Event Sprint Sponsorship Request
The Plone Foundation sponsors events related to Plone and its community.
Plone Event and Sprint Sponsorship Policy
The Plone Foundation supports various kinds of activities and events, from representing Plone at tradeshows to local sprints.
Promoting Plone is one of the core activities of the Plone Foundation. To do that, the Foundation supports members of the community in their activities.
Types of events
In general, there are a few main types of events that can be sponsored in part by the Foundation.
- Marketing events. These are, for instance, trade shows or software conferences where Plone can and should be represented. These will fall under the Marketing budget, and will be evaluated by the marketing team. See specific guidelines for Marketing events.
- "Community" sprints and meetups. The topics and specifics of these can, and should, vary greatly. Although our budget is limited, we will try to support as many of these as possible. These could be regional events, but also meetups of specific interest groups. Expenses may include items such as facility rental, add a Plone meetup day for PyCon Malaysia, or a hold a meeting of "Plone for quantum cryptographers." This category is limited by the community only, where the community should also be seen in a broad sense.
- Larger, "strategic" sprints. There is a separate budget for these. What is deemed a "strategic" sprint is in general decided by the various teams within the community. See further the policy on strategic sprint funding.
Of course, there can always be different events that fall outside of these categories. In which case, don't despair! You can still ask the Foundation for support, but you'll have to be extra convincing on why this is essential for Plone.
General qualifications and requirements
When an individual or organization wants to receive funding from the Plone Foundation for an event or activity, they must first review the qualifications for funding and conditions for reimbursement described in this section.
The organizer is free and encouraged to obtain funding from other parties than the Plone Foundation.
All events that receive funding from the Plone Foundation must declare in all of its communications "The <EventName> is funded by the Plone Foundation".
Insurance and legal matters
Organizers must perform due diligence to understand the local laws surrounding what types and limits of insurance coverage are required for the proposed event.
Specify amount of funding
There is no maximum funding amount for sprints and all other activities. The following points are a general guide:
Strategic Sprints receive approximately USD$40 per in-person participant per day.
Community Sprints receive USD$300.
Specify for what funding shall be used
Funding may be used for the following expenses:
location expenses, including venue rental, wifi, food, and non-alcoholic drinks
travel, including flights, trains, public transit, rental car, and taxi
lodging
T-shirts, and other event memorabilia
Professional photography
Funding from the Plone Foundation may not be used for the purchase of alcohol for resale by charitable organizations, because such an action would be outside the purpose of the organization. It’s OK to purchase alcohol for Plone events for consumption only with meals during events.
When considering travel and lodging expenses, release managers are granted an annual stipend of USD$4,000 to attend sprints and other events, and you should not include their expenses for your sprint funding proposal. You may invite specific individuals who are members of an official team, such as the Volto, Marketing, or Documentation Team, and offer to use funding toward their travel and lodging expenses. Be strategic and selective when offering to reimburse individuals for their expenses, because it’s not financially possible to reimburse all participants.
The Board has adopted priorities to (1) increase diversity in the community, and (2) lower our carbon footprint. Sprint organizers should communicate if additional funding is needed toward the extra cost to fulfill these priorities.
Strategic sprint qualifications and requirements
The following subsections apply only to strategic sprints.
Specify goals
The organizer should specify realistic and specific goals to accomplish during the strategic sprint. This should include a GitHub project board. PLIPs and other peer-reviewed tasks have greater value to the development of Plone, and the Plone Foundation is more likely to fund these tasks.
Specify number of participants
Provide an estimate of the number of participants, considering the capacity of the venue and remote participants.
Assign tasks
The tasks should be assigned to individuals who are committed to performing the work. Don’t overcommit, be realistic and focused.
Apply before the deadline
Strategic sprint organizers should request funding by December of the year prior to the strategic sprint. This is not an absolute deadline. However, the Board creates a budget in December of every year and publishes it in January. It’s less likely that funds will be available the longer you delay.
Create a web page
The organizer should—but not must—prepare an information web page using their own resources. It should include information about the strategic sprint, including dates, times, locations, a sign up method including whether attendees will be present or remote, a link to the project board, and other useful information. For assistance, with creating a page for the event, contact the Marketing Team.
Community sprint qualifications and requirements
The following section applies only to community sprints.
Apply at least one month before the event
Include the details of the expected schedule and number of attendees.
Funding request
If the event qualifies, then you may submit a funding request through the Plone website using the appropriate form below.
Prior to filling out the form, you need to perform due diligence to understand the local laws surrounding what types and limits of insurance coverage you are required to carry for the proposed event. Given that the laws and regulations differ wildly around the world, this is something that the Plone Foundation cannot help you with. But we want to be sure that neither you nor the Plone Foundation are exposed to undue risks on this front.
No requests will be considered without filling out the form. Do not email the Foundation board or the marketing team with requests directly, although you can, of course, contact the board or the marketing team later with more specific information.
Request notification and review
For sprints, the submitted request is automatically sent by email to the Board, and for all other activities to the Marketing Team.
The requestor receives an acknowledgement on the website that the form was sent, as well as a copy of the message by email.
The appropriate body either approves, defers, or rejects the request for funding. For a deferral, it optionally requests further clarification so it may make an informed decision. It communicates their decision with the requestor. If the request for funding is approved, then the decision should also include a reimbursement request spreadsheet and further instructions.
Report on your event
If your event is approved for Foundation sponsorship funds, we expect you to provide a brief report to the Plone community via the Sponsorship Report Form. Take lots of photos, so you can add a link to a folder with all the images, but please include an additional folder of "best of" selected photos for better user experience. And remember, there is always friendly help available from the Marketing Team if you are not the kind of person that normally writes great articles or English is not your first language.
Reimbursement
The requestor sends an email to treasurer@plone.org to inform them that they have completed the Sponsorship Report Form and wish to start the reimbursement process.
The Treasurer makes a copy of the Request for Reimbursement Template - Name - Date - Purpose in Reimbursements, placing it in a new subfolder named as Requestor’s Name - Date (yyyy-mm-dd) - Purpose, granting Contributor access to the requestor.
The Treasurer replies to the requestor through the Gmail web interface, including a link to the copied reimbursement template and the new folder on the Google Shared Drive. The template includes all the instructions for the requestor to follow.
The requestor completes the Request for Reimbursement Template and uploads all digitized receipts. If no receipt is available, then a credit card or bank statement that highlights the transactions to be reimbursed may be considered for reimbursement.
The requestor finally sends an email to the Board at board@plone.org, CCing treasurer@plone.org. Expect a response within five business days with next steps.
For previously approved requests for reimbursement within its allocated budget, the Treasurer may send payment to the requestor. If, however, there is any issue with the request for reimbursement, then the Treasurer may consult with the Board for clarification. Then the Board reviews it, and either approves, defers, or rejects it. For a deferral, the Board optionally requests further clarification so they may make an informed decision. The Board communicates their decision with the requestor. If approved, the Board sends the request for reimbursement to the Treasurer for payment.
Payment methods
We can send reimbursement payment to your Wise account or directly to your bank account.
We prefer Wise accounts for their lowest and often free transfers, lowest currency conversion rates, fast transfers, and ease of use with the least amount of information to collect.
For direct deposit to your bank account, there may be higher fees and worse currency conversion rates, slower transfer times, and more information to collect.
Wise account
We’ll need your Wisetag, email address, or phone number associated with your Wise account. Ensure that your Wise account is set to be discoverable under Settings -> Privacy -> Find me by?
Direct deposit to your bank account
For a direct deposit to your bank account, we can do so through Wise or Axos. They each have different requirements. The required bank information may include the following information.
Account holder full name
SWIFT / BIC code
IBAN / Account number
IFSC code (India residents only)
Email
Bank name
Your Address
Your City
Your Province / Region / State
Your Postal code (optional)
Your Country
India residents
At this time, Wise, according to its operating agreement with India, does not permit charities, such as the Plone Foundation, to send money in INR to recipients. We can send funds in other currencies, including USD and EUR, to residents of India via Wise. If that’s not possible, then we can attempt to send a wire from Axos, but that has not been successful either.
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