[OSGeo-UK] GoFundGeo Launched!
Nick Bearman
nick at nickbearman.com
Mon Dec 8 07:17:36 PST 2025
Hi Matt and others interested in funding GDAL,
GDAL is certainly a vital piece of software and I am very happy that we
support it's fundraising approach.
However given the size of GDAL, and their previous fund raising efforts,
I do wonder whether our (relatively) small budget is best spent on $1000
(~£750) sponsorship.
GDAL's budget is open (https://opencollective.com/gdal#category-BUDGET)
and well worth a look if you are interested. I approached the
gdal-sponsors email address and received this reply from Howard Butler:
> Indeed GDAL's funding situation is secure at this time, although our
recent loss of two Gold sponsors is likely to change the program's
approach significantly in the future if we are unable to backfill them.
Our current fundraising strategy is to focus on large corporate
institutional organizations that derive market benefit from their
customers using GDAL (ie, the clouds) or organizations who have
strategic economic interest in GDAL. The former has been lacking in the
last year, however. Our operation strategy has been to build up a
comfortable pool of resources relative to our expenditures to help us
weather business and fundraising cycles. Now that we're in a downturn,
we are consuming some of that rainy day fund.
> The most significant benefit of OSGeo:UK donating to GDAL would be
visibility of the organization on the GDAL Sponsors page – an arguably
minimal one. I think it is more efficient for OSGeo:UK to continue to
put resources toward the smaller projects it is currently supporting
(this is great!). GDAL can't redirect its resources as easily, and to do
so requires building relationships with those entities, which your
organization already has. The GDAL Sponsorship Program has redirected
some of its resources in the past, but only to direct project or code
dependencies. The breadth of your sponsorship program is much wider and
able to be more speculative. IMO, you should keep doing more of that
rather than providing resources to GDAL.
So I will take that as a recommendation that we don't sponsor GDAL this
year and use the money for some of our smaller projects.
Evan Rouault also came in on the email thread, and said that they would
really like us to use our influence and contacts to highlight GDAL's
sponsorship program to large UK based organisations who are GDAL users.
He suggested Met Office, Ordnance Survey and private owned business in
the GIS industry, etc. He also said
"Underline that this is a large project (2+ million lines of code),
dealing with low-level, yet crucial, details that are both essential to
all building blocks based on it, but too far from end-users to attract
enough spontaneous contributions sufficient for its daily maintenance.
GDAL isn't using an open-core model with a free tier and a commercial
tier. The free product is the enterprise one, integrating capabilities
like direct access to commercial cloud storage. The revenue stream to
improve it without the sponsorship program is thus relatively modest.
Improvements done in it have a huge leverage on the industry that
depends on it. We have more details in
https://gdal.org/en/stable/development/rfc/rfc83_use_of_project_sponsorship.html
on what kind of activities the funds are used for."
So I hope this helps explain our position.
Any comments or feedback, please do post here, comment in the Google
Docs
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UUl6NmGmUUowluU8L6dNfF6mUO9kZCOU7W1TvmPQM4I/edit?usp=sharing
or come to the meeting on 10th Dec, 12pm
https://meet.google.com/mow-pbyj-wah.
Best wishes,
Nick.
On 24/11/2025 17:06, Nick Bearman via UK wrote:
>
> Thanks very much Matt - I will add this to the list when I can.
>
> Best wishes,
> Nick.
>
> On 20/11/2025 19:51, Matt Walker via UK wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> I'd like to propose we sponsor GDAL as part of OSGeo:UK GoFundGeo.
>> GDAL underpins so much geospatial software. Further details here:
>> https://gdal.org/en/stable/sponsors/.
>>
>> Given the levels I'd suggest we look at the Supporter level at $1000.
>>
>> Kind regards,
>>
>> Matt Walker
>> https://mastodon.social/@walkermatt
>>
>> On Thu, 20 Nov 2025, 14:43 Nick Bearman via UK, <uk at lists.osgeo.org>
>> wrote:
>>
>> Hi Everyone,
>>
>> Do remember to suggest projects for GoFundGeo.
>>
>> Currently we have two projects who have applied (qgis2web and
>> GeoServer)
>> and we are also looking to continue our regular funding of
>> pgRouting,
>> QGIS and GISRUK & OSGeo:UK GoFundGeo Award.
>>
>> These are listed in Google Docs linked below and we value your
>> comments.
>>
>> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UUl6NmGmUUowluU8L6dNfF6mUO9kZCOU7W1TvmPQM4I/edit?usp=sharing
>>
>> Feel free to add comments to the document, or share comments on the
>> email list.
>>
>> This will be a live document, updated with more information and
>> submissions as we receive them until the deadline, Sun 30th Nov.
>>
>> If you have any questions, please do ask.
>>
>> Best wishes,
>> Nick.
>>
>> On 13/11/2025 16:13, Nick Bearman via UK wrote:
>> > A quick reminder about GoFundGeo.
>> >
>> > Deadline for Submissions is Sun 30th Nov.
>> >
>> > So far we have had 1! Please do submit your project and if you
>> know
>> > anyone doing interesting work, please encourage them to submit
>> their
>> > project. If anyone has any questions, please do ask, either
>> here or
>> > via osgeouk at gmail.com or nick at nickbearman.com.
>> >
>> > We have decided on the meeting where we decide which projects to
>> > fund: 10th December 2025 12pm - 1pm on Google Meet,
>> > https://meet.google.com/mow-pbyj-wah.
>> >
>> > Best wishes,
>> > Nick.
>> >
>> > On 30/10/2025 3:19 pm, Nick Bearman wrote:
>> >> Every year around November we use surplus funds from FOSS4G:UK
>> >> conferences (and other funds) to support Open Source Geospatial
>> >> software projects that will have an impact in the UK. We
>> usually have
>> >> around £5000 to support a variety of projects, and have done
>> >> previously each year since 2022. For more details of the
>> projects we
>> >> have supported, please see https://uk.osgeo.org/gofundgeo.html.
>> >>
>> >> This year we have a budget of £6,000 and will be making the
>> decision
>> >> about which projects we support in early December. Come along and
>> >> have your say!
>> >>
>> >> We are looking to use this money to fund relevant projects in the
>> >> range of £500 - £1000 each that will benefit UK users.
>> >>
>> >> We would like to hear from you - what project(s) do you think we
>> >> should fund?
>> >>
>> >> We are making this as simple a process as possible, so please
>> submit
>> >> your ideas to osgeouk at gmail.com by Sun 30th Nov 2025. We will
>> need a
>> >> short paragraph that covers what is being funded, why it is
>> useful,
>> >> who will do it and how much you are applying for. We will
>> share these
>> >> to the email list around Tue 2nd Dec, for discussion at our
>> meeting
>> >> in early December.
>> >>
>> >> We have funding guidelines
>> >> (https://uk.osgeo.org/fundingguidelines.html) and briefly we only
>> >> fund open source projects, our preference is to support discrete
>> >> pieces of work, or to meet specific sponsorship levels, and we
>> are
>> >> focused on items that will benefit the UK community.
>> >>
>> >> We will discuss the submissions at our meeting in early
>> December, and
>> >> decide which ones to fund.
>> >>
>> >> We are hopeful again to get support from the RGS-IBG GIScience
>> >> Research Group who have previously provided funding of £250 to
>> >> support GoFundGeo projects.
>> >>
>> >> If your organisation is interested in supporting GoFundGeo with a
>> >> donation, please email osgeouk at gmail.com.
>> >>
>> >> If you have any questions, or need any more information please
>> see
>> >> the website https://uk.osgeo.org/gofundgeo.html or email
>> >> osgeouk at gmail.com.
>> >>
>> >> Best wishes,
>> >> Nick.
>> >>
>> >> Nick Bearman
>> >> OSGeo:UK Chair
>> >>
>> --
>> Nick Bearman
>> +44 (0) 7717745715
>> nick at nickbearman.com
>>
>> Please let me know if I can make any adjustments related to
>> disability or neurodivergence to improve how we interact.
>>
>> Due to my own life/work balance, you may get emails from me
>> outside of normal working hours. Please do not feel any pressure
>> to respond outside of your own working pattern.
>>
>>
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> --
> Nick Bearman
> +44 (0) 7717745715
> nick at nickbearman.com
>
> Please let me know if I can make any adjustments related to disability or neurodivergence to improve how we interact.
>
> Due to my own life/work balance, you may get emails from me outside of normal working hours. Please do not feel any pressure to respond outside of your own working pattern.
>
> _______________________________________________
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> UK at lists.osgeo.org
> https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/uk
--
Nick Bearman
+44 (0) 7717745715
nick at nickbearman.com
Please let me know if I can make any adjustments related to disability or neurodivergence to improve how we interact.
Due to my own life/work balance, you may get emails from me outside of normal working hours. Please do not feel any pressure to respond outside of your own working pattern.
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