Q4 Budget Allocation: The FAQ

Hello awesome Reps!

TL;DR
In order to emphasize more on the initiatives that are priorities for Mozilla and in order to align with Participation goals the council has decided to allocate the 4th quarter budget based on 4 different groups we identified. You can find the budget allocation here.

Full version
Budget has been a crucial tool in order to advance Reps activities. It enables us to do great things and to advance Mozilla mission’s. But budget is not unlimited. For that reason, the Council has decided to allocate budget in advance for those areas that we think should support Mozilla more right now. This will act as a guideline for where we want to focus for Q4 and also as an indication and transparency tool on what we’ve done so far.
For the functional areas that are not listed on the budget allocation there is a special bucket for experiments. That bucket will act to support initiatives that have not been identified as priorities but the Rep has shown on the request that this activity is highly impactful and advances Mozilla’s goals.

Here are the FAQs for the Q4 budget allocation. Join the conversation in here and give us your feedback and ask any questions you feel are missing.

  • Why I can not see the actual budget (x usd) and I only see percentages?
  • We are not allowed to publish actual numbers. However, the leftover percentages will be automatically renewed and always up to date so our Reps know where we stand
  • If I have an activity that is not listed there, will that mean that I will get automatically rejected?
  • Absolutely not. That’s the reason we have the experiment bucket, to enable our Reps to experiment. Generally the Review Team will thoroughly review all the requests that will be submitted.
  • That budget allocation feels like a policy of first come first served. What will happen if I want to request an activity but the respective budget is already allocated?
  • The activity will still be considered. As mentioned above nothing will be auto rejected. The review team will evaluate the case and approve/reject based on goals and impact on advancing Mozilla’s focus priorities. However, it is better to plan your activity as soon as possible. Not only to give notice about it, but to better organize your goals and to work with the Review Team to make the most impact out of it
  • What if I have a request that goes over the percentage that was allocated? And how would I know?
  • The Review team will let you know about it. Generally we encourage our Reps to align with our goals and have activities that are priorities for Mozilla right now. As the above cases the Review Team will thoroughly review the request and approve based on goals and impact of the event.
  • How did you decide on the percentages per group?
  • The council has decided to divide our Q4 budget on 4 groups based on activities that align with Mozilla’s mission and bring proven impact to our goals.As a result, we grouped activities based on where we see Mozilla needs more help right now to be successful as an organization. We’ll update them each quarter to reflect the updated reality.
  • Could you explain how the groups were decided? It seems that they mostly contain functional areas but not entirely
  • The groups are not containing strictly functional areas, it has mozactivate activities and a bucket for experiment in case we want to spend money on impactful ideas and the budget has been already used or for cases that we didn’t allocate any money at all.
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Firefox (Desktop and Mobile) is definitely a top priority and I think deserves to be ranked higher than Group 4. Shipping a high quality product to millions of users requires help from the community in a lot of different areas, and it is something that we certainly need more focus on. Projects such as the Nightly Reboot and Project Uptime need more involvement from Reps and the wider community in order to be successful.

Hey @marcia thanks for the feedback!

Council has been aligning with Participation team focus areas to shape this Q4 and we plan to keep updating the allocation in the future.

My recommendation would be to sync with Participation team in order to explore this collaboration and as a result it would be aligned in the future with the rest of the efforts (including Reps resources allocation).

Thanks!

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Hey all,
just an fyi that since the quarter has finished, you can now check what we’ve done on Q4 and per month here.
If you have any questions about the diagrams, please ask away :slight_smile:

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