501c3 narrative
As per 501c3_todo#Part_IV:
The organization is involved in at least three different kids of activities.
Raising Awareness
We are focused on promoting and representing our free, publicly available, projects throughout the world. We use trade shows and conferences as a means of educating the public about the capabilities of our projects and how our work provides tools for the public good. Our largest annual effort of promotion happens through our international recognized annual conference known as FOSS4G. This year's event is held in Canada - the web site is available at http://www.foss4g2007.org. Last year's event was held in Switzerland and next year's will be held in South Africa. The event draws more than 600 people from around the world who come to hear the latest about the many projects and efforts underway within and outside of our organization. This event is our largest source of annual revenue.
Building Community
Each of our projects have distinct sets of developers, users and those who implement the tools. We encourage the building of a larger community that draws together members from each of the individual projects to help promote each other and enable cross-collaboration. This is one of our core goals and was a primary reason for establishing the organization. It was recognized that many members of our communities were using common tools and could work together to promote these free tools for public use. To meet this goal we have many different communication methods that our members use to share information, promote work and describe how our tools are helping advance mapping and geospatial work within their own governments, companies, schools, etc.
One way we share case studies, examples, news and training to the general public is through our new journal. It is the only journal of its kind that covers our topical area of open source and geospatial software. The journal is a registered international serial publication (ISSN 1994-1897) and has a broad international set of contributors and readers. We are currently working on our second edition. The OSGeo Journal also has a peer review process to help publish related academic quality articles. It has become a central way to keep both our communities and the public up to date on latest project developments and ideas.
The organization also hosts many discussion lists and online interactive communications between its members. Discuss 537
-supporting projects --funding --infrastructure