494https://www.isoc.org.br                        Twitter: @ISOCBrasilhttps://www.facebook.com/isocbrasil/           https://www.youtube.com/isocbrasil
>
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