Sustainability, governance and partnerships of Decidim
Participatory process to define Decidim's management model and sustainability strategy
Currently, the Decidim Association is highly dependent on public funding. Specifically, it receives two subsidies from Barcelona City Council (100k) and the Generalitat de Catalunya (50k). This income allows it to support the Technical Office and pay for other minor expenses. In addition, there is a contract from Barcelona City Council through which Decidim's maintainers are hired.
However, depending so much on public funding and so few institutions is a risk. As we have already seen, we can lose that money for bureaucratic reasons - as happened to us with the 50k from Barcelona City Council last year - or because of changes in governments, which could lead to the withdrawal of institutional support. This is why it is imperative to work to diversify the Association's sources of funding, both qualitatively and quantitatively.
This debate seeks to discuss what strategies to follow in order to ensure the long-term sustainability of the project.
Questions for the debate
- How can the Association obtain resources from all the economic activity generated around Decidim?
- How can we expand the number and type of actors that can support the project, beyond Catalan institutions? In particular, would it be possible for public institutions, NGOs, etc. that are users of the Decidim SW to support the project?
- What kind of services can the Association offer?
- What other sustainability strategies should we explore?
*It is necessary to take into account those aspects that are already defined in the Statutes of the Association:
Article 4.3. Defines services as an activity of the Association.
Article 20. The management of public and private subsidies corresponds to the coordination committee.
How can I participate?
- By leaving your comments below. You can answer the questions or write your thoughts on the topic addressed in this debate.
- Upvote for the comments you agree with. Your votes will be taken into account when drafting the document.
Remember to express your opinion respectfully.
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Thanks @llangton ! I understand your concerns and partly agree with you. Note the subtelty that I expressed in point 3 that the association "should be able to" instead of "should do X" as I express on the other points. I don't think that, right now, the association should deliver those services, and I don't think it should invest energy on providing decidim instances or other technical services. But I think it should keep the possibility open. That is, I think we should NOT legally (on internal regulation) preclude that it does. This is why I included the "should be able to". I agree with you that we can gain experience 3.b and 3.c by partnering. But I think that the possibility should exist because there are many cases in which the whole project could fail if we cut down the very capacity of the association. One such scenario is one in which a single company monopolizes most services, for example. There are other scenarios also, but you can imagine what a terrible obstacle would be for the community to have forbidden to provide services. So I think delivering the type of service that worries you is something the association should strategically NOT do, but it is something it should have the possibility to do.
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