Matrix Governing Board report, May 2025

2025-05-16T18:00:00+00:00

Hi all!</p>

🔗</a>What’s been happening?</h2>
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.</p>
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.</p>
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.</p>
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.</p>
🔗</a>Governing Board Meeting report May 2025</h2>
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:</p>

Introduction and context setting</li>
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</li>
Fiscal Sponsorship Framework Working Group proposal in progress</li>
Voted & passed an amendment to the Terms of Reference (approved by the Guardians)</li> </ul> </li>
Trust & Safety

Charter agreed & adopted</li>
Room directory policy work</li>
T&S Research & Documentation Working Group proposal</li>
(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)</li> </ul> </li>
Community

Charter agreed & adopted</li>
Website Working Group</a> created for managing matrix.org</a> and related sites</li>
Events Working Group</a> for ... events!</li>
First proposals for the Foundation are coming up from the Website group</li>
Tighter integration with Finance needed for Events to work well</li> </ul> </li>
Finance & Fundraising

Charter agreed & adopted</li>
Figuring out how to enable a Fundraising Working Group</li>
Looking at cost savings / revenue raising options</li>
A financial report agreed as needing to get published</li>
Currently working using cashflow, a proper budget is a goal here</li> </ul> </li> </ul> </li>
Ratification of Governing Board Docs

Approved!</li>
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</li>
These are canonically maintained and published through the Matrix Governing Board site</a></li>
Some areas already identified for work (probably by the Governance Committee) in terms of Working Group operation and clarity on some terms</li> </ul> </li>
Goals for 6-12 months

More Working Groups as we identify needs, especially for Fundraising, T&S R&D, Project Sponsorship, and more</li>
More visibility of T&S work, much of it is thankless & invisible</li>
More collaboration with other community groups</li>
Documentation for admins of public rooms (what to expect, tools to use, etc) - probably another Working Group here</li>
Improving membership and sponsorship docs, tools, and conversion rates</li>
Streamlining processes around institutional knowledge transfer, and passing on recommendations to the Foundation</li> </ul> </li>
Closing notes</li> </ul>
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.</p>
🔗</a>What’s next for the Governing Board?</h2>
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</a> 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</a>, their charters, and how to get in touch with them if you want to help.</p>
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</a> 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.</p>
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.</p>
If you want to come chat with us, there’s always the Office of the Governing Board</a> room you can drop into, or swing by the Ecosystem Office Hours (on Wednesdays 17:00 Berlin time in #ecosystem.forum:matrix.org</a>) for a chat. And since we’re in campaigning season, there is also the Campaign Rooms space</a> where you can chat to the candidates about their views.</p>
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.</p>
Until next time!</p>
Greg “Gwmngilfen” Sutcliffe (on behalf of the Governing Board)</p>

Announcing the 2025 Governing Board elections

2025-04-28T00:00:00+00:00

🔗</a>Election schedule</h2>
Here is the timeline for this election season, which will happen in the second quarter of every year:</p>

Announcement on Monday, April 28</li>
Nominations from Saturday, May 3 to Friday, May 16</li>
Campaigning from Saturday, May 17 to Friday, May 30</li>
Voting from Saturday, May 31 to Friday, June 13</li>
Results announced on Monday, June 16</li> </ul>
🔗</a>How our elections work</h2>
Our Governing Board is made up of 9 different constituency groups across 3 categories: nonprofit and community representatives, funder representatives, and foundation representatives. Each group has been allocated seats on the board, gets to nominate its own slate of candidates, and gets to vote within that slate of candidates.</p>
For example, Individual Members get to nominate themselves, and vote on the Individual Members who are qualified candidates. The only exception is with the Managing Director (hi, that’s me) who automatically gets a seat on the Governing Board, but that’s just one seat of many.</p>
Here is the composition of seats on the Governing Board:</p>
Community representatives</th> Funder representatives</th> Foundation representatives</th></tr></thead>

4 Individual Members</td> 4 Platinum Members</td> 3 Guardians</td></tr>
3 Ecosystem Members</td> 3 Gold Members</td> 2 Spec Core Team Members</td></tr>
2 Associate Members</td> 2 Silver Members</td> Managing Director</td></tr> </tbody></table>
Learn how to become a member</a> and see a list of our current organizational members</a>.</p>
We will be seating candidates for half of the constituency groups in 2025, namely: Gold, Silver, Individual, and Associate Members.</p>
</p>
There are currently no term limits, but term limits are a best practice in open governance so we intend to introduce them as we find our collective footing.</p>
🔗</a>Who can nominate</h2>
You must be a member of one of the constituency groups in order to nominate yourself or someone else to be a candidate in the election. By far our largest constituency group are Individual Members, who number in the 100’s. If you have donated at least $60 USD to the Foundation since April 20, 2024 on Donorbox</a>, then you are eligible to nominate and vote. You must donate before the election period begins, as we cannot change voter rolls after that.</p>
All nominees must have consented to nomination before being nominated</em> and must be a community member in good standing. That means they must have a clean track record with respect to our Code of Conduct</a>. We want our Governing Board to be a clearing house for a variety of priorities and perspectives, and to be able to hold space for each other even when there are disagreements.</p>
🔗</a>Who can vote</h2>
All members of each constituency group are entitled to vote on the candidates within that constituency group. We will be reaching out to everyone we have contact information for, to ensure we have our voter rolls together before voting begins at the end of May.</p>
We will hold an election in each of the four constituencies that are up for election this year, even if a given constituency has fewer candidates than there are seats allocated for them on the Governing Board. This is, effectively, a vote of confidence.</p>
If you believe you are eligible to participate but have not heard from us or OpaVote</a> – the election system we have chosen for this year’s elections – by May 24th, please email us promptly</a>. We build our voter rolls on May 31st and can't change them after that!</p>
All of the candidates will be listed on an elections page here on our website which we’ll publish on May 17th.</p>
🔗</a>How to prepare yourself</h2>
If you want to be a candidate in the election, there are a few things you should know:</p>

All candidates will be listed on our website, grouped by the constituency group. (See last year's election center here.</a>)</li>
We do not require people to use their “legal name.”</li>
Candidates who are nominated by an organizational member will have their affiliation listed.</li>
We expect candidates to provide a short bio and a short statement, collectively covering qualifications and priorities. Candidates may also provide a link to an extended statement or platform on their personal blog or website.</li>
You are encouraged to make yourself available for conversation with members of your constituency group.</li>
The period for campaigning runs from May 17th to May 30th. Please note our community Code of Conduct</a> while campaigning.</li> </ul>
🔗</a>What to expect if you win</h2>
Congratulations! All of the winners will be announced on June 16th, but since the elections conclude on June 13th, you may get an email with the results of the election you participated in before June 16th.</p>
All elected representatives will be added to a private mailing list and Matrix room so that they can introduce themselves and communicate in between meetings. I will be reaching out to every elected representative to meet one-on-one, get acquainted, and answer questions before we convene for their first Governing Board meeting.</p>
The Governing Board meets as a full board at least twice a year, for at least 90 minutes each time, and meetings are facilitated by the duly elected Chair or Vice Chair. Expect one meeting before the end of the year, and another before the next election.</p>
You are likely to receive a packet of materials before each meeting which you will be expected to have reviewed. Most meetings will be held online, though we may convene meetings in-person, such as at The Matrix Conference. We will make every effort to make in-person meetings accessible to remote participants, and no official business will ever happen without appropriate notice, quorum, and minutes.</p>
While the Governing Board is an advisory board, members are encouraged to play a role in helping to carry out the activities that support the staff in delivering on the Foundation’s collective remit, such as coalescing priorities to share with the Spec Core Team and connecting with contributors and funders to implement proposals.</p>
Most of the work of the Governing Board happens in its Committees and their Working Groups, who meet in between Governing Board meetings and present their assessments and recommendations to the Governing Board.</p>
🔗</a>How to nominate</h2>
We will update this blog post with a link to a nomination form and a template document on Friday, May 2nd. We’ll be reaching out to everyone who is eligible and whose contact information we have to let them know. We’ll also be announcing it on our social channels.</p>
All nominations should be submitted through the form</a>, though anyone who has technical difficulties can fill out the template document</a> and email it to elections@foundation.matrix.org</a>.</p>
For discussion related to the Governing Board and the elections, we encourage people to drop by the Office of the Governing Board (#governing-board-office:matrix.org)</a>.</p>
Thank you for your ongoing support, and good luck to all the candidates in the upcoming elections!</p>

First report from the Matrix Governing Board

2024-12-20T18:00:00+00:00

Hi all,</p>
It’s been 6 months since the first ever Matrix Governing Board (GB) was formally elected & announced, and it has recently had its first official meeting. As such, we felt it was time that you, our constituents, had a report on how things are going and what we’ve been doing. We appreciate that the work of the GB is often in the background, and we want to be as transparent as we can.</p> </span>
🔗</a>What’s been happening?</h3>
Since our election in June, the GB has mainly been focussed on internal structure. We began with the most basic part of this - getting to know each other! We have quite a large group, and we all needed time to understand what each of us would like to achieve, and to assist with. We also needed to get to know the Foundation better, and time spent with Josh has been extremely valuable too.</p>
The other, even bigger, topic to tackle has been structure. We are a new board, and as such we need to lay down the processes and hierarchy that will govern our work in the near-to-medium future. There is ample inspiration around us in the many other communities we are part of, but we do have to write down our versions of these.</p>
🔗</a>What about the recent Governing Board meeting?</h3>
The GB had its first official meeting on Nov 15th, and the topic of structure took up all of our time - this is key since that structure is blocking the work we want to do in various topic areas (which we’re calling Committees). There are detailed minutes available here</a> but here is a high level summary - you’ll note that these all relate to the structure and norms of the GB:</p>

We elected our first Chair and ViceChair - Greg Sutcliffe (gwmngilfen) and Kim Brose (HarHarLinks) respectively</li>
We discussed some of the core elements of the GB - voting processes, quorum, timescales, etc</li>
We discussed the organisation layout, Committees, and Working Groups - more detail on that below</li>
We talked a lot about norms as well - how we expect members of the GB to behave.</li> </ul>
The last point is actually really important - while it sounds quite simple, it’s critical for setting expectations for us and also helps set overall policy when an explicit rule or process doesn’t exist. The culture that we set out with this first board will likely set the tone for the future, and we should get it right.</p>
🔗</a>Committees and Working Groups</h3>
Probably the decision with the biggest impact (thought we agreed it fairly quickly) was around the hierarchy of the GB, so let’s expand on that a bit.</p>
As we reported in TWIM at the time</a>, we have convened 4 initial Committees (Governance, Trust & Safety, Community, and Finance & Fundraising), and these are board-level subgroups with a focus on that specific area. Each Committee will have one or more Working Groups (WG) that focus on something related to that topic, and WGs must have a board member involved - but can (and probably should) involve more people from the community who wish to be involved in that effort.</p>
Drawing on my own background in operating systems, this is somewhere between the CentOS model (which just has Special Interest Groups under the CentOS Board) and Fedora (which has a detailed & complex org chart</a>). As an example, we’ll (probably) have a Website WG under the Community Committee.</p>
Each Committee and WG will need a charter - this can be pretty short, but sets out the remit of that group. Committees will also need a Chair (and probably a Vice Chair, just in case) so that we can ensure things keep ticking along. Those positions are open for voting within the GB at the moment!</p>
For the community, you can expect regular reports from the committees once they’ve formed, and we’ll bring those to you as we can - how we do reporting with transparency is also a topic we're discussing. You can also expect a process for people to propose new Working Groups - that is also under discussion!</p>
🔗</a>Reports?</h3>
Yes! So, as said above, the Committees will have an obligation to report on their activity. Since most have only existed for 3 weeks so far, there’s not yet much to say, but I hope that in the next few weeks we’ll be able to announce the Committees are up-and-running, and that we have a proposal system for new WGs.</p>
We also have a report from the Spec Core Team which they’ve asked us to share with you - you can read that SCT report here</a>.</p>
🔗</a>What’s next?</h3>
Right now, elections are in progress for the people who will run the Committees, and we want to finalise the norms and processes - these have had significant discussion already, and once we’ve tidied up the last points we can vote them in. Then comes the serious work of setting up WGs, and all that entails.</p>
We know that this seems a very slow process, especially in today’s world of fast moving technology - but the work of discussion, negotiation, and consensus can’t be rushed. It’ll be worth it.</p>
If you want to chat with us, we are always happy to chat! You can find us in the Office of the Governing Board room</a>, but many of the GB will also be present at FOSDEM</a> as well as being at the Friday Matrix event</a> - please talk to us, bring us your thoughts, tell us your worries. We’ll do what we can to help.</p>
Until next time!</p>
Greg (on behalf of the Governing Board)</p>

Introducing our first elected Governing Board

2024-06-03T19:00:00+00:00

It is an honor and a pleasure to unveil the election results and introduce the first elected Governing Board for the Matrix.org Foundation!</p>
Congratulations to the winning candidates, we thank you for your willingness to serve the community. We’re also grateful to everyone who threw their hat in the ring, and hope that the candidates who did not get elected consider running again in the future – noting that we have an election of Gold, Silver, Individual, and Associate Members scheduled for next year.</p>
Thanks also to all of the people who cast ballots in the election, and to everyone who asked questions along the way! We learned a lot in this first election process that we look forward to incorporating into the next one.</p>
The level of engagement with the process was a very encouraging sign for the health of the Matrix ecosystem, and we’re proud to have had 100% voter turnout in all but one constituency.</p>
Read on to see who is on the Governing Board, a brief discussion of next steps, and reflections on some of the work that remains to improve representation.</p> </span>
🔗</a>The Governing Board</h2>
Representing Individual Members</a>, we have:</p>

Andy Balaam (he/him)</li>
Greg Sutcliffe (he/him)</li>
J.B. Crawford (they/them)</li>
Sumner Evans</li> </ul>
Representing Ecosystem Members</a>, we have:</p>

Bram van den Heuvel (he/they), Elm SDK</li>
Kim Brose (he/him), Matrix Community Events</li>
Nicolas Werner (he/him), Nheko-Reborn</li> </ul>
Representing Associate Members</a>, we have</p>

Cleo Menenez Jr. (he/him), GNOME Foundation</li>
Tobias Fella (he/him), KDE e.V.</li> </ul>
Representing Platinum Members</a>, we have:</p>

Neil Johnson (he/him), Element</li> </ul>
Representing Gold Members</a>, we have:</p>

Brad Murray (he/him), Beeper</li>
Kevin Boos (he/him), Futurewei Technologies</li> </ul>
Representing Silver Members</a>, we have:</p>

Jan Kohnert (he/him), Gematik GmbH</li>
Thor Arne Johansen, Verji Tech AS</li> </ul>
Representing Guardians</a>, we have:</p>

Amandine Le Pape (she/her)</li>
Matthew Hodgson (he/him)</li>
Ross Schulman</li> </ul>
Representing Spec Core Team members</a>, we have:</p>

Richard van der Hoff (he/him)</li>
Travis Ralston (he/him)</li> </ul>
And, lastly, representing Foundation staff in an ex officio capacity, we have:</p>

Josh Simmons (he/they)</li> </ul>
🔗</a>Next steps</h2>
All of the elected representatives will soon receive a welcome email and details about onboarding which will take place over the next two months, with our first official meeting being in August or September. That first meeting will include chartering committees, establishing initial committee assignments, and other agenda items within the Governing Board’s remit.</p>
All Governing Board members will soon be added to a private Matrix room and mailing list. We also hope to hold informal gatherings before that first meeting, so that Governing Board members can get to know each other before we dig into business.</p>
We will continue to use the 2024 elections page</a> as a place to aggregate information about the current Governing Board, and our About</a> page will soon be updated. Before next year’s election we will establish a more general landing page for the Governing Board that is not specific to any one year.</p>
🔗</a>Reflecting on representation</h2>
Our mission is to bring secure, private, free and open, unencumbered communication to everyone. In order to succeed in that, we need to bring a representative cross-section of perspectives to bear on our governance and development.</p>
And while we haven’t yet conducted formal surveys of demographics, such that we can be confident about the baseline we’re working from, it’s plain to see that our contributor communities are not yet as representative as we need them to be. This isn’t news to anyone, but the election results make it all the more obvious.</p>
The issue of representation is something we must tackle across the whole of the Matrix ecosystem, and we intend for the Foundation to play a leading role in addressing this internally and externally. We can learn from other successful initiatives, and I myself have been successful in tackling these challenges in partnership with other communities, so I know we can get to where we need to be.</p>
In electing our first Governing Board, we have dramatically expanded the number of perspectives and lived experiences that are directly engaged in the evolution and direction of Matrix. Coming from a place where the majority of decisions were being made by people associated with one company, this is a huge improvement. This is something we should be proud of!</p>
But to be extremely clear: we need to drastically increase the representation of women and people outside of Europe and North America. There may be other lived experiences we are short on, but these two stand out.</p>
I’m eager to dig into this work with everyone here around Matrix. Please stay tuned for a follow up blog post specifically on this subject.</p>
Onwards and upwards 🚀</p>

Voting has begun in the Governing Board elections

2024-05-17T00:00:00+00:00

Voting has started for the Governing Board elections and runs till May 31! This is our first election and we are very excited. All of the results will be published here on the blog on June 3.</p>
You can learn about all of the candidates</a> on our 2024 election page</a>. All eligible voters should have received an email from OpaVote</a>, the election system we have chosen for this year’s elections.</p>
If you believe you are eligible to participate but have not heard from us, first check the inbox and spam folders of the email address you have on file with us (such as through Donorbox or Patreon). Please email us</a> if you have any questions.</p> </span>
All members of each constituency group are entitled to vote on the candidates within that constituency group. Generally, we will hold elections for half of the constituency groups each year. However, this year we are holding elections for all of the constituency groups:</p>

Community representatives</strong>
4 seats for Individual Members – these are people who currently provide financial support to the Foundation.</li>
3 seats for Ecosystem Members – these are FOSS projects and communities around Matrix.</li>
2 seats for Associate Members – these are FOSS foundations, academic institutions, and other communities that are aligned with key parts of our mission.</li> </ul> </li>
Funder representatives</strong>
4 seats for Platinum Members – these organisations sponsor at the highest level.</li>
3 seats for Gold Members — these organisations sponsor at a high level.</li>
2 seats for Silver Members — these organisations sponsor at a level commensurate with the size of their organisation.</li> </ul> </li>
Foundation representatives</strong>
3 seats for Guardians – these are the members of the Foundation's board of directors.</li>
2 seats for the Spec Core Team – these are the members of the Spec Core Team that looks after the spec.</li>
Managing Director – this is the Foundation's head of staff, no election is run for this seat.</li> </ul> </li> </ul>
Next year, we'll run elections just for Gold, Silver, Individual, and Associate Members.</p>
For more background on the Governing Board and its place in the growth and evolution of the Matrix ecosystem, read: The Governing Board, our next big step in open governance</a>.</p>

Announcing the 2024 Governing Board elections

2024-04-12T14:00:00+00:00

Update: the terms of the board have been updated with the follow changes:</em></p>

Allow for filling vacancies by appointment or by-election at the discretion of the Managing Director and the Guardians, in consultation with a Governance Committee. (2.7.1)</em></li>
Allow for the Governing Board to adopt voting mechanisms other than simple majority on a case-by-case basis. (5.5)</em></li>
Disallow nominees from running for election in more than one constituency at a time. (2.4.1)</em></li>
Change UTC to AOE in timeline. (2.3)</em></li> </ul> Welcome to the first ever Governing Board election season for the Matrix.org Foundation! We start with a one week nomination period that opens on Saturday, April 20th and closes on Friday, April 26th AOE time</a>.</p>
We’ll be doing our best to reach out to every constituent group to let them know they are eligible to nominate candidates for the election. That said, this is our first election and we don’t yet have contact information for everybody who is eligible, so we want your help getting the word out.</p>
If you are interested in nominating someone – or yourself – to be a candidate in this election, read this post in its entirety.</em></strong></p>
To learn about what the Governing Board is, what it does, and the context it operates in, read this blog post from last December</a>. You are also welcome to read the Governing Board’s current bylaws</a>.</p>
Go here for instructions on submitting a nomination!</a></p> </span>
🔗</a>Election schedule</h2>
Here is the timeline for this election season, which will happen in the second quarter of every year:</p>
</p>
To minimize confusion, and maximize inclusion given our international community, we will be using “Anywhere on Earth” (AOE) time</a>. If you’re not familiar with AOE time, here’s what it means using our nomination period as an example: so long as it’s still Friday, April 26th in any timezone on the planet (from UTC+12 to UTC-12), the nomination period is open.</p>
🔗</a>How our elections work</h2>
Our Governing Board is made up of 9 different constituency groups across 3 categories: nonprofit and community representatives, funder representatives, and foundation representatives. Each group has been allocated seats on the board, gets to nominate its own slate of candidates, and gets to vote within that slate of candidates.</p>
For example, Individual Members get to nominate themselves, and vote on the Individual Members who are qualified candidates. The only exception is with the Managing Director (hi, that’s me) who automatically gets a seat on the Governing Board, but that’s just one seat of many.</p>
Here is the composition of seats on the Governing Board:</p>
Community representatives</th> Funder representatives</th> Foundation representatives</th></tr></thead>

4 Individual Members</td> 4 Platinum Members</td> 3 Guardians</td></tr>
3 Ecosystem Members</td> 3 Gold Members</td> 2 Spec Core Team Members</td></tr>
2 Associate Members</td> 2 Silver Members</td> Managing Director</td></tr> </tbody></table>
Learn how to become a member</a> and see a list of our current organizational members</a>.</p>
We will be seating candidates for all constituency groups in our first election. Starting in 2025, we’ll run elections for half of the constituency groups. This is so that we maintain some level of continuity and institutional knowledge across each election. Consequently, while the first elected representatives from the Guardians, Spec Core Team, Platinum, and Ecosystem Members will serve 2-year terms, the first elected representatives from Gold, Silver, Individual, and Associate Members will serve a 1-year term. We anticipate that many people in those constituencies who are elected this year will run for re-election in 2025.</p>
</p>
There are currently no term limits, but term limits are a best practice in open governance so we intend to introduce them as we find our collective footing.</p>
For greater detail, please read this blog post from last December</a>.</p>
🔗</a>Who can nominate</h2>
You must be a member of one of the constituency groups in order to nominate yourself or someone else to be a candidate in the election. By far our largest constituency group are Individual Members, who number in the 100’s. If you have donated at least $60 USD to the Foundation since April 20, 2023, on any of Donorbox, Patreon, or Liberapay, then you are eligible to nominate and vote.</p>
All nominees must have consented to nomination before being nominated</em> and must be a community member in good standing. That means they must have a clean track record with respect to our Code of Conduct</a>. We want our Governing Board to be a clearing house for a variety of priorities and perspectives, and to be able to hold space for each other even when there are disagreements.</p>
🔗</a>Who can vote</h2>
All members of each constituency group are entitled to vote on the candidates within that constituency group. We will be reaching out to everyone we have contact information for, to ensure we have our voter rolls together before voting begins in May.</p>
We will hold an election for every constituency even if a given constituency has fewer candidates than there are seats allocated for them on the Governing Board. This is, effectively, as a vote of confidence.</p>
If you believe you are eligible to participate but have not heard from us or OpaVote</a> – the election system we have chosen for this year’s elections – by May 10th, please email us promptly</a>. We build our voter rolls on May 17th and can't change them after that!</p>
All of the candidates will be listed on an elections page here on our website which we’ll publish on April 29th.</p>
🔗</a>How to prepare yourself</h2>
If you want to be a candidate in the election, there are a few things you should know:</p>

All candidates will be listed on our website, grouped by the constituency group.</li>
We do not require people to use their “legal name.”</li>
Candidates who are nominated by an organizational member will have their affiliation listed.</li>
We expect candidates to provide a short bio and a short statement, collectively covering qualifications and priorities.</li>
You are encouraged to make yourself available for conversation with members of your constituency group.</li>
The period for campaigning runs from April 27th to May 17th. Please note our community Code of Conduct</a> while campaigning.</li> </ul>
🔗</a>What to expect if you win</h2>
Congratulations! All of the winners will be announced on June 3rd, but since the elections conclude on May 31st, you may get an email with the results of the election you participated in before June 3rd.</p>
All elected representatives will be added to a private mailing list and Matrix room so that they can introduce themselves and communicate in between meetings. I will be reaching out to every elected representative to meet one-on-one, get acquainted, and answer questions before we convene for our first Governing Board meeting. Given the size of the board and the international nature of our ecosystem, those one-on-one meetings will likely happen over the course of a couple months.</p>
The Governing Board will meet as a full board twice a year, for at least 90 minutes each time, and our first 1-2 meetings will have a professional facilitator to help us collectively put our best foot forward. Expect one meeting before the end of the year, and another before the next election.</p>
You are likely to receive a packet of materials before each meeting which you will be expected to have reviewed. Most meetings will be held online, though we may convene meetings in-person, such as at the (soon to be announced) annual Matrix Conference. We will make every effort to make in-person meetings accessible to remote participants, and no official business will ever happen without appropriate notice, quorum, and minutes.</p>
While the Governing Board is an advisory board, members are encouraged to play a role in helping to carry out the activities that support the staff in delivering on the Foundation’s collective remit, such as coalescing priorities to share with the Spec Core Team and connecting with contributors and funders to implement proposals.</p>
We intend to charter committees – such as for finance, which would review our annual budget in detail – who will meet in between Governing Board meetings and present their assessments and recommendations to the Governing Board. These committees are where the bulk of the activity will take place since the board, which may have up to 24 members, is quite large.</p>
🔗</a>How to nominate</h2>
Please use this Cryptpad form to nominate for the Governing Board elections</a>. If you are unable to use the form, please refer to this nomination document</a> and email your responses to elections@foundation.matrix.org</a>.</p>
All nominations are subject to review in accordance with our bylaws. We will email you to confirm receipt within 2 business days, and we will publish our elections landing page with all of the nominees, and other details, by April 27th.</p>
Thank you for your ongoing support, and good luck to all the candidates in the upcoming elections!</p>
Ad astra per aspera 🚀</p>

First report from the Matrix Governing Board

Introducing our first elected Governing Board

Voting has begun in the Governing Board elections

Announcing the 2024 Governing Board elections

Matrix.org - Governing Board

Matrix Governing Board report, November 2025

Introducing your new Governing Board representatives

Matrix Governing Board report, May 2025

Announcing the 2025 Governing Board elections

Matrix.org - Governing Board

Matrix Governing Board report, November 2025

🔗</a>Governing Board Meeting Minutes November 2025</h2> Introduction and context setting</li>

Introducing your new Governing Board representatives

🔗</a>Elected representatives</h2> These are the elected representatives for each of those constituencies:</p> Individual Members</p> Andy Balaam (he/him)</li> Gnuxie (she/her)</li> Greg Sutcliffe (he/him)</li>

Matrix Governing Board report, May 2025

🔗</a>Governing Board Meeting report May 2025</h2> 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:</p> Introduction and context setting</li>

Announcing the 2025 Governing Board elections

First report from the Matrix Governing Board

Introducing our first elected Governing Board

Voting has begun in the Governing Board elections

Announcing the 2024 Governing Board elections