Other Useful Diversity Resources

The ASF has run several committer diversity surveys between 2016-2023: read about them all here:

Community survey and contributor experience research

Encouraging Women to Participate in Apache Projects

Mailing List Ideas

1. Emphasize ASF Code of Conduct on project websites
2. Contact IT Womens Groups
3. Setup / Define Benchmark measurement
4. Tailor ASF website to handle women landing on various pages / guiding them through specific route & information
5. Start a series of blog positive experience blog posts
6. Start a series of Apachecon presentations themed on encouraging diversity

General Diversity Strategy

What is the overall goal? / Possible Mission Statement

"To make the ASF a culturally diverse and socially representative open source community"

What outcomes do we want?

1. To increase diversity by attracting and welcoming all contributors including those from under-represented groups to the ASF
2. To retain diversity by maintaining a healthy, positive and socially dynamic environment where all groups feel safe, welcome and appreciated
3. To actively monitor diversity within the ASF and if necessary apply strategies to encourage and attract under-represented groups

What does diversity mean?

Diversity in gender? Ethnicity? Age? What else?

Main two are gender and ethnicity.

Outcome 1: To increase diversity by attracting under-represented groups to the ASF

How do we achieve this outcome? / What can we put in place to deliver this?

• We need a definition of what diversity means to the ASF. (Initial suggestion could be just Ethnicity and Gender)
• We need to know how much diversity we currently have. (If we are using ethnicity and gender then we need to benchmark what levels of ethnicity and gender we currently have)
• We need to set some diversity goals based on what diversity level the ASF want to achieve  (e.g we would like to have x% of xyz group by ????)
• We need to identify the under-represented groups. (We suspect women are under-represented in the ASF, what about ethnicities? Wont know until we have some real data of what we already have)
• We need to talk to organisations already working with under-represented groups to get any resources or recommendations
• We need to look at options for partnering with organisations already working with under-represented groups to be able to communicate the ASF message
• We need to find out what communication mechanisms will attract a particular under-represented group to the ASF (this could be a general point for everyone but then tailored for each group...)
• We need to find out how to can make the ASF more welcoming to under-represented groups (to anyone?....)
• We need to set a KPI to measure the increase in diversity from an initial benchmark

Outcome 2: To retain diversity by maintaining a healthy, positive and socially dynamic environment where all groups feel welcome

How do we achieve this outcome? What can we put in place to deliver this?

• We need to know how much diversity we currently have. (If we are using ethnicity and gender then we need to benchmark what levels of ethnicity and gender we currently have)
• We need to find out what the elements are that make under-represented groups stay in a community or the ASF (e.g what may be important to one group may not be as important to another...)
• We need to find out what the elements make under-represented groups leave a community or the ASF
• We need to actively communicate our diversity and acceptance of it across the ASF
• We need to set a KPI to measure the retention of diversity from an initial benchmark

Outcome 3: To actively monitor diversity within the ASF and if necessary apply strategies to encourage and attract under-represented groups

How do we achieve this outcome? What can we put in place to deliver this?

• We need to know how much diversity we currently have. (If we are using ethnicity and gender then we need to benchmark what levels of ethnicity and gender we currently have)
• We need to decide on what level to monitor (Will the Board, Members, Committers, PMCs and Individual projects be happy to have their diversity figures public? Maybe look at all projects consolidated?)
• We need to create a repeatable template to capture the information (Anonymous ?)
• We need to define a process for collecting the information within a fixed timespan
• We need to collate the collected information and publish it (Perhaps could include it as part of annual reports?)

Next Steps

Benchmark what the ASF diversity level of ethnicity and gender are now

1. Easiest stats to get could be survey of gender and ethnicity of ASF Board, ASF Members, PMCs and Committers. (Not sure how representative they will be of the entire ASF population but it will be a start and it will be concrete figures)
2. Harder stats to get wil be surveys of the whole ASF population.  Could maybe be handled by anonymous surveys of individual projects. Project level because containable and easier communication group. Easier to communicate on a mailing list to a specific project than trying to communicate to all projects and all contributors at the same time. Lessons learned from initial projects can help revise and refine methodology for others

Design Diversity Survey Template

Stakeholder Analysis : Who are we trying to attract and communicate to?

Need to identify who we want to communicate to so we can tailor communications to that group.

Under-represented Groups

...

1. Female Developers -
2. Female Students - Already studying Computing or IT
3. Female Non-Developers ? - not all roles in ASF projects are programming or technical

How can we achieve these outcomes?

Reach out and attract new contributors

1. Go to where our potential new contributors are
   1. Outreachy
   2. Hackbright Academy
   3. Google Summer of Code
   4. Women in Big Data
   5. Others ??
2. Use Events and Meetups to attract new contributors
   1. Apachecon
   2. Apache Big Data
   3. FOSDEM
   4. Project Meetups
   5. Grace Hopper ?
   6. Project Meetups?
   7. Other Events Apache represented at?
3. Promote and talk about Apache and its culture through Social Media, Blogging,
   1. ASF Weekly News
   2. ASF Twitter
   3. ASF & Project Blogs
   4. Articles for external magazines eg Open Source Way, Others
   5. Other people blogging / talking about the ASF or any of its projects and their experience of it
   6. Wikipedia ? - people use it a lot - what does the ASF or projects entries look like?
4. Marketing material (leaflets, stickers, swag..)
   1. ASF information leaflets
   2. ASF & Project Stickers
   3. Small branded marketing gifts / giveaways (pen, keyring etc)

Ensure that people that join Apache communities enjoy what they do and feel safe and appreciated

1. Make existing contributors and all new contributors feel safe (IMPORTANT!)
   
   1. Have a Code of Conduct
   2. Ensure the code of conduct is enforced
2. Ensure the contributors know they are contributing to a legal organisation with defined standards and governance
   1. Apache Licence
   2. Promote ASF Standards and Governance Model
3. Make communities welcoming and inclusive
   1. Respond to questions from newcomers as well as existing members
   2. Acknowledge contributions (IMPORTANT!)
   3. Remove the distinction between code and non code related contributions (they are equal)
   4. Make it easier for newcomers to contribute
   5. Use polite and neutral language
   6. Celebrate achievements
4. Promote collaboration
   
   1. Collaborative discussion and decision making (Mailing list)
   2. Collaborative development (Wiki, Jira, Chat,?)
   3. Build relationships (Chat, Meetups - virtual or real)
   4. Other tools

Maintain a positive culture of inclusiveness and openness

Have clear and understandable policies and guidelines

Monitor Diversity ?

...

Create a Communication and Engagement Plan for working with under-represented groups (e.g women) which will include activities such as

1. Partnering with groups
2. Being present at events
3. Presenting / Doing Talks about Apache
4. Communicating the them about the ASF programmes that could help

Define a detailed plan for internal communication within ASF about the Diversity initiative

...