[Eg-oversight-board] More details on Outreach Project for Women

[Kathy Lussier]

Hi all,

I wanted to send along more details on the Outreach Project for Women 
and what I'm proposing before today's EOB meeting. The idea of 
participating in the Outreach Project for Women first came to the Board 
in November 2012. At the time, we needed to make a quick decision, and 
it didn't seem doable to raised the required funds in time for the 
deadline. I would like to see if there is a way the community can 
participate in this round, which had a deadline for September 8.

In the previous discussion on this topic, I think Lori Ayre best 
described the reason for doing it when she said: "As a woman-dominated 
profession, I think it is important that we facilitate the growth of 
women developers of Evergreen." Overall, I think it's important that we 
grow the body of contributors to the project, and I think there are many 
places where an intern could make a difference, not just in code, but in 
documentation, user interfaces, etc.

The details on the project are available at 
https://wiki.gnome.org/OutreachProgramForWomen/Admin/InfoForOrgs. As I 
mentioned in my previous e-mail, the intern can make contributions in 
the areas of coding, user experience design, graphic design, 
documentation, web development, marketing, translation, or other types 
of tasks to help sustain a FOSS project. A sponsor would need to put 
forward $6,250 to sponsor one intern. If the project were to use 
community funds for the internship or pulled together contributions from 
multiple organizations, then Evergreen would be listed as the sponsor on 
the OPW page. If one organization or company put forward the funds for 
the sponsorship, then that organization/company would be acknowledged as 
the sponsor.

I think the next steps are to see:

1) if there is any will among the EOB to fund a sponsorship. Ideally, I 
think it would be a good use of the community's funds, and, if the 
project were successful, we could potentially use it as a target for 
fundraising for future rounds. We have about $29,000 in community, which 
is about the low point we typically see being between two conferences.

2) If the EOB is willing to use community funds for the internship or 
perhaps partially fund it while seeking sponsors for the remainder, we 
would then need to reach out to the community to see what we might do 
for potential projects and if there are any mentors willing to work with 
the interns. In talking to the OPW folks, mentors typically spend up to 
5 hours per week working with the intern, though the hours tend to be 
higher (sometimes up to 10 hours in a given week) during the application 
period.

We can continue discussion at the meeting. See you in a few minutes!

Kathy


-- 
Kathy Lussier
Project Coordinator
Massachusetts Library Network Cooperative
(508) 343-0128
klussier at masslnc.org
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/kmlussier