About the GNOME Foundation Advisory Board

The Advisory Board is made up of organizations and companies that support GNOME. The Advisory Board has no decision-making authority but provides a vehicle for its members to communicate with the Board of Directors and help the Directors guide the overall direction of GNOME and the GNOME Foundation.

Current Advisory Board members are listed in our about page.

Roles and Responsibilities of Advisory Board Members

• Represents and advises on the needs of the primary downstream partners served by GNOME.
• Receives and actively provides input and discussion on topics sent to the Advisory Board list or discussed at Advisory Board meetings. Topics include things like financial reports, project status, and event planning.
• Promotes GNOME. The GNOME Foundation and Advisory Board members often work together to promote GNOME, and members are expected to work with the GNOME Foundation to promote GNOME when opportunities arise. For example, by speaking about GNOME at industry events or at company or government meetings where people are not familiar with GNOME.
• Identifies/presents opportunities for collaboration and alerts GNOME to significant relevant developments within other industries or working groups. This can include things like suggesting a GNOME presence at an established event or pointing out opportunities for partnership and making introductions to other companies and organizations.
• Helps the GNOME Foundation grow and improve as an organization. Identifying services that the GNOME Foundation can provide for GNOME Foundation members, Advisory Board members and GNOME users. This can include things like suggesting a local event or project shortfalls (documentation, integration, support) that could be addressed by GNOME Foundation resources.
• Provides mentorship and advice to community members working on projects like marketing, finance and fundraising. Mentorship can be provided directly by the Advisory Board member or by others in their company.
• Ensures that their company is involved and engaged with upstream discussion and events where relevant. For example, ensure that the appropriate people are subscribed to the right forums and involved with upstream decisions.
• Attends and sponsors GNOME events that align with the Advisory Board member's needs.
• Offers guidance, advice and resources. This guidance can include not only opportunities for how to acquire money but other ways to solve problems. Examples include helping to solve our system administration shortage, planning representation at events, etc.

Joining the Advisory Board

If your organization or company is interested in joining the Advisory Board, please contact the Board of Directors.

Annual Fee

Advisory Board member companies pay an annual fee which helps finance the operations of the GNOME foundation. The reports that are published by the Foundation show how this money is used to help the GNOME project.

There are two levels for commerical companies:

• Small company: 1-49 employees. $10,000 / year
• Medium and large company: 50 or more employees. $20,000 / year

No fee is paid by the invited non-profit organizations that are part of the Advisory Board.