TL;DR

With ten years of leading, stewarding, and contributing to open source, I am running for the OSI Board of Directors because now is the time for OSI 

• to strengthen organizationally
• lead our industry through exciting growth and changes 
• while preserving the best of open source through its definition and licensing. 

As a board member, I can help OSI achieve this vision thanks to the direct experience I gained from my 8 years building and leading the Drupal Association board and operations.

A Vision for OSI

Open source crossed the chasm and we can celebrate its successful adoption around the globe by all kinds of organizations. With that growth comes complexity, changing needs, and varied levels of open source understanding. OSI has the opportunity to help the industry navigate this changing landscape and address new challenges while preserving the core concepts of open source especially as it relates to the Open Source Definition and copyleft licenses. 

To realize this opportunity, OSI needs to be even stronger, more strategic and more resilient to lead in the face of this growth and change. 

As a board member, it’s my aim to work with other board members to achieve this by helping OSI

• shift from a volunteer to a strategic board governance model
• build staff capacity to take on the work previously done by the board
• provide strategic direction for staff so they deliver prioritized impact
• create fundraising strategies (as well as fund raise) to support sustainable OSI operations

Why Me?

I’m excited about this opportunity because as someone who helped build the Drupal Association and serve as executive director, I learned first hand how implementing similar organizational changes allowed the Drupal Association to

• enhance its ability to serve the Drupal community
• help the project navigate a changing CMS landscape
• remain a sustained 19 year old project for 1M+ users

As a board member, I can help OSI by sharing lessons learned during my time with the Drupal Association, where I helped: 

• evolve the volunteer board into a strategic one
• create fundraising strategies which grew sustainable revenue from $1.8M to $4.5M
• build out the organization including staffing, programs, and operations

About Me

Throughout my career, I have led teams, communities, and organizations and I have a decade of experience stewarding and advising open source projects and communities. 

• 10+ years in for-profit tech working in sales, marketing, and business development. 
• 5 years in government, developing new funding and operational models to better serve communities. I fell in love with serving communities and blended it with tech by shifting to open source.
• 8 years building and leading the Drupal Association in various roles: Business Development, COO, and Executive Director. 

Currently, I am the Manager, Research & Operations for Google Open Source Program Office and use this role to champion open source citizenship and sustainability within Google and the industry at large. I helped organize Sustain Summit 2020 and I am a speaker at several industry events including FOSDEM, FOSSASIA, FOSS Backstage, Community Backstage, and Linux Foundation Member Summit. 

You can learn more about me at on LinkedIn and Twitter.

I look forward to serving OSI and the greater open source industry. 

Megan Byrd-Sanicki

she/her