Since 2010, REFEDS has operated with an informal sponsorship process as set out in the REFEDS participant agreement.  Whilst this has enabled REFEDS to have an active workplan on an annual basis, the informal nature makes it complex for organisations to agree funding for REFEDS.  The REFEDS Coordinators have proposed the following updated model for sponsorship.   The aim is achieve consistency and fairness amongst sponsors and provide a more stable funding mechanism for REFEDS. In the longer term, the hope would be to encourage more organisations to contribute sponsorship.

The new sponsorship model, which will be used as Jan 2015,  would have a tiered approach as indicated below:

Levels

Fee

Description

Bronze

1000 euro

Organisations that regularly send attendees to REFEDS meetings or participate on the mailing list are encouraged to become BRONZE sponsors.  This will ensure that REFEDS is able to maintain its basic infrastructure to support this engagement (mailing lists, website, wiki) and ensure that REFEDS can offer attendance at meetings for free to all attendees

Silver

3000 euro

Organisations that wish to contribute to the yearly workplan are encouraged to become SILVER members.  SILVER contributions will ensure that we can allocate time to work-items over the course of any given year and support the development and execution of the yearly workplan.

Gold

6000 euro

Organisations that actively use REFEDS outputs are encouraged to become GOLD members.  This may be organisations that use tools such as MET, REEP, Entity Category definitions or documentation such as the FOP guidelines, Discovery Guidelines or other templates.  This sponsorship will ensure time allocation for the REFEDS Coordinators or other external consultants to ensure that these activities are sustained in the longterm.

Platinum

10000 euro or more

 Organisations that wish REFEDS to pursue specific goals to support their own identity management roadmap are encouraged to become PLATINUM sponsors.  Platinum sponsors will enable REFEDS to be truly innovative and responsive as an organisation.  Platinum sponsors will be given the opportunity to plan and direct workitems on the REFEDS workplan each year according to their needs.

 

To streamline the process a light weighted funding agreement with each sponsoring organisation will be implemented. The agreement would indicate:

  • The tasks performed by the REFEDS Secretariat as well as the costs associated with this;
  • Details of how work is outsourced as appropriate;
  • A link to the yearly workplan;
  • Main benefits for the sponsors.

The proposal is for the prospect sponsors to select their level, sign the agreement once and unless one of the parties notifies the other one, each year they would receive an invoice correspondent to their level.

Sponsors at the end of the year will receive the yearly report detailing all the costs and the achievements as per the existing model.  They will also receive a copy of the proposed workplan for the following year for comment.  The REFEDS Steering Committee will ratify this plan in January of each year. 

 

 

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