[FOSS4G2016] travel granting - your opinion

[till.adams at fossgis.de]

Dear list,

looks like this is my favourite subject these days, the "travel 
grants".

Now we have 10k $ and want to ask the community for personal donations 
via FOSSGIS paypal account (as dicsussed on IRC yesterday). Now we need 
clever ideas, how to proceed with this.
I just had a phonecall and discussion with Torsten about this topic and 
like to share  my ideas with you and also request for your opinion on 
this.


1. Who gets a grant?
My idea that I also discussed with the board is based on a "point 
system"

Country points:
I like the idea to follow world banks country rating. They assigned all 
countreies due to average income into 4 groups. So, looking to the last 
(in sense of "most poor" group), people applying from there become 3 
points, from the second poorest group 2 and from the next classified 
group 1 point. I would also cut here and not accept any applying people 
from other countries.

Male/Female
In order to prosper a diverse community, in general applying women get 
+1 point.

Students
If a student applies, he/she gets another +1 point

Proposal/Talk
Board initially wanted that only spekaers become a grant, but for this 
we are too late, so I convinced them, not to make this to the onliest 
criteria, but i agreed to take that into account. So I would rate a 
handed in proposal with 1 point and an accepted talk with 3 points, so 
that we ensure, that people that handed in a talk become in favour of 
our granting programme if they have an accepted talk and apply for the 
granting program.

This is in my eyes a transparent procedure and everybody could rate 
him/herself and see, whether he/she gets a chance for granting.


2. What do we grant?
That's really not easy. 2014 and 2015 only granted attendance fee and 
accommodation and I think that's the way we should proceed as well, 
because it is really tricky to pay for someones travel. When do we get 
receipts? What if we pay for a flight and the granted person becomes ill 
or does not get a visa? Pay money in advance and people disappear? -> 
two words: very difficult.

So my favourite is to grant accommodation and conference pass.

But - what do we do with the applying student,s that also take part on 
the studentship programme? If they get a free ticket, there is no need 
for them to work for us. Solution: As a non-profit organisation we can 
pay a volunteering lump-sum, it's somewhere between5 and 700€ per year. 
So we could pay this for granted students, that also take part on the 
studentship programme and they can use it for paying their travel. they 
get the money cash after the conference.




Please share your ideas!

Till