OpenStreetMap Foundation members will vote to elect a new board in September. There are seven seats on the foundation board and board members are volunteers. Board members typically serve for two years until their seat is up for re-election.
There will be at least three board seats available in this election: of Dani Waltersdorfer, Guillaume Rischard and Roland Olbricht, whose board terms are ending. The terms of Craig Allan, Héctor Ochoa Ortiz, Laura Mugeha and Maurizio Napolitano will continue.
The two main pages that have the information about the board election and the 2025 Annual General Meeting, which will take place on 2025-09-13, are:
- OSM wiki: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Foundation/AGM2025/Election_to_Board and
- OSM Foundation website: https://osmfoundation.org/wiki/Annual_General_Meetings/2025
Submission of self-nominations is now open until 5 July at 23:59:59 UTC
Please check the eligibility criteria (also below) and “what the board is/is not, rules and responsibilities and why run“. You can create an account on the OSM wiki and you can nominate yourself by adding your name to the candidates’ table – edit the page here. Deadline: 5th of July at 23:59:59 UTC.
A lot of the foundation’s work is done by the volunteers of our Working Groups, and if you want to help the foundation, you can also look at joining one of them.
Eligibility criteria
Any natural person may be elected to become a board member, provided that:
- they have been a normal OSM Foundation member [1] or an associate member[2] during the full 180 days before the General Meeting, which will take place on 13 September 2025, and
- have been a normal member for the full 28 days prior to the General Meeting, and
- are willing to act as a board member, and
- are permitted by law to do so.
[1] Normal members provide their full residential address and can vote on all issues. Their residential address may be disclosed to other members.[2] Associate members provide just their country of residence - which may also be disclosed to other members - and can vote - but not on all issues. Additionally, they cannot be board candidates.
If you want to find out the type of your OpenStreetMap Foundation membership (normal or associate), please check the most recent approval/renewal membership email or email the volunteers of the Membership Working Group at membership@osmfoundation.org from the email account associated with your OSM Foundation membership.
Please note that you can change the type of your membership.
Submission of community questions to board candidates is now open
OSM Foundation members can submit questions to the board candidates on the OSM wiki until July 12 (“by end of day”, in UTC). An official set of questions, based on the community questions and questions from previous years, will be published on the page above by the facilitator, Brian Sperlongano, on July 26.
Resolutions proposed by OSM Foundation members
OSM Foundation members can submit resolutions and ask the membership to vote on them. The resolutions need to be supported by at least 5% of members eligible to vote, in order to be added to the ballots. Please read: Companies Act 2006: Members’ power to require circulation of written resolution. The deadline for providing the supported resolutions is the end of July 12 (in UTC).
How you can help
A few of the current and past board members have mentioned that the thought of being a candidate did not cross their mind until it was suggested to them. So, you might want to consider running for the board or suggesting it to others.
The OpenStreetMap Foundation is a not-for-profit organisation, formed to support the OpenStreetMap Project. It is dedicated to encouraging the growth, development and distribution of free geospatial data for anyone to use and share. The OpenStreetMap Foundation owns and maintains the infrastructure of the OpenStreetMap project, is financially supported by membership fees and donations, and organises the annual, international State of the Map conference. Our volunteer Working Groups and small core staff work to support the OpenStreetMap project. Join the OpenStreetMap Foundation for just £15 a year or for free if you are an active OpenStreetMap contributor
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