OSM Foundation board elections 2025 – Nominate yourself by July 5

Foundation
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OpenStreetMap Foundation members will vote to elect a new board in September.

There will be at least three seats available: of Dani Waltersdorfer, Guillaume Rischard and Roland Olbricht, whose board terms are ending. The terms of Craig Allan, Héctor Ochoa Ortiz, Laura Mugeha and Maurizio Napolitano will continue. There are seven seats on the foundation board and board members are volunteers. Board members typically serve for two years until their seat is up for re-election.

The two main pages that have the information about the board election and the 2025 Annual General Meeting, which will take place on 2025-09-13, are:

Submission of board candidate self-nomination is now open. Create an account on the OSM wiki and nominate yourself by adding your details here.

Deadline: July 5 at 23:59:59 UTC.

You can find information on what the board is/is not, rules, responsibilities and personal views of current and past board members here.

Eligibility criteria for board candidates

Any person may be elected to become a board member, provided that:

  • They are normal(1) OSM Foundation members 28 days before the General Meeting(2), and
  • they have been a normal member or associate(3) member during the full 180 days before the General Meeting, and
  • are willing to act as a board member, and
  • are permitted by law to do so.

(1) Normal members provide their full residential address and can vote on all issues. Their residential address may be disclosed to other members.
(2) The General Meeting is scheduled to take place on 13 September 2025.
(3) Associate members provide just their country of residence and can vote - but not on all issues. More information here.

Finding the type of your OSMF membership (normal/associate)

If you want to find out the type of your membership (Normal or Associate), please check the most recent approval/renewal membership email before emailing the volunteers of the Membership Working Group at membership at osmfoundation.org from the email address which is associated with your OSMF membership.

Associate members who want to become board candidates

You can change your OSMF membership from associate to normal by emailing the volunteers of the Membership Working Group Membership Working Group - OpenStreetMap Foundation.

  • Send your email from the email address which is associated with your OSMF membership.
  • It is necessary to provide your residential address, which will be available to other OSMF members.
  • Please change your membership type before adding your self-nomination to the candidates’ table. If you decide to be a candidate at the last minute, you can still add yourself as an associate member, but you have to change your membership type immediately after the submission period of self-nominations closes. In this case please email both membership at osmfoundation.org and dorothea at osmfoundation.org Thank you.

For candidates: general information

  • Please read Foundation/AGM2025/Election to Board - OpenStreetMap Wiki
  • There is a questioning process. Please do not answer the questions by the community at this stage. The facilitator for the questioning process, @ZeLonewolf, will publish an official set of questions, based on this year’s community questions and past ones, probably on 26 July at Talk:Foundation/AGM2025/Election to Board - OpenStreetMap Wiki and board candidates will be notified. The official set of questions will be published above the community questions.
  • Answers and manifestos will be published by the administrative assistant. The proposed date is 16 August 2025.
  • Then community discussion commences, preferably until 6 September 2025 16:00 UTC, when voting opens.

This is expected to be the official election campaign process. We won’t restrict members to continue to talk on our members’ mailing list nor will we restrict candidates to continue discussions, but we don’t encourage them to do so. The official answers and questions thereof should be what voters use to judge.

For members: You can submit questions to the candidates

OSM Foundation members can submit questions to the board candidates on the OSM wiki until July 12 (“by end of day”, in UTC). An official set of questions,based on the community questions and questions from previous years, will be published on the page above by the facilitator, Brian Sperlongano, on July 26.

For members: You can propose resolutions

OSM Foundation members can submit resolutions and ask the membership to vote on them. The resolutions need to be supported by at least 5% of members eligible to vote, in order to be added to the ballots. Please read: Companies Act 2006.

The deadline for providing the supported resolutions is the end of July 12 (in UTC).

How you can help

A few of the current and past board members have mentioned that the thought of being a candidate did not cross their mind until it was suggested to them. So, you might want to consider running for the board or suggesting it to others.

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