No.RecommendationRecipientThematic Group SourceAssigneesStatus
41The ALAC should work with the ICANN Board in seeking additional sources of funding for At-Large activities.ALAC; ICANN BoardTG5
  • Finance and Budget

IN PROGRESS

Summary

Implementation Details

The At-Large Community has successfully secured external fundings for its outreach and engagement events and activities, including the Regional At-Large Organization (RALO) showcases held during ICANN public meetings and the At-Large Summits. Past sponsors include organizations that have established the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with RALOs (e.g. ARIN, DotAsia), as well as commercial organizations such as Verisign, Public Interest Registry, Affilias, and Google.

Within ICANN, there has been a continued effort to make additional funding available to support At-Large’s endeavors. ICANN has fulfilled many requests from At-Large members via the Community Regional Outreach Pilot Program (CROPP), financing their travels to regional Internet Governance events. The At-Large Community has also request additional funding through ICANN’s fiscal year special budget request process and applied the resources to advance end user interests. Over the years, the approval rate of those special budget requests has steadily increased. Furthermore, starting from FY17, ICANN’s Global Stakeholder Engagement (GSE) Department and Communications Department have allocated discretionary funds to assist RALOs to organize local events and produce promotional materials in a short-lead time. In June 2016, ICANN Finance Department has adopted the At-Large proposal to integrate the At-Large multiyear schedule of General Assemblies and Summits into ICANN’s Five-Year Operating Plan.

These additional sources of funding have been extremely beneficial to advance the mission of the At-Large Community, the only group within ICANN consisted of unpaid volunteers with no self-interests. They help reduce the barriers to such continued participation and engagement.  

Next Step

The ALAC Subcommittee on Finance and Budget will establish a taskforce to tackle fundraising and sponsor issues. Specifically, the taskforce will work with ICANN Staff to build and maintain a database that contains past sponsors’ details and contributions. They will also develop a mechanism to build, maintain, and strengthen At-Large Community’s relationship with sponsors for long-term collaboration. During ICANN57, the ALAC will discuss with the GSE and seek their advice and assistance in this endeavor.

Actions: 

  • : 
    • Members in the At-Large New Meeting Strategy Working Group to keep the ATLAS II IT updated with the discussion about Meeting B
    • In Dublin, ALAC to discuss this recommendation with the GSE (Sally Costerton and the Regional VPs), the meeting team (Nick Tomasso), and Nora Abusitta (DRPD). 
    • ATLAS II IT to ask Regional VPs to provide brief summaries of activities currently taking place in their respective regions that involve the RALOs, as well as their further engagement plans with the ALSes. Regional VPs to report on this during ICANN 54 Dublin. The Regional VPs to also discuss the Civil Society Engagement Overview and Forward Plan with the ALAC and explain the collaboration opportunities (e.g. regional/local resources and Regional VPs' own budget may potentially provide fundings for outreach activities). 
  • : 
    • ALAC to follow up with GSE to seek answer to this question – how possible is it for GSE to help the ALAC raise additional sources of funding?
  • :
    • At the forthcoming meeting in Hyderabad, the ALAC to ask GSE:

      • about raising external funds and getting sponsors?

    • The ALAC to decide if an At-Large taskforce be established to tackle sponsorship issues, including the development of the sponsor database. This taskforce could bring all RALO leaderships together to give them tools to help them with raising sponsorship for F2F GAs, showcases, etc.

Notes: 

  • FBSC engage with various parties that can help raise sponsorship in the future
  • : 
    • At-Large New Meeting Strategy Working Group (LAC sub-group) has been discussing outreach strategy for Meeting B
      • The Group has raised issues re funding for outreach programs 
      • While the original idea was to contain all the activities within the ICANN meeting, the Working Group has convinced ICANN Staff to also include external outreach activities 
      • At-Large is encouraged to collaborate with ICANN staff on various ICANN initiated outreach programs including Next Gen
      • Check the details of this discussion via the transcript/recording of the Working Group meeting on : https://community.icann.org/x/qYxYAw
    • There seems to be some eagerness from Regional VPs to work with the ALAC and RALOs on regional engagements activities (e.g. newsletters, webinars, LAC strategy, APRALO-APAC Hub); some At-Large members are deeply involved in those activities. 
  • :
    • FBSC has been looking into third party sponsorships, but there seems to be no real understanding whether At-Large should ask for such external funding 
    • External funding seems to be required for meetings/outreach activities outside the ICANN meeting
  •  (update from the GSE, slides)
    • Olivier Crepin-Leblond: We’re talking here about sponsorship, et cetera, for additional activities outside. So the question here is how possible is it for GSE to help the ALAC raise additional sources of funding?
  • : 
    • This recommendation concerns with additional sources of fundings external to ICANN.
    • Some At-Large members work with RIRs and other organizations to support their activities 
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