☰
Navigation :

13 Jan 2022

Minutes of a Regular Meeting of the Board of Directors of NumFOCUS. All votes are reported in the form “(Y/N/A)” (in favor-Y‚ opposed-N‚ abstentions-A; e.g. “4-1-2” means “4 in favor, 1 opposed, and 2 abstentions”).

January 13, 2022

Board Members: Rosie Pongracz, James Powell, Logan Kilpatrick, Sylvain Corlay, Katrina Riehl, Stefan van der Walt

Executive Director: Leah Silen

Not attending:

Email/Github Voting: N/A

Consent Agenda:

Approved 5-0-0

  1. PyTables Update - Information in the ED Report

  2. New Corporate Sponsor - Information in the ED Report

  3. Unexpected Funding - Spectra Research Institute, a 501c3 nonprofit that has been in the process of dissolving donated $108,000 to NF. This decision was made by their board of directors following IRS requirements that the assets of a charitable nonprofit organization can only be used for tax-exempt purposes. If assets remain after paying debts the funds must be distributed to another 501c3 or the government.

Discussion Items:

a. SDG

i.  **We propose the following changes to the Small Development Grants program:**

  1. Increase the cap on all proposals from $5,000 to $10,000 The rationale being:

    a. This gives projects greater flexibility in structuring the budget

    b. If we reserved only a few $10,000 awards then we risk having not enough proposals for the pool of $5,000 awards and too many proposals for the pool of $10,000

    c. The committee sometimes chooses to award less than the full proposal amount.

    d. The amount required to mentor an Outreachy intern is $6,500 which is more than the $5,000 cap but much less than the $10,000 cap

  2. Make 30% of the budget flexible allowing the committee to shift these funds from round to round if they deem necessary. The remaining 70% would be fixed and must be awarded during the round if possible. The rationale is that we often have an uneven distribution of the number of proposals across the rounds.

    a. For example, if the total yearly budget is $100,000 then $21,000 per round and $7,000 off-cycle will be fixed and must be awarded within the round. The remaining $30,000 the committee may move from round to round as it deems necessary.

  3. Allow the committee to evaluate off-cycle proposals.

  4. Update the charter. Note that the changes requested above are included if applicable.

Approved: 4-0-0

b. Board Roles and Responsibilities - Continued from last meeting

i.  We have combined the list of responsibilities from our board onboarding packet, the items suggested by Tom, and those from the online Checklist into the Draft Roles and Responsibilities List located toward the end of doc (highlighted yellow)