Welcome to the OpenStreetMap Foundation! Thank you for supporting our work by becoming a member.
Your membership helps us remain independent from any one funding source and covers some of our core operational expenses in supporting the OpenStreetMap project, such as hardware costs, legal fees and other expenses of our working groups and administration. We value transparency, so you can look at our finances for more information about how we spend this money.
Participate in our OSMF-talk Mailing list
As a member of the OpenStreetMap Foundation you can now participate in OSMF-talk, our Foundation’s mailing list. If you would like to, please subscribe here.
Attend our board meetings
You are also welcome to attend the monthly online meetings of the OSMF board, which are held on bbb and at the end of the meeting ask questions related to the topics under discussion. Meetings are usually announced on the OSMF-talk mailing list, and you can find the upcoming agenda and minutes of past meetings at the minutes’ page on the OSMF wiki.
Influence the direction of the project
As a member of the OSM Foundation you also have an additional way to influence the direction of the project by voting on our yearly board elections for the people you would like to see on the board. Candidate statements are usually available on the OpenStreetMap wiki, close to the election time. You can also influence the direction of the project by voting on special resolutions presented on our Annual General Meetings. Please note that, in general, Associate members can vote just as normal members, but subject to the limitations of section 76 of the Articles of Association.
Get news of the OSM Foundation
You can read news about the OSM Foundation on the official OpenStreetMap blog. Posts are translated to other languages, such as German, Japanese and Croatian. Contact our Communication Working Group if you’d like to translate posts in your language!
You can also get weekly news about the OpenStreetMap Project from WeeklyOSM – a project independent from the OSM Foundation. They offer RSS feeds in several languages (English, Español, Japanese, Français, Čeština, Română, Turkish) and you can subscribe to their mailing list.
Connect with your community!
The OpenStreetMap community uses a variety of different contact channels, such as mailing lists, forum, IRC, Slack, Twitter, Facebook and Telegram. Have a look at our Contact Channels to find the one that suits you. Also note that several local groups have their own mailing lists, subforums, IRC channels and social media accounts. Additionally, if you want to locate mappers near you, use Pascal Neis’ tool.
Join your local group!
Our current, formally established Local Chapters are: Switzerland, Iceland and Italy. Additionally, there is a plethora of local groups. How to find your nearest?
Check the current events.
Find your country’s page on the wiki
Find your country’s mailing list.
Find your country’s subforum.
You may also find a local OpenStreetMap group for your country on Facebook & Twitter
Participate in our Working Groups
Would you like to get actively involved with one of our volunteer Working Groups? If so, we are always open to new members, whether to take part regularly or to work on a particular issue that interests you. We understand that you might have some hesitations if you are a non-native English speaker. Our Working Groups have people from all over the world. Communication is usually via e-mail in addition to online meetings, which can be either via writing or voice, depending on the group.
Data WG 
Become involved in the resolution of issues in copyright violation, disputes, vandalism, and bots, beyond the normal means of the community. Help to set policy on data and detect and stop vandalism and imports that do not comply with guidelines.
Operations WG 
We ensure the operation and smooth running of the XML editing API and data distribution services (planet files and diff updates). Secondary priorities include the operation of the other OSMF servers. The main task of the OWG is the forecasting of demand and the purchasing of hardware required to meet the priorities. Other tasks include creating policies for OSMF services, such as the tile usage policy or API usage policy and the organisation and budgeting for hosting OSMF servers. We do not author software to run on the services. This is left to the development community. Day-to-day running of the servers is exclusively the remit of the sys admins group.
Licensing WG
Promote open geospatial data through practical, coherent and clear licensing. Get involved with licensing matters relating to creating and using our geodata (contributor terms, [imports], using aerial imagery, our end user license, community guidelines, License FAQ) and legal matters relating to responsibility and risk (trademarks, safe harbour, privacy, child protection).
Membership WG
Join us to administer the membership database, answer routine membership queries and increase the OSMF Membership!
Communication WG 
Help to communicate the work of the Foundation and related news, through official channels. We are also welcoming people that just want to translate posts in other languages. Do you have a knack for graphic design? Join us!
Engineering WG 
The Engineering Working Group, in its new form, has the primary aim in the short term to coordinate “Google Summer of Code” projects. Beyond that, the future direction remains to be set.
State of the Map WG 
Join us to organise and execute the annual OpenStreetMap Foundation Conference “The State of the Map”.
Local Chapters WG 
Join us to set up federated OSM-Foundation Local Chapters.
Come to our annual conference “State of the Map” or to one of the more local ones!
Check stateofthemap.org or follow SotM on Twitter to find out where our annual conference will be held. There will be scholarships available, and if it’s too far for you, streaming and recorded talks will be available too! You can find many past talks as videos linked from previous SoTM sites. Also note that more local SotM conferences are also held, such as SotM-Asia, SotM-Africa, SotM-LatAm, SotM-US and others!
Lastly, maybe you can ask your company or organisation if they would like to support the OSM by becoming a Corporate Member!
Your support through the OSMF membership keeps the OpenStreetMap project running and helps to retain its independence from any one funding source. We are happy that you have joined us. Let’s build the best map ever!
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