Software Carpentry Foundation: Organizational Membership

As we said in the previous post in this series, our interim Steering Committee has adopted bylaws for the Software Carpentry Foundation. They have also agreed on four tiers of membership so that universities, companies, government labs, and other entities can help support and guide our work. The authoritative version is stored in this public GitHub repository, but in brief, the tiers are:

• Partners, who make a significant long-term contribution to organizing and delivering workshops;
• Affiliates, who are organizing workshops and helping with admin, but not at the same level;
• Sponsors, who underwrite the cost of particular workshops that would otherwise not have backers; and
• Donors, who simply wish to make cash or in-kind contributions to help with general operations.

Each membership tier is described below. The Steering Committee and Advisory Council will revisit them in a year's time to ensure they're meeting everyone's needs, and we will always be willing to discuss other arrangements. Please mail if you would like more information, or would like to start a discussion about how you could help. And of course, individual donations to the cause will always be welcome.

Next up: organizing and funding workshops.

Organizational Membership

Terminology

• An internal workshop is one whose audience is mainly from the host organization (e.g., a workshop run by the University of Melbourne for staff and students of the University of Melbourne).

• An external workshop is one whose audience is mainly for people not at or from the host organization (e.g., a workshop organized by the University of Melbourne but run at the University of Wollongong).

• Coordinating a workshop means handling the administration involved in lining up instructors, administering assessment questionnaires, providing information on attendees to the SCF, etc. Staff working for the organizer do not necessarily teach the workshop.

• Hosting a workshop means providing space for it, supporting travel costs for instructors (if applicable), etc.

• The administration fee is the fee the SCF charges per workshop to support curriculum development, instructor training, and central administrative costs. The amount is specified in the current version of the workshop guidelines.

Membership categories

The Software Carpentry Foundation offers three tiers of organizational membership:

1. A Partner is a university, research lab, corporation, non-profit, or other organization that has made a long-term commitment to the growth and spread of Software Carpentry. A Partner:

   1. Has at least 3 qualified instructors associated with it.

   2. Coordinates at least 20 workshops annually. If the Partner has a principal location (e.g., a university campus), at least half the workshops it coordinates must be at other sites; if the Partner is a distributed collaboration, no more than one third of the workshops may be at any single site.

   3. Provides at least 20 person-days of staff time or US$10,000 to the SCF annually for activities agreed upon with the SCF Steering Committee.

   4. May advertise its status as an SCF Partner.

   5. May elect to not pay an administration fee for internal workshops.

   In return, the SCF:

   1. Invites the Partner to appoint a representative to its Advisory Council.

   2. Offers to run at least one instructor training course for the Partner annually.

   3. Designates the organization as an official SCF Partner in all of its materials.

   4. Helps publicize relevant activities by the Partner, such as other training courses, software releases, and notable scientific successes.

   5. Assists the Partner with recruiting, e.g., by publicizing open positions in social media.

2. An Affiliate is a university, research lab, corporation, non-profit, or other organization that is building a longer-term relationship with the SCF. An Affiliate:

   1. Has at least 2 qualified instructors associated with it.

   2. Organizes at least 3 workshops annually (either internal or external).

   3. May advertise its status as an SCF Affiliate.

   4. May elect to provide at least 10 person-days of staff time or US$5000 annually for activities agreed upon with the SCF Steering Committee in lieu of paying workshop administration fees.

   In return, the SCF:

   1. Reserves 2 seats in each online offering of the instructor training course for Affiliate staff.

   2. Works to offer geographically local instructor training annually in conjunction with other Affiliates if requested.

   3. Helps publicize relevant activities by the Affiliate, such as other training courses, software releases, and notable scientific successes.

   4. Assists the Affiliate with recruiting, e.g., by publicizing open positions in social media.

3. A Sponsor is an organization that wishes to support SCF activities in a significant way, but does not wish to coordinate or host workshops itself. A Sponsor:

   1. Underwrites the cost of 2 or more workshops per year.

   2. Provides at least 5 person-days of staff time or US$2000 to the SCF annually.

   3. May advertise its status as an SCF Sponsor.

   In return, the SCF:

   1. Reserves 2 seats in each online offering of the instructor training course for people nominated by the Sponsor.

   2. Publicizes the Sponsor's support.

   3. Assists the Sponsor with recruiting, e.g., by publicizing open positions in social media.

4. Any individual or organizational backer which does not meet the criteria above is considered a Donor. The SCF:

   1. Publicizes the Donor's support.

   2. Assists the Sponsor with recruiting, e.g., by publicizing open positions in social media.