This looks good from a formal pov as much this can be determined from afar. However there was one point that made me take a double take:
Ordinary Associates: They pay the Ordinary Membership fee. The Ordinary Membership fee equals twenty percent (20%) of the current year’s Minimum Legal Monthly Wage in Force. The Ordinary Associate has the right to voice and vote in the Assemblies and be elected to the Board of Directors.
Is that the hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, or annual minimum wage?
From a purely practical pov the limit in Art. 7 seems to be high, is that a legal requirement?
20% of a (any) monthly wage sounds a bit steep for a LC membership.
To put that in to perspective, while there’s no federal minimum wage here, some of cantons do have one and in comparison our yearly membership fee is roughly 1 hours minimum wage (or less than a percent of the monthly wage).
The current annual membership fee works out to 65 USD. That would make the Columbia LC fee higher than any other chapter I know of. I would expect to see fees that high for professional business related groups rather than something for mappers.
The site says
Our professional team offers a high technical level, with the objective of providing quality, experience, satisfaction and confidence
This reads like a GIS consultancy rather than a group for mappers.
Thank you for the observation. In Colombia we usually express membership fees in relation to the legal monthly minimum wage (SMMLV). For clarity, the standard membership fee corresponds to 10% of the SMMLV. To make this more transparent for the international community, we also publish the equivalent amount in Colombian pesos and US dollars, calculated at the beginning of each year. This way the value remains stable throughout the year, without depending on daily exchange rate fluctuations. You can check the updated information here: Membresías – AC3 – Asociación de Cartografía Colaborativa de Colombia.
It is important to note that the membership fee is annual: one payment per year, calculated with respect to the monthly minimum wage. Our members are the ones who financially support the association. Our main expenses are professional accounting services and legal registrations, which are essential for compliance. At present we are 12 members (10 founders originally), and it is unlikely that we will exceed 20 in the coming years. This means that continuity depends on our collective commitment, especially in financial matters. We do not receive government support or corporate sponsorships.
That said, we want to convey reassurance regarding our economic sustainability. The membership fees remain very accessible: active OSM contributors (mapping more than 42 days per year) pay 10% of the SMMLV, equivalent to about USD 32, and students about USD 16. Those who do not reach the 42-day mapping threshold pay the full membership fee, set at 20% of the SMMLV. However, the vast majority of interested members are committed to OSM and therefore qualify for the 10% rate. Even with such modest annual fees, we manage to cover our obligations and ensure the association’s stability. It requires careful budgeting, but we are confident in our ability to sustain AC3 responsibly.
Is the level of the membership fee considered a barrier to becoming a member (and by that limits the available funds)? I suppose we need non-members from Columbia to way in on that.
Thank you for your comments. AC3 is a community association of volunteer mappers. The formal tone you may see in our website reflects the legal and economic context in Colombia, where associations are required to maintain professional accounting services, renew legal registrations, and cover hosting and communication costs. These are fixed obligations that cannot be avoided, and our financial structure is designed to ensure continuity.
In many regions of the world, local chapters can rely on symbolic membership fees because they receive free support from universities, companies, or a strong culture of donations. In Latin America and Africa, however, the situation is different: external support usually comes only in exchange for specific project work, not to cover the basic administration of the association. This means that sustainability depends primarily on our members.
It is important to emphasize that belonging to the association does not limit participation in the community. Our events are always open to everyone, regardless of membership status. One of the purposes of AC3, as stated in our statutes, is precisely to care for and strengthen the OSM community in Colombia. Membership is simply a way to ensure that the association itself can continue to exist and serve that community.
Members who support AC3 do so out of a sense of alterity: they are not seeking direct personal benefit, but rather contributing to something that benefits others. By covering the essential costs of administration, they make it possible for the community to have a stable and transparent association that organizes events, provides continuity, and represents OSM in Colombia. In this way, the association is sustained not by external subsidies, but by the commitment of its own community.
Nobody is making light of the difficulties of running a local chapter, particularly in a developing region, on the other hand your image of manna raining from the heavens in many regions of the world is somewhat misplaced, if not to say ridiculously wrong.
Anyway my concern is that the association is painting itself in to a corner with the high membership fees from which it might be difficult to escape, and that in practical (but not formal) terms you would be violating point 2 of Local Chapters/FAQ - OpenStreetMap Foundation?
Thanks for clarification; alterity makes sense to me, and is similar to situation we might have in Croatia. However, what worries me is that only Colombian/LatAm people who are able to afford the fees easily will be permitted to be members of AC3, if I understand the idea correctly?
Now, as you note, fees might not be much of an impact in high-pay countries where they are so small to be irrelevant; but I would guess that in LatAm/Africa (just like in my Croatia) much of the people would be significantly less likely to give up their hard earned money (even relatively small amounts of it) for things not strictly necessary for basic necessities. Would that assumption be correct?
If so, I worry that insisting on fees in such relatively poorer regions[1] of the world would likely result in heavily slanting opinions of “visible” LatAm community, i.e. it would be “ruled” by “well-paid caste”[2] only and thus represent only their wishes/opinions, instead of those of the (possibly much?) larger whole LatAm OSM community.
Now, it could be that I’m wrong, and that paying that amount of money is absolutely no problem for any wannabe-member of LatAm OSM community, and none of them would even notice the expense if it were automatically deducted from they bank account each year. In that case, you can disregard most of this comment, as economic situation in LatAm is significantly better than in my small part of EU.
But if some[3] of the wannabe-members would not become members and would be dissuaded purely due to financial expense; would it be possible to cater to them somehow?
E.g. rely on paying members to cover the costs, but make two-tiered system that allow people to be members even if they cannot financially contribute? Perhaps at least something like OSMF has (e.g. recurring contributors can get a money-free membership if they prefer that to paying money - instead of them just getting a discount)?
apologies if I misplaced LatAm due to my ignorance, it is the same category I would put my own Croatia in, and is not intended to be disparaging in any way ↩︎
sincere apologies if terms seems harsh, I’m trying to convey the idea clearly and English is not my native language ↩︎