Announcing Transition to FY15 CROPP

Dear At Large RALO and GNSO Constituency Leaders,

I am pleased to report that the Community Regional Outreach Pilot Program (CROPP) continues to progress and that the ICANN Board is convinced that the program deserves at least a full-year of operation before making any determinations about longer-term support.  As a result, resources have been allocated for the next fiscal year (FY15) to allow the pilot program to continue and to give us a bit more flexibility to help support your community outreach needs in the new year.

Closing Out FY14:

Several of your communities have made use of the program to date and there is still a short period of time to take advantage of the resource in this fiscal year (FY14).  The final date for proposing travel by the end of the fiscal year is the end of this week - 17 May.

The FY14 CROPP wiki space will remain available after the 17th for you to review materials about the program and to observe the activities for which other communities have been utilizing the program (see Community Regional Outreach Pilot Program-FY14).  We’ll also continue to utilize the space past 17 May to collect traveler assessment reports for previously approved FY14 activities. Ultimately the space will be archived and the information will remain available for review.

Program training and other tutorial resources continue to be available on the Tools and Resources page of the Wiki space. Staff also remains available to provide individual training sessions (new or refresher assistance) to any program coordinators that you identify for that responsibility.

Transitioning To FY15:

Thanks to feedback from several of you and based on our own experience, we have learned a lot in FY14 and will be creating a new FY15 Wiki space to manage that phase of the pilot program.  We’ll alert you when that space is completed and available – we hope later this week.

In the meantime, please contact me or Janice Douma-Lange if you have plans or are thinking about proposing any July or August activities so that we can manage a smooth transition into FY15.  We are committed to ensuring that there is no substantive discontinuity in transitioning from one fiscal year to the next.

Not everyone has been able to utilize the program yet so if you or members of your community still have questions or would like a refresher discussion please contact me or Janice.  We’re happy to provide a telephone briefing. We also both expect to be at the ICANN Public Meeting in London and will be happy to meet with you or members of your communities to provide more information or answer any questions about the program.

We are glad that several communities have found the program to be helpful so far.  We look forward to provide the resource to all of you in FY15.  I’ll keep you updated on our progress.

Best regards,

Rob