Maptime Is Growing Up

by Beth

When we started Maptime back in June 2013, it never really occurred to me that this little meeting would grow so quickly. As of today, we have more than 25 active chapters spread across North America and we are beginning to pepper Europe. While chapters all over have gotten going successfully – many thanks to Lyzi Diamond and Alan McConchie for their amazing work on that front – the community still has lots of questions about the organization itself. What kind of entity will Maptime become? How can Maptime take donations? What will Maptime do with the donations once we get them?

We’ve been working through the answers as we create our bylaws and work with our friendly neighborhood legal advisors. In the meantime – and in the interest of transparency and communicating in non-legalese – below are answers to some of the most frequently asked questions about our budding organization and where it is going. What kind of organization will Maptime become?

The plan is to become a nonprofit organization of some kind. In other words, we’ll be able to take tax deductible donations from the public and be able to receive grants directly (that’s the nonprofit part) under a TBD organizing body. This organizing body may technically be an LLC or some other kind of corporation, but the idea is to have a board and an executive director, as is typical for nonprofit operations.

Once we can take donations, what will we do with them?

Great question, and a hard one to answer in the hypothetical. For now, the idea is that donations made to Maptime HQ would go into a pool, and that pool would be used for:

  • basic marketing costs (like stickers and website hosting)
  • a fund for chapters who are active but having trouble finding sponsors (we know Meetup is expensive and that snacks add up!!)
  • in an ideal world, stipends (or even salaries?!) for people who are doing a lot of the administrative stuff for Maptime, like chapter onboarding and donation management. It might not seem like a lot of work on the outside, but on top of our full-time jobs this can take quite a lot of time!

In the event that we get a project-based grant like the Knight grant we just applied for, those funds would be distributed to people working on the project, supplement the pool above, and otherwise support the project.

Monetary donations directly to chapters are not something we’ve figured out yet. Potentially, donations could be made to the Maptime HQ nonprofit, but earmarked for disbursement for specific local groups (so those groups would not need to have nonprofit status themselves). Suggestions for fair, easy-to-manage systems for this kind of thing are most welcome.

How will Stamen be involved?

Since the beginning, Stamen has supported Maptime through providing meeting space, snacks galore, administrative and moral support, time to make curriculum, and so much more. Although Maptime is becoming its own organization (!!!), having the support of one of the best digital mapmaking studios around has proved to be incredibly helpful.

Stamen’s experience is particularly useful when it comes to protecting a brand like Maptime’s. At its heart, Maptime about learning about maps with friends. That’s it. Not selling, or volunteer exploitation, or any of the bullshit that can creep its way into any well-intentioned, co-learning, volunteer community. Stamen is going to help us keep things bullshit-free by holding Maptime’s trademark license. We hope to never need to call upon these powers (and/or Stamen’s lawyers), but in the event that anyone uses Maptime’s name in a way that violates our mission and principles, then it’s good to know we’ve got some real backup.

What do we do if someone’s being offensive at our meetup or if there is ever, like, a MaptimeEVL (Maptime Evil)

See above, and also our Code of Conduct.

How can my company get involved with Maptime?

Local chapters all over are looking for sponsorship for their meetup sites (virtual and real), websites, snacks, stickers, and all the other little things that come up for running a meetup. Also, Maptime HQ will definitely gladly take your donation and figure out some as-fair-as-possible way to get it out to people who need it. If your company is interested in getting involved with Maptime HQ, drop us a line at hello [at] maptime [dot] io.

That email right there goes to me, Alan, Lyzi and Camille. We encourage anyone with a burning question to reach out to us there at any time, or via Tweet (@maptimeHQ). We’ll do our best to keep everyone posted as all of this progresses and more questions come our way.

Thanks for making this community the rainbow of pure wonderful it is. We’re excited to see where it goes next!