Notes from the March 2026 Governing Board meeting

The March 2026 Governing Board (GB) call took place on Wednesday, 24 March 2026. In attendance were members of the board: Bowrna Prabhakaran, Nemo, Swastik Banarwal, and Shree Kumar. They were joined by Poruri Sai Rahul from the FOSS United staff.

(Poruri Sai Rahul took notes and also drafted the post)

Staffing and salary heads:

1. Rahul led the call, first sharing information about the pay scales at the Foundation.
2. Program Associate - 6-10 Lakhs INR per annum (LPA)
3. Program Manager - 10-14 LPA
4. Senior Program Manager - 15-20 LPA
5. Program Director - 20-25 LPA
6. CXO - 30-36 LPA
7. Bodhish quickly pointed out that the pay scales aren’t in line with pay in the for-profit tech industry. He argued that while FOSS United Foundation is a Section-8 not-for-profit organisation, the Foundation predominantly hires from the technology sector.
8. Rahul noted that our pay scales incorporated reports about pay in the social sector, and that our pay is on the higher end of the range for social sector pay.
9. Bodhish noted that we shouldn’t be benchmarking ourselves to the social sector. As an organisation that is working to push the industry forward, it is worth benchmarking ourselves against the industry. With the current pay scales, he argues that it is unlikely for us to find strong technical and managerial talent, especially at and above the Senior Program Manager level. He recommended revising the pay sales upwards.
10. Rahul sought everyone’s feedback on revising the pay scales, and that an evidence-backed approach would ensure that we can justify the revised pay structure to existing and future industry partners. It is worth noting that most of the team (5 out of 8) doesn’t have prior work experience, which is one of the reasons why we have been able to adjust to lower pay scales. The remaining 3, hired in 2024 (Rahul), 2025 (Ashlesh), and 2026 (Siddharth), will be at the Senior Program Manager level and above in the next FY.
11. With this in mind, we looked at the budget, starting with salaries. The CEO’s (Rahul) salary is bumped from 30 LPA to 33 LPA, a 10% increase. It is worth noting that no salary increment happened in the previous Financial Year, and Rahul will be completing his second year on the job. After Rahul, everyone's salaries were discussed, and how they compared with the previous FY. It is worth noting that Ashlesh is being promoted to Senior Program Manager (Advocacy and Campaigns) and that Jeswin was promoted to Program Manager (Design) after IndiaFOSS 2025 in the FY 2025-2026.
12. The salary head in the budget also contains provision for two new hires at the Program Manager level and multiple interns, accounting for 22,40,000 INR of potential additional expenditure. The salary head totals 1,32,12,000 (1.32 Cr) INR. In addition to the salary, the budget includes an allocation of 5 Lakhs INR as “Bonus and Miscellaneous” expenses for the Staff.
13. Please note that, unlike most Social Sector organizations, our staff isn’t divided amongst the Programs, with their salaries budgeted into the Program cost. We are in the process of establishing Programs, with budget allocation for a few members of the Staff, but we do not fit into the existing mold of Social Sector orgs, because of which our Salary budget will continue to remain a significant portion of our total budget.
14. Going back to the discussion surrounding pay scales, Nemo asked how this would affect existing pay. Rahul noted that the new bands could come into effect in FY 2027-28, and that the “Miscellaneous + Bonus” budget item can be used to make up for the severe shortfall in pay for relevant Staff.
    

Budget snapshot

1. Apart from Salaries, the rest of the operations budget looks as follows -
2. Travel - Estimated 10 L INR, estimated expenditure in the current FY (2025-26) - 11 L INR
3. Server Bills - 4 L INR, estimated expenditure in the current FY (2025-26) 3 L INR
4. Office Expenses - 5 L INR, estimated expenditure in the current FY (2025-26) 9 L INR
5. Miscellaneous+Bonus - 5 L INR. This is a new budget item in the next FY (2026-27)
6. Accounting - 5L INR, estimated expenditure in the current FY (2025-26) 3.5 L INR
7. Health Insurance Reimbursement - 1.2L INR, estimated expenditure in current FY (2025-26) 3.2 L INR
8. It is worth clarifying the “Office Expenses” head. Unfortunately, we believe that some of the expenditure during the current FY (2025-26) was miscategorised, because of which the estimated expenditure under this budget head is dramatically higher than the budget estimate. We will work with the accounting team to fix this in the future and ensure appropriate categorisation of such team expenses.
9. Bodhish prompted the need to include Token costs under the Server Bills budget head, which we hadn’t taken into consideration earlier.
10. Shree asked for clarification on the “Accounting” budget item, and I clarified that this is the professional fees to the accounting team (BOCo) for our accounting and audit needs. Bodhish pointed out that the expenditure was on the lower end, as the Big 4 Accounting teams cost more than 10 Lakhs INR.
11. Additionally, we are considering moving away from Corporate Health Insurance to reimbursing the personal health insurance premiums for team members, which is the reason behind the significant decrease in the budget head for “Health Insurance Reimbursement”.
12. Bodhish also recommended not moving away from Corporate Health Insurance. He mentioned that Corporate Health Insurance plans offer the benefit of full coverage from Day 1, while personal health insurance plans usually don’t. He recommended not cutting costs in this particular part of employee benefits, as this disproportionately affects Staff with prior medical conditions.
    

Programs Budget

1. Moving on, the Programs budget looks as follows
2. IndiaFOSS - 0 INR, estimated profit in the current FY (2025-26) - 10 L INR
3. FOSS Hack - 10 L INR, estimated expenditure in current FY (2025-26) 10 L INR
4. Season of Commits - 2.5 L INR, estimated expenditure in current FY (2025-26) 75,000 INR
5. FOSS Communities, estimated combined expenditure in current FY (2025-26) 2.3 L INR
6. City Communities - 5 L INR
7. FOSS Clubs - 7.5L      
8. Grants - 50 Lakhs INR, estimated combined expenditure in current FY (2025-26) 30 Lakhs INR
9. Repeat Project Grant - 11 L
10. Repeat Event Grant - 3 L
11. Repeat Fellowship Grant - 15 L
12. New Project Grant - 6 L
13. New Event Grant - 2 L
14. New Fellowship Grant - 3 L
15. Miscellaneous - 10 L
16. Rahul clarified the following about the Programs budget
17. IndiaFOSS turned a profit in 2025, and we are currently not budgeting any amount for IndiaFOSS 2026. We expect to turn a profit from IndiaFOSS 2026, but we would like to assure the Governing Board and the Community that if necessary, the Foundation has savings of up to 30 Lakhs INR to dip into
18. Only one person participated in Season of Commits in 2025, but we are already seeing significant interest in Season of Commits in 2026, therefore the budget allocation remains the same. We also expect to support a few FOSS Hack 2026 participants via Season of Commits 2026
19. The Foundation significantly underperformed when it comes to supporting City Communities and Student Clubs, with only 2.5 Lakhs INR estimated spent on an allocated 17.5 Lakhs INR during the current FY 2025-26. We suspect that some of the additional expenditure noted under “Office Expenses” should actually be categorised here, but that still doesn’t fully address the underspending. City Communities and Student Clubs are the lifeblood of the FOSS United Community, and we intend to support this work as budgeted in the next FY
20. Finally, the Grants budget estimate increased close to 100%, because even after disbursing close to 30 Lakhs INR in grants, we still observed significant and genuine demand for financial support from various parts of the Indian FOSS ecosystem
21. Shree pointed out that the FOSS Clubs page on fossunited.org explicitly states that clubs are eligible for up to 50,000 INR per FY, and wondered why the Clubs hadn’t reached out to spend this allocation.
22. Rahul noted that there are significant gaps in understanding in the Community when it comes to Foundation Programs, including Volunteers in the City Communities, Student Clubs, and more. And while the Staff followed up with the volunteers regularly, we clearly didn’t do a good enough job to ensure that they understood their current expenditure.
23. Nemo pointed out the need for a “money in the bank” dashboard for clubs and communities, which is already being implemented by the Staff.
24. Nemo and Bodhi also pointed out the need for an onboarding checklist for communities. While an onboarding checklist exists, communities change dramatically over time, so Rahul noted that the Staff is also working on repeated check-ins and relevant checklists.
    
25. In total, the budget estimate for the FY 2026-27 is 2,37,32,000 INR (2.3 Cr). This is a 10% increase on the budget estimate for the current FY 2025-26 of 2,16,43,333 (2.16 Cr) and a 35% increase on the estimated expenditure for the current FY 2025-26 of 1,69,82,110 INR (1.7 Cr). Please note that the significant gap between the budget estimate and the estimated expenditure for the current FY 2025-26 is primarily because of reduced salary expenditure of almost 20 Lakhs INR and reduced spend on Communities of almost 10 Lakhs INR.
26. Nemo reminded us that the Governing Board is not fiscally responsible for the FOSS United Foundation, and asked how we should move ahead. Rahul noted that we still need external advice to ensure our budgets remain sane and to help rearrange our work into appropriate Programs, which could help us fundraise better.
27. Bodhish pointed out that organisations usually prefer funding Programs as it’s easier to evaluate how the Program fits into the donor's goals and it’s easier to evaluate the impact of any donations.
    

Miscellaneous

1. We unfortunately weren’t able to address the second topic on the agenda - progress on the Governing Board charter. We discussed that the Grants Working Group was the furthest along and that the Foundation will set up a recurring meeting with the Governing Board members to discuss and make final decisions on future Grants applications.
2. Bowrna was only able to join towards the end of the call, but after reviewing the budget information, she asked how the staff felt about the salaries and about their career progression.
3. After a brief conversation about each of the staff members with Rahul, she noted that she would like to schedule individual meetings with everyone on the staff to discuss, amongst other things, their pay and their career progression. Rahul welcomed this, as an independent evaluation of staff morale helps the Foundation. After having conversations, Bowrna will compile their responses into anonymous feedback and share it with Rahul and the rest of the Governing Board to discuss further actions.
4. Rahul noted at the end of the call that his employment contract is structured as a 2-year term, with an extension of 2 years contingent on confirmation by the elected Governing Board. He requested the Governing Board members to discuss amongst themselves and share a response. Shree asked Rahul to send an email to the Governing Board's internal email group, after which the group will deliberate and respond within a month.