[Openid-specs-risc] OpenID Foundation Seeking Directed Funding to Support Conformance Test Development

[Mike Leszcz]

Hello Shared Signals Work Group,
First, thank you for your ongoing support of the OpenID Foundation through your contributions to the Shared Signals work group.
The certification team is preparing to start development of the Shared Signals conformance tests soon. Once they’re ready to be tested, we’ll be reaching out to identify organizations to help us “test the tests” before going to production and opening Shared Signals certifications.
For those unaware, directed funding is a funding mechanism available to all OIDF members in good standing. Directed funding projects must be of benefit to the OIDF community overall. The OIDF Board must approve the project aligns to our mission and vision which the Shared Signal conformance tests and certification certainly do. Directed funding also plays an important role in helping the Certification team prioritize its test development, as directed funding helps indicate the importance of the test development to the OIDF community.
The Open Finance Brazil ecosystem provided significant directed funding to support the development of the FAPI profiles for their ecosystem that are also utilized by Open Insurance Brazil. It is also worth noting that governments like Australia have made directed funding commitments to the FAPI security analysis in partnership with University of Stuttgart, Japanese government to help fund OID4VC test development via our OIDF-Japan chapter, and private entities like Microsoft and ecosystems like ConnectID in Australia have directed funding for OIDF events in the past. The ability to direct funds is a member benefit and we have a few every year. The Foundation must follow our policies strictly to preserve our non-profit status with the US government.
The Foundation is seeking $40K USD directed funding to help us close the gap between the Board approved budget and total budget to complete the Shared Signals conformance tests. The funds may be directed by one or more members in good standing. We plan to publicly recognize the organization(s) that contribute funding for this purpose throughout this year, and into the future as appropriate. Examples are likely to include: Gartner presentation in Dallas, OIDF Workshop before IIW, briefs to US Government and other government officials of Shared signals (e.g. next steps to progress on recommendation 11 from the US Cyber Safety Review Board publication March 2024 that specifically recommends Shared Signals). Although a single entity could easily contribute all the funds, our preference is to have several entities make equal contributions to directly fund this test development, given the optics of this would well represent the strong engagement and support of the SS WG.
For those that have not directed funding in the past, the paperwork process is very simple and follows standard OIDF policy and procedure for directed funds consistent with our operation as a US 501(c)6 entity. We will have a simple scope of work agreed, an invoice, and a letter to confirm the directed funding has been received for that scope. The paperwork itself should be straight forward and not an impediment.
Please contact me directly if you are interested in learning more about how your organization may support this important work through directed funds. Thank you in advance for your consideration.

Kind regards,
Mike Leszcz
OIDF Operations Director




MIKE LESZCZ : OPERATIONS DIRECTOR : OPENID FOUNDATION

mike.leszcz at oidf.org<mailto:mike.leszcz at oidf.org> : +1 803.239.7750
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