Conservancy Announces Partnership with the Digital Impact Alliance

October 23, 2017

Software Freedom Conservancy is honored to partner with the Digital Impact Alliance (DIAL) to provide services in support of its new Open Source Center. DIAL, an initiative of the United Nations Foundation, is supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the US Agency for International Development (USAID), and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida). The Center will provide resources to free and open source software projects serving international development and humanitarian response.

Conservancy is positioned to help participating projects deal with a variety of challenges including basic asset stewardship services and trademark management. Software projects participating in the DIAL Open Source Center will have priority access to Conservancy’s comprehensive fiscal sponsorship services, enabling them to offload the complex management issues that a standalone foundation would involve.

“The DIAL Open Source Center is founded upon the belief that the techniques evolved by the free & open source software movement are the best ways to create inclusive, collaboratively-designed software,” said Michael Downey, the Center’s Director of Community. “That movement is built around the idea of leveraging excellent work by others, so we’re pleased to be partnering with Software Freedom Conservancy to connect their industry-leading services to our participating projects.”

“Conservancy is committed to supporting software development communities who create ethical technology for the public’s benefit,” said Karen Sandler, Conservancy’s Executive Director. “Our team is strongly aligned with DIAL’s mission to build more mature technology products and communities to support international development. We are eager to increase the impact of those projects by connecting them with our expertise and services.”

The Center will also provide participating projects with ongoing funding opportunities. Over the next few weeks, it is currently offering a first round of catalytic grants to projects serving international development and humanitarian response that foster a healthy, sustainable free and open source software community. The program website is now active in beta mode at http://www.osc.dial.community/ and is soliciting potential members to join and help shape the program.