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- Changes and comments directly to this document should be associated with your Kendra profile KendraMembers. You should also consider posting topics for discussion and comment to [Kendra Framework] (kFW) or other Kendra lists.
KendraInitiative's mission is to simplify and streamline the buying and selling digital content by driving industry adoption of open protocols that advance interoperability between service providers, media applications and devices.
The purpose of this document is to discuss the organizational structure that is needed to enable KendraInitiative to continue to pursue its goals.
The material is largely derived from the website and wiki. Recommendations include ideas for revising and consolidating various the documents use of standard formats and templates and for simplifying navigation between the website and the wiki.
A future objective is to integrate the website and the wiki using a CMS (see KendraWebsiteUpdate).
- Document discussion topics
- KendraInitiative's goals
- Legal structure pertaining to the setting up of the KendraFoundation
- Financial needs as guaged by the planned projects and activities and some ideas on future fund raising.
- Organizational framework (ideas for setting up a Secretariat, Working Group Committees etc.) to manage the growth of the organization and to operate its projects. See also KendraMoU.
- The KendraInitiative has been active for more than five years and currently has more than 1000 members from over 50 countries. There has been an active promotion of KendraInitiative's goals at meetings and conferences, otherwise there has been no special effort to recruit membership. The record of conferences and presentations is very impressive [meetings] and represents an opportunity to promote future interest in the organization.
- Membership, new registrations and lists need to be managed with some cleaning up of non-active and bouncing emails.
- In the past KendraInitiative has operated on a largely voluntary donation-based rather than membership fee-based funding model. However, to continue to develop its projects KendraInitiative will need to consider actively raising funds to include foundation and institution grants and to add an organizational structure for its activities similar to those used by other Open Source groups.
KendraInitiative Legal structure
KendraFoundation is a non-governmental, not for profit organization with international operating and reporting requirements. For the purpose of future fund-raising the established KendraFoundation structure of KendraInitiative is a substantial asset. See also KendraMoU for the development of ideas for a Memorandum of Understanding for KendraInitiative.
KendraInitiative Membership Structure
- KendraInitiative's member/participant constituency is comprised of
- Open Source organizations
- Standards organizations, also government agencies, institutions, foundations
- Industry
- Corporate Foundations and R&D branches (for example - Google, Cisco, Intel, Nokia)
- Financial Institutions (for example - major credit card companies, Google, eBay/PayPal?,as well as investment firms)
- Academic research
- University departments
- Collaborative national and international programs funded by governmental agencies
- KendraInitiative should develop working relationships with other organizations having similar interests (see KendraOutreach) to:
- Keep current and avoid duplication of effort
- Partner to raise funds and collaborate on projects and activities
- Help promote awareness of KendraInitiative
- Look at what other organisation are doing such as: [IEC], [ISOC], etc
- Corporate Members
- Associate Members
- Educational Members
KendraInitiative Trials:
- Trials have members and team leaders/co-ordinators.
KendraInitiative Funding
- Money is needed to:
- Promote KendraInitiative goals
- Conferences, shows etc.
- Speaker/panel travel and accommodation expenses.
- KendraInitiative meeting facility rental and expenses.
- Participation in other standards body meetings, conferences shows etc.
- Operate KendraInitiative
- Administration, people and infrastructure.
- Support development and trials
- Fund projects
- Fund people
- Voluntary donations from members
- Members can assign their funds to specific areas or into the general pot.
- Pledges and matching funds
- Membership fee (membership fee structure can include a provision for limited rights of access for members that do not want to pay a membership fee to participate fully in KendraInitiative's activities)
- Limit membership to corporate and institutional members only or as a combination of non-fee paying individual members. However, a group of institutional funding members are likely to want to take an active role in the planning and direction of KendraInitiative's activities.
- Set up a member fee structure to permit individual and institutional/corporate members. This usually applies to societies that will hold meetings, publish journals and the like. Maybe not a good fit for KendraInitiative because of the desire to use funds to support projects.
- Grants from corporate and institutional foundations to undertake research.
- Foundations, institutions, government agencies, departments Kendra might approach
- Some combination of the above is most likely the best way to go. Generally, it's best to show a track record (very strong in KendraInitiative's case), a financial structure that shows that the organization has been raising funds and has a sound structure for managing funds that it might receive.
- Need to develop and manage annual budget
- KendraInitiative currently needs around £2000 per annum minimum. How urgently does this need to be addressed? Should we keep going with the pledge given that at least some funds have been committed by donors?
KendraInitiative Management Structure
- Roles - available and desired:
- Available: what are the skills of the people that we currently have in the project?
- Desired: what are the skills and tasks needed?...
- Marketing the KendraInitiative vision.
- Development and maintenance of collaborative design tools such as CMS.
- KendraMembers are required to define their roles (current and future (desired)) within their WikiName profile. Use, build on existing member registration profile template and data.
- Executive direction
- Fund raising
- Kendra member organizations may also fund Kendra projects see KendraOutreach for potential sponsors
- Membership and Partner / Affiliate management. See KendraMoU (2. Membership) for a discussion of membership terms of reference.
- Administrative management of KendraInitiative reference pages are KendraFoundationBusinessPlan and Kendra Initiative Funding Summary [Website] and KendraWiki for discussion of future development of the website/wiki etc see KendraWebsiteUpdate.
- Communications, media relations, meeting participation, speakers, etc.
- Does KendraInitiative need offices?
- Would suggest that offices would make us lazy. We need a totally international project. All materials must be online and available to all. All collaboration must be documented and meetings must available to all. Why do we need an office? -- DanielHarris
- Organizational structure for Kendra Trials (Working Group Committees)
- Model after comparable Open Source organizations e.g. W3C, ITEF others. Compare the member agreements or constitutions of similar organizations for ideas. For example [EFF] and [Democracy Player] and BSD, Open Foundation, etc. See also KendraMoU discussion (3. Management and Plenary Assembly).
- Review of the projects as described on the website and the wiki so that the descriptions are up to date and consistent between the two
- KendraBase - semantic publishing and querying prototype
Additional ideas to be integrated:
- Making KendraInitiative Initiative fit for big player consumption. But make sure that no one player or group can not control.
- Connect and revise the written material on the website and the wiki that are associated with KendraInitiative vision, founding and purpose. Also to set up a documentation structure format, template etc. Simplified navigation and integration of the wiki with the website would help member/participants.
- KendraInitiative's membership though mostly UK-based with the second largest group being Europe has very significant membership numbers from the US and Canada and Asia Pacific. These regions are good to build up and as ways of getting stronger participation internationally. A broad international constituency is likely to benefit KendraInitiative in raising funds and communicating its goals.
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