Merge pull request #168 from hamogu/phaseIIfunding

How do we distribute money within the Astropy project?

Author: hamogu

finance/proposal-calls/internal_template.md

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+# Phase II funding proposals
+
+*This is a draft document for how the Interim Finance Committee envisions the process of distributing grant money (e.g. from the Moore grant) within the Astropy project. This is a general template and the finance committee will change the details for individual calls. In particular, the actually available funding and details of the grant and grant rules that limit the work that could be proposed will need to be filled in. This template is written with the current Moore grant in mind.*
+
+## Proposal goals
+Proposals shall improve the Astropy Project. This includes code for the core repository, for coordinated or affiliated packages, infrastructure (e.g. testing, CI), tutorials, workshops, notebooks, community engagement, inclusion, diversity and empowerment, and anything else broadly Project related. 
+
+Proposals shall foster the Astropy Project goals of community, shared work, and cooperation and shall be proposed and executed in this manner.
+
+Total funding for this call is coming from (**link to grant here**) and XXX $ are available in total in the period XXX to XXX.
+
+Proposals need to clearly identify what the funding is used for (e.g. "pay YYY $ to add Klingon Standard Time to astropy.time" or "organize astropy workshop to engage amateur astronomer community in Antarctica")
+
+## Proposal details
+**Fill in here when using this template to issue an internal Astropy call**
+
+- Source of money (e.g. Moore grant)
+- Specific area of proposal (e.g. Astropy may have a grant that can be used only for a specific purpose, e.g. only for community outreach)
+- Restrictions: Depending on who provided the money to astropy, its use might be restricted, e.g. only to contractors in certain countries
+
+## Proposal process
+Proposals should be posted as pull requests to github.com/astropy/astropy-project/ with the initial title text "Funding Proposal XXX:".
+The goal is to make this process as easy as possible on everyone, so we impose a limit of 100 lines assuming 80 char/line. We provide a template below. 
+We envision a two stage proposal process to enable the community to comment and improve ideas, teams with similar ideas can merge to avoid duplicated work, etc...
+
+- Deadline 1: Draft Proposal Deadline (after this date, no new proposals)
+- Two week discussion period during which proposals can be modified
+- Deadline 2: Finalized Proposals are due
+- Finance Committee reviews for compatibility with legal conditions
+- Deadline 2 + 7 business days: voting begins.
+
+*Rationale: We aim to achieve community consensus before the vote. Proposers may combine ideas and teams or withdraw proposals during the discussion period.*
+
+At the second  deadline, the text for the proposals is frozen but comments are still allowed. Within 7 days of this deadline, the Finance Committee will review all proposals to ensure they are compatible with the terms of the currently available funding sources and should be included in the proposals to be voted on.
+
+After that, voting members of the Astropy Project vote on the proposals. The vote is held online with a secret ballot. Every voting member of the Astropy Project (as defined in the governance documents) has equal voting rights. 
+
+*Rationale: In this process every member's vote carries equal weight; the decision is made directly by the members. The ballot shall be secret to allow members to vote based on the merit of the proposal without fear of retribution.*
+
+*Note:* Fill in exact voting scheme here, e.g. every member selects up to five votes and proposals are ranked by number of votes. To make this process manageable, we need to find an external online platform that gives us the infrastructure for the voting process, which may limit the voting scheme we can choose from.
+
+The CoCo and the Finance Committee will select proposals following the ranking by the members and taking into account the requirements of the available grant funding (e.g. the Moore grant specifically has a budget for work on "spectroscopy". If none of the highest ranking proposals deals with spectroscopy, this money could  be awarded to the highest ranking spectroscopy proposal, even if that means that other, higher ranked proposals won't be executed).
+
+*Rationale: This is similar to how e.g. ESO or HST proposals as awarded. Technically, the TACs suggest a list of proposals for the director, who is free to pick in any way they like. However, the TAC ranking is followed unless there are strong reasons against it (e.g. a scheduling requirement cannot be accommodated). This process is well accepted in the community and thus it makes sense to follow it here.*
+
+## Who will be paid to do work?
+Money can be used for travel, infrastructure, equipment etc, but in many cases, money will be used to pay people to do work for Astropy. In that case, the following approaches can be used:
+
+- Proposals can list one or more people who will perform the work and any needed budget to support the work.
+- The proposers can alternatively not commit to the work themselves, but promise to organize a job search, accept applications, and select a candidate within 6 months of the proposal being accepted. Contact details of the selected person are then forward to the Finance Committee. The proposing team is not paid for work time associated with the search.
+
+In either case, the Finance Committee will take care of the formal process of setting up statements of work, signing contracts, and reviewing invoices. Other funding strategies that we have not anticipated will also be considered.
+
+Note: The Finance Committee realizes that this process may lead to a number of parallel, possibly competing searches by different groups of people. We expect all searches to follow the code of conduct with respect to fairness, non-discimination etc. Any violation should be brought the finance committee or the Astropy Ombudspersion ([email protected]). If these procedures are violated, funding for that specific project will not be granted. Proposals planning to do a search should include the cost of job listings in their budget.
+
+In the future, we would like to offer an opportunity to propose projects that the community likes with no names attached, but right now, the Finance Committee can not commit the necessary capacity to handle such a multi-step process.