Image: Community members of Pu’uhonua O Waimanalo work together with the Internet Society to learn how to use and install the Internet during the Internet Society/ Pu’uhonua O Waimanalo training session on November 14th, 2019. © Elyse Butler
[Published on behalf of the Internet Society Board of Trustees.]
The Internet Society’s vision is that the Internet is for everyone. Earlier this
month, we wrote about our efforts to ensure a stable and diverse
funding model to support the work that takes us towards our vision. The role of
the Board of Trustees is to provide, with support from the community, the
strategic direction for that work. In this post, we discuss our recent and
current strategic efforts, put them into context, and provide pointers with
more information for our community to get involved in defining our wanted
future.
Naturally, the starting point of our current strategy was to agree with the community on the overall direction. Therefore, two years ago, during 2017, the Board consulted with our community to revise our mission statement into what we have today. Many of you contributed to that 2017 effort, which resulted in the following three focus areas:
- Building and supporting the communities that make the Internet work;
- Advancing the development and application of Internet infrastructure, technologies, and open standards; and
- Advocating for policy that is consistent with our view of the Internet
Based on that community agreement on the development of this new mission, the Board of Trustees began the work on a plan to change the structure of the Internet Society in order to best support this refreshed mission. This plan eventually led to the creation of two new “supporting organizations” during 2018.
One aspect of our plan was working with the Internet
Engineering Task Force (IETF) to create a new supporting organization in the
form of the IETF LLC. The establishment of the IETF LLC was discussed
at length with the IETF community. While the Internet Society remains the
largest funding source for the IETF, the result is that the IETF LLC formally
gives the IETF legal status, and more freedom to manage their support
activities, including budgeting.
A second aspect of our plan was the creation of the Internet
Society Foundation to
provide funding to the community in several key areas. As the Foundation team
recently explained in the
Foundation’s own Action Plan 2020, they will be funding work within our Chapters,
Special Interest Groups (SIGs), and other communities; funding research and
innovation; and supporting partners to help develop disaster-resilient
communities. In addition, the Foundation will be supporting projects that strengthen
communities, and improve lives and livelihoods. As usual, we will be seeking
ideas from our community.
The Internet Society Foundation has already been
providing grants in 2019 and is looking forward to expanding that work in
2020. Remain alert for future calls for grant applications.
Once our new mission and the structure above were in
place, in 2019 the Board of Trustees turned its focus on aligning ISOC’s
internal structure and short term-plan with the long-term direction given by
our mission. Encouraged by the Board, both efforts were championed by Andrew
Sullivan, our President and CEO, and the Internet Society Executive Team.
ISOC’s new internal structure makes it easy to set up
projects that include the necessary competence. It also facilitates identifying
areas where new capabilities need to be developed. We believe that the new
structure provides ISOC with a solid foundation to implement its future action
plans.
ISOC’s 2020 Action
Plan was developed
together with our community. Through the outreach we conducted over the past
six months, over 3,000 of our members contributed to surveys and feedback
sessions, helping to shape and guide the direction of this new Action
Plan. The Board of Trustees approved the Action Plan on November 24, 2019, in
part because we are confident that what we now have in place reflects the voice
of our community.
We also want to thank all the members our community
who joined us last Wednesday, December 11, to learn more about the Action Plan
and how we will focus on building,
promoting, and defending the Internet to make it bigger and stronger for everyone. We look forward
to working with you all to move our 2020 projects forward and to achieve the tangible and
impactful outcomes we seek.
As we set out on the path to 2025, we plan to continue
consulting our community to develop our action plans. Please, stay tuned and
continue providing us with your valuable input. Our goal is to make sure the
direction of the Internet Society and its work remain aligned with community
interests.
To sustain the important work in
support of our mission, the work within our supporting
organizations, and the projects within our Action Plan, we on the Board of
Trustees have a duty to ensure the long-term viability of the
Internet Society. Therefore, reducing financial risk is of strategic importance
for the Internet Society. Previous boards have worked on revenue
diversification activities for many years with limited success.
As we wrote earlier this month, we believe the sale of the PIR will help the
Internet Society reduce this financial risk, while at the same
time enabling PIR to do much more to grow the .ORG domain business and provide
new services to .ORG registrants.
If you are interested in the work Board does, several
years ago we started making both the minutes and the video recordings of our
Board meetings publicly available. We also hold Open Forum meetings
and webminars where the community can interact with the Board. In addition,
trustees interact with parts of the community at multiple events on a constant
basis.
As we head toward 2020 and to our longer-term strategy for 2025, we look forward to continuing to work with all of our Chapters, Special Interest Groups (SIGs), Organization members, individual members, and partners to realize our vision that “The Internet is for everyone”. We believe in an Internet that is open, globally-connected, secure, and trustworthy. Thank you for all you do to ensure that the Internet is a resource to enrich people’s lives and a force for good in society.
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