Matrix Governing Board report, May 2025

Hi all!

Another six months has passed since our last report, and elections are just around the corner. So that means it’s time for another Board report. We’ll be asking you to select some new board members, and it’s only right that you get some insight into the work that’s been going on with the ones we have!

🔗What’s been happening?

There wasn’t a lot to report on in the last edition, but my goodness, that’s not the case this time! As a reminder - we’re a new Board, this is the first year of our existence, and while the Guardians set the initial Terms of Reference for us, we had none of the needed bylaws, norms, expectations and processes that a board functions on.

We’ve spent the last six months dealing with that. We now have an initial set of these things - and while most are dry-but-necessary documents, one of the earliest things we focussed on was the processes needed to get the board working. That’s things like Committee structure, Working Group creation, voting processes, and so on.

That’s now starting to bear fruit, and we have 2 fully up-and-running Working Groups meeting regularly, 3 more in consideration (and likely approved Real Soon Now), frequent discussions of longer range work at the Committee level, and so on. Given our advisory nature, I’m also particularly happy to see our first proposals bubbling up all the way from a Working Group right through to being a formal recommendation for the Foundation. This is good stuff, because if we can’t take the passion, knowledge, and skill in our community and bring it to bear on our biggest problems (and find a way to acknowledge and appreciate those people) then we’ll be failing as a board.

That’s the high-level view - we’re now operational, and you can start to expect more from the various Committees and Working Groups going forward.

🔗Governing Board Meeting report May 2025

On May 9th the Governing Board met for its second ever formal meeting, and first of 2025. Below are the edited highlights of the meeting:

• Introduction and context setting
• Committee Reports
  • Governance committee
    • almost approved their charter, but it was delayed discussing exactly what the focus is. Consensus is forming around being primarily dealing with governance of the board, but will have advice/input for wider scope matters
    • Fiscal Sponsorship Framework Working Group proposal in progress
    • Voted & passed an amendment to the Terms of Reference (approved by the Guardians)
  • Trust & Safety
    • Charter agreed & adopted
    • Room directory policy work
    • T&S Research & Documentation Working Group proposal
    • (there's more I want to say here, but as you appreciate, this is a sensitive topic. Rest assured this group has been very busy)
  • Community
    • Charter agreed & adopted
    • Website Working Group created for managing matrix.org and related sites
    • Events Working Group for ... events!
    • First proposals for the Foundation are coming up from the Website group
    • Tighter integration with Finance needed for Events to work well
  • Finance & Fundraising
    • Charter agreed & adopted
    • Figuring out how to enable a Fundraising Working Group
    • Looking at cost savings / revenue raising options
    • A financial report agreed as needing to get published
    • Currently working using cashflow, a proper budget is a goal here
• Ratification of Governing Board Docs
  • Approved!
  • This is understood as a starting point, not a final destination. These will be living documents that we will update as required, especially as we try these processes and expectations out for real
  • These are canonically maintained and published through the Matrix Governing Board site
  • Some areas already identified for work (probably by the Governance Committee) in terms of Working Group operation and clarity on some terms
• Goals for 6-12 months
  • More Working Groups as we identify needs, especially for Fundraising, T&S R&D, Project Sponsorship, and more
  • More visibility of T&S work, much of it is thankless & invisible
  • More collaboration with other community groups
  • Documentation for admins of public rooms (what to expect, tools to use, etc) - probably another Working Group here
  • Improving membership and sponsorship docs, tools, and conversion rates
  • Streamlining processes around institutional knowledge transfer, and passing on recommendations to the Foundation
• Closing notes

Phew! As you can see, we had a lot to go over. I was very happy to see that it took us nearly a full hour to get through the committee reports alone - and this is just the start, because we’re still getting to grips with our new processes. Once we have it all down, this is going to (I strongly hope) be a force for good in the Matrix ecosystem.

🔗What’s next for the Governing Board?

Well, I’m glad you asked. Right now, we need to publish the committee reports that went into the meeting - given we have a shiny new board section of the Matrix website I think a reports section there probably makes sense. In fact, I want to broaden that out, so you can see the committees & working groups, their charters, and how to get in touch with them if you want to help.

Then we have the elections! At the time of writing, nominations are still open, but only for another day! If you want to come work on this stuff with us, please go read the election page right now! Even if you don't, we still need you to go vote for your candidates! Open governance comes from the constituents, so please do use your vote.

Once elections are done, we’ll need to get to know any new faces on our board, but this really won’t take as long as last year. Then it’s into the goals - you can see some of what we want to get done in the meeting report above, but if I had to name themes, it’s (a) more Working Groups, (b) better collaboration with both the Foundation and the community, and (c) more transparency and governance work internally.

If you want to come chat with us, there’s always the Office of the Governing Board room you can drop into, or swing by the Ecosystem Office Hours (on Wednesdays 17:00 Berlin time in #ecosystem.forum:matrix.org) for a chat. And since we’re in campaigning season, there is also the Campaign Rooms space where you can chat to the candidates about their views.

In short - it’s been a long year, but we’re in a solid position. I think the next 12 months will show the Board bringing that focus to bear on improving Matrix - something we all want.

Until next time!

Greg “Gwmngilfen” Sutcliffe (on behalf of the Governing Board)