The SO-AC-SG additional budget request process pertains to a dedicated part of the overall ICANN annual budget that is set aside to take into account specific requests from the community for activities that are not already included in the recurring ICANN budget.
ICANN recently published a blog about streamlining resource requests from the ICANN Community.
The Additional Budget Request (ABR) process was introduced an addition to the annual Operating Plan and Budget (OP&B) process for resource requests from the ICANN Community. In recent years, the number of requests have decreased significantly due to confusion about the ABR process and what meets criteria for resources. Moving forward, ICANN org encourages ICANN community groups to use the annual OP&B process for all resource requests. ICANN org will end the ABR process beginning with the FY2025 Operating Plan & Budget (OP&B) process. The annual OP&B process is better understood, and several ICANN community groups already align their operations and planning work to it. Streamlining resource requests from the ICANN community into a single process is expected to result in more efficiencies