Monthly Archives: October 2016

Introducing the new Corporate Membership Program

The OpenStreetMap Foundation has had a Corporate Membership option for a while, where organizations and companies could become Associate Members of the OpenStreetMap Foundation for GBP 1000 per year. We have seen fantastic interest in this scheme, which is a sign that organizations and companies using OpenStreetMap are willing to give back to the project. In the first years of its existence, we also received a lot of feedback on the Corporate Membership as it exists today. Most of all, organizations wanted more flexibility in the amount they want to pay in exchange for their corporate membership.

After taking in the feedback, consulting with exisiting and potential Corporate Members as well as the Foundation membership, we have designed a new tiered Corporate Membership program that we believe aligns much more closely with the needs of potential Corporate Members. Your organization can now become a Corporate Member for as little as €500 for ‘Supporter’ level, all the way up to €20,000 for ‘Platinum’ level. Each level has different benefits, as laid out below. But the biggest benefit of all is the knowledge that your organization is doing its part to support the growth and sustainability of the OpenStreetMap project!

The Corporate Membership Tiers

Supporter (€500 / year)

  • Your name on the OSMF web site
  • Show support for the OSM Foundation
  • Attend OSMF General Meetings

Bronze (€1,500 / year)

All supporter level benefits, plus:

  • First access to SotM sponsorship opportunities
  • Name and logo on OSMF web site.

Silver (€4,000 / year)

All bronze level benefits, plus:

  • One joint press release annually

Gold (€10,000 / year)

All Silver level benefits, plus:

Platinum (€20,000 / year)

All Gold level benefits, plus:

  • Invite a board member for an in-house presentation about OpenStreetMap (you pay for travel / lodging)

This new program will take effect on Jan 1, 2017. However, if you are interested in becoming a corporate member, please do not hesitate to contact us now, and we can get you set up. If you are currently a Corporate Member, we will be in touch about your transition to the new program.

New Local Chapter: Swiss OpenStreetMap Association

We’d like to welcome the Swiss OpenStreetMap Association (sosm.ch) as our latest official OpenStreetMap Foundation Local Chapter.

sosm-handshake

Paul Norman and Simon Poole (centre) officially finalising the paperwork for the new local chapter at the State Of The Map conference last month in Brussels

With this formal agreement SOSM and the OSM Foundation have declared that we “shall seek to mutually support the activities of the other”. It doesn’t entail any drastic changes, but from a practical standpoint, it does mean SOSM have “official” status which may help them in any dealings with government and political/advocacy groups. It also means they are formally permitted to use the OpenStreetMap trademarks.

Of course we hope to see other countries formalising their foundation status in this way. Switzerland may also serve as an inspirational example in the way this group has been established in support of the local community. As described on their about page “SOSM was created to further the goals of the OpenStreetMap movement, to strengthen the contacts with authorities and industry, to facilitate the activities of OSM community members in Switzerland and to represent the Swiss OSM community in other organisations … providing some structure when needed and remaining as lightweight and as unobstrusive as possible”, which seems like an excellent way to orientate a local OpenStreetMap organisation.

You can also read more about the Swiss OpenStreetMap community on this OpenCaged data interview with Simon Poole about OSM in Switzerland, and you can follow SwissOSM on twitter.

State Of The Map, Thanks!

600px-state_of_the_map_2016_group_photo

Thanks to everyone who made it to the international State Of The Map conference in Brussels two weeks ago. With around 400 attendees from 52 different countries, this was a fantastic event bringing our community together.

Huge thanks to the team of organisers, and local volunteers in Belgium who helped make it such a success. We saw some of these people up on stage at the end of the conference:

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…but also thanks to those working behind the scenes. A special thank you to Ben Abelshausen and Rob Nickerson who played leading roles in organising the event from on the ground and remote support respectively. There is a list of folks on the SOTM team page, but this will be updated soon because…

The early steps of organising the State Of The Map 2017 are in progress! We’ll bring you an announcement soon about the choice of host country for next year, and of course there will be an opportunity to help with organising and sponsorship. Start thinking about it. Earlier the better!

Video from all the main auditoriums at the Brussels conference can be found at the conference website. We’ll be bringing you the edited per-session versions of these talks soon. More photos from Brussels can be found in this set from Tatiana the official conference photographer, and also on the sotm2016 flickr tag.

We previously congratulated the winners of the OpenStreetMap awards. In addition to that, here are a few links to blogs by attendees with write-ups and ruminations about the conference:

If you attended the conference please check your inbox for a State of the Map: Feedback Survey email. The organising team would appreciate your feedback to help make it even better the coming year.

During the conference we launched a new OpenStreetMap fundraising drive. In the past, the conference itself provided a significant annual source of funding for the foundation, but as the project grows we need more reliable funding sources. Your donations help will ensure continuity and continued independence of OpenStreetMap. Please help us reach our fundraising goal by donating and sharing the link: donate.openstreetmap.org, our fundraising site.

Finally if you couldn’t make it to Brussels for the annual international OpenStreetMap conference, remember there’s a whole range of events large and small happening all over the world (see the calendar). Just last weekend there was “State Of The Map Asia“, the second “local” conference for the asian continent, which took place this time in Manilla, Philippines!

State of the map Asia 2016 group photo