Matrix Governing Board report, April 2026

Following a packed first half of the year, the Board came together last week for it's first-half Board meeting. A lot has been going on - in the world, in software, and in Matrix, and it's clear things are not slowing down. So what have we been discussing?

🔗Working groups continue to drive things

When we founded the board, we put the ability for the community to be involved at the heart of things. The Working Group process was highlighted at The Matrix Conference, and that has now lead to new WGs self-organising, getting things done, and reaching out to the Board for official status.

This is a big deal, as it shows the system is now up and running, raises awareness of how others can follow the same path, makes more WG members aware of what the Board does (and why they might want to be on it), and so on. It's obviously great to see more work getting done in more places (and wow, there's still a lot to do) - and remember, if you have an idea for something else to get done, you can propose a WG yourself!

🔗Finance and sustainability

While all the Committees and their associated working groups have been busy (see below), another was the Finance Committee coming to life. This has been the hardest to get rolling (understandably - it's complex and invisible work), but with both Amandine stepping in as Acting MD, and Gnuxie as Finance chair (two highly active and committed people), that situation is changing.

There's a lot to do here, as the Foundation is still struggling from a resources perspective, and still can't cover the bare minimum requirements. So, I feel the Board has a key role to play in ensuring that Foundation proposals are given appropriate scrutiny, balanced with the need to help get the Foundation to a sustainable place. Having a functional Finance committee makes that possible, and I'm grateful to the folks participating there for their time.

🔗Governing Board Meeting Minutes April 2026

As usual, I'm posting a lightly-edited version of the minutes from the meeting below for your reading pleasure... or you can skip to my conclusions at the end.

• Introductions & admin
• Committee reports
  • Community
    • Events: Full speed on conference prep, looking at location, CFP, sponsorship
    • Web site: new members, improved processes & daily ops, running well
    • Decentralisation WG: already running but needs a Board sponsor
  • Finance and fundraising
    • Shared that the Foundation is still struggling from a resources perspective & still can’t afford the bare minimum requirements
    • Core committee has been busy working with the Foundation on reports & proposals
    • Also looking at how the committee can help the Foundation more with bringing in support
      • Discussion around independence and affordability
      • The board needs to balance scrutiny and helping the Foundation get on it's own solid footing
    • First public report went out recently, with lots of data in
    • Fundraising WG failed due to lack of participants / expertise
  • Trust and Safety
    • Committee is full of very busy people, could be blocking some things
    • Room directory WG: active but needs more people. Tooling is tricky but some solutions underway. Expanded the topics allowed in the room directory, which made community happier.
    • Research and Documentation WG: might shut down, unless some people come in and provide energy
      • Proposal to merge with the Website WG as some overlap in terms of outputs
    • Matrix Safety Guild: setting up at the moment. A space for safety tooling devs to work together with Foundation T&S team.
  • Governance
    • Core committee feels a bit large. Still building up momentum, topics are now coming and more WGs will likely spin out members.
    • Looking at how to measure (loosely) some for form of impact/effectiveness
    • Working with SCT & Guardians on documenting technical strategy
    • Server/project maturity: attempting to provide ways for projects to report facts
      • We also want transparency in how decisions are made
• Foundation Memberships update
  • Some new members but definitely need more.
  • We can help by promoting membership - explaining the benefits and explaining positive experience of the GB.
• Premium accounts: big influx of users around Discord time. No more than usual people leaving after that, which is good news.
• Discussions
  • Public annual report
    • Lots support & thanks for getting this done
    • Plenty of discussion, especially around the finance figures and in-kind contributions
    • Discussion around the need to clarify the distinction between Element & Foundation further, and also link to the overall technical strategy (see note about scrutiny and independence above)
• Board activity levels
  • With elections coming up, we took a look at how to make sure we're communicating expectations around the Board members engagement properly, as well as making sure we're giving appropriate recognition to them for work done.
  • Clarity on what skills the Board needs when people are considering standing may help
  • Reminder that Board members can step down if they feel they need to make space for more active folks.
• Closing remarks

🔗Future plans / personal reflections

The elections start next month, so obviously I wish all the folks looking for (re)election the best of luck! We're fortunate to have an active passionate community, and I want people to bring that energy to the Board and help drive it even further. If that's you, consider standing!

As you can see, the report is substantially longer than last time - more WGs, but with a better process around reports, we also had longer to discuss wider topics. I can't claim any credit for the work done, that goes to the folks getting on with it - but I've often described the process of setting up an organisation as a flywheel, that takes a lot of energy to get spinning, but once it is... well, it can be hard to stop! I'm happy to see that we really are spinning now, as evidenced by the fact that I can no longer keep up with the day-to-day work across the board (but hey, that's why we have reports). The process is there, now we just need more Working Groups to broaden it out.

As ever, 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.

Thanks for reading!

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