Resources Toolkit
This section of the toolkit is focused on activities that will help you with planning how to establish, stabilize, and evolve sustainable resources for your program. It is designed to help you structure discussions and gain consensus about next steps for sustainable resources for your OSS program.
Click here to download a PDF of ALL Resources activities.
Facet Description
In order to launch, grow, and thrive, OSS programs need resources both human and fiscal. Human resources encompass engineers writing code, community members providing use cases, colleagues or consultants providing assistance with strategic planning, or organizational homes with fiscal stewardship. Financial resources come in and go out in a wide variety of ways - in via contributions, grants, dues, sponsorships, etc., and out via salaries, servers, telecommunications, and overhead.
Getting Started
Review the activities and goals below to select ones you want to use for sustainability planning. These activities are designed to help you move from one phase to the next and can be used in any order. You can use any or all of them.
Click on the icons below to download a DOC or PDF version of each Activity.
Click on the Activity name or more button (…) for additional resources.
Use the "contact" page to ask questions.
Click here to download a PDF of all Phase 1 activities.
Goals: Understand where your program fits in the competitive landscape; Use results to innovate, make decisions, identify opportunities for collaboration, increase usefulness/effectiveness of your platform
Related Objective: Undertake business and financial sustainability planning
Goals: Understand the range of various financial resourcing models and how they function; Understand what adopting different resourcing models could mean for your own program; and Narrow the range of potential resourcing models / revenue-generating activities for your program to consider
Related Objective: Undertake business and financial sustainability planning
Goal: Identify the human resources required to support program goals and strategies
Related Objective: Determine human resources needed to move forward
Goals: Create a value proposition for a new program position (e.g. community manager, technical lead) to help articulate significance of allocating resources to program leadership; and optionally Create a job description for a new program position
Related Objective: Determine human resources needed to move forward
Goal: Determine which services are important for your program as you evaluate home organization options
Related Objective: Explore partnerships and collaborations
Goals: Determine if your program would benefit from partnering or contracting with an organizational home or fiscal sponsor; and Gather requirements for assessment and decision
Related Objective: Explore partnerships and collaborations
Click here to download a PDF of all Phase 2 activities.
Goals: Identify strengths and weaknesses of your program’s current revenue-generating activities; and Evaluate and prioritize new revenue-generating models for potential addition to your program’s portfolio
Related Objective: Expand community of funders and contributors
Goals: Identify revenue-generating activities that can be improved; and Develop strategies for improvement
Related Objective: Expand community of funders and contributors
Goals: Identify revenue-generating activities that can be discontinued; and Develop a plan for gaining approval from governance / leadership
Related Objective: Expand community of funders and contributors
Goals: Understand the range of various contribution methods and support systems and how they function; Understand what adopting different contribution methods or support systems could mean for your own program; and Identify one or two new contribution methods or support systems for your program to pilot
Related Objective: Expand community of funders and contributors
Goals: Identify the vendor/service provider ecosystem in your domain; and Use results to identify opportunities for collaboration or partnerships
Related Objective: Work with vendors to support development needs
Goals: Identify the elements in a registered service provider agreement that are important to your program; and Create a draft registered service provider agreement to share with program leadership
Related Objective: Work with vendors to support development needs
Goals: Identify what documentation your program has that supports growing a successful community; Prioritize missing documentation and develop a plan for its development
Related Objective: Cultivate expectations around community contributions
Goals: Get beyond one way communications and start to create infrastructure for more interactive engagement with current and potential community members; Determine what kind of engagement is right for your community; Map stakeholder groups with nascent activities you want to support
Related Objective: Cultivate expectations around community contributions
Click here to download a PDF of all Phase 3 activities.
Goals: Identify desirable characteristics for potential ally/partner organizations to have; and Identify potential ally/partner organizations with desirable characteristics
Related Objective: Focus on alliances and partnerships with leading institutions
Goals: Identify program strengths that would be attractive to new partners; and Create value propositions to share with potential new partners
Related Objective: Focus on alliances and partnerships with leading institutions
Goal: Develop a plan for evaluating existing alliances and partnerships
Related Objective: Focus on alliances and partnerships with leading institutions
Goals: Evaluate resource plans in response to the broader trends in the domain the program serves; and Understand how changes in the environment may affect long-term sustainability
Related Objective: Shift business model in response to external events
Goal: Determine whether your program should devote resources to exploring global scaling or expansion
Related Objective: Calibrate revenue streams to a global economy
Goals: Identify and prioritize milestones and next steps for global scaling or expansion planning; and Identify program staff/stakeholders responsible for moving forward
Related Objective: Calibrate revenue streams to a global economy