Micro-grants and Honoraria Workflows (English)#
Introduction#
This document describes how hub and community champions can receive their honoraria and micro-grant payments related to their participation in the Catalyst project.
What is an honorarium? An honorarium is a token payment granted in recognition of a community’s contribution to the Catalyst project. Honoraria are not compensations for the time and effort of participating individuals.
What is a micro-grant? A micro-grant enables participants to purchase small, personal items (e.g. headset, mobile data, fuel for power generators) that are necessary for their participation in a training programme within the Catalyst project. Given the short duration of training programmes within Catalyst, a micro-grant within this workflow is typically under 100 USD per participant.
What is not in the scope of this document? The workflows described in this document do not apply to micro-grant nor honoraria payments related to OLS’s open science mentoring and training programme. More information about honoraria and micro-grant payment for the OLS programme will be shared with participants separately when the programme starts in August/September 2024.
Honoraria Workflow#
This section describes the process of honoraria payment to community members. The section provides information about eligibility and the payment procedure.
Eligibility#
Communities participating in the Catalyst project are eligible for honoraria payments from the project.
The final discretion regarding eligibility and the amount of honorarium and micro-grant paid to a community remains with the Catalyst core team.
Procedure for honoraria payments#
First round of honoraria payment: May 2024
Second round of honoraria payment: February 2025
When your community is onboarded, the Catalyst team will record the contact person’s name information in our internal contact list and include the information about the date your community joined the project.
Catalyst programme manager Tajuddeen (tajuddeen@we-are-ols.org) sends out an email to the community contacts and requests for payment information, which includes payee’s full name, email address, country, and state/region.
Tajuddeen sends the information collated to the Catalyst project’s fiscal host Code for Science and Society (CS&S) to initiate the payment process. 2i2c will need to approve the payments before CS&S can proceed to contact recipients via Mercury.
Once the payments are approved by 2i2c, Tajuddeen will notify the community contacts, with Angelique Trusler (The Carpentries) and Sabrina Lopez (MetaDocencia) Cc’d that the process has been initiated, and that they should watch out for an email from Ramp/Mercury (see step 5).
Within 2 business days, community contact will receive an email from Ramp (if they’re located in the United States) or Mercury (if they’re located outside of the US) requesting their payment details.
a. If you have not received the email from Ramp/Mercury, please check your spam folder.
b. If you cannot find the email in the spam folder after 5 business days or have any other questions regarding providing your payment information, please contact accounting@codeforsociety.org, cc-ing tajuddeen@we-are-ols.org.
Upon receipt of payment information, CS&S will process payment to hub/community champions within 15 business days.
a. If you have submitted the required payment information via Ramp/Mercury and have not received payment after 20 business days, please contact tajuddeen@we-are-ols.org and Tajuddeen will follow up with CS&S.
Upon expiration of the 20 business days for CS&S to process the payments, Tajuddeen (tajuddeen@we-are-ols.org) will contact participants to confirm the receipt of payment.
Micro-grant workflow#
Micro-grants are available upon request for all participants in Catalyst project training activities, including Hub champion training and “Train the Trainer”. Given the short duration of training programmes within Catalyst, a micro-grant within this workflow is typically under 100 USD per participant. The procedure for requesting micro-grants for each training session includes:
One month prior to each training activity, participating community members will be invited to register to participate in the training.
In the registration form, participants will be asked if they would like to request a micro-grant, and if yes, to provide a short description of the items they’d like to purchase with the micro-grant, and a cost estimate. Please see Appendix 2 for more information about the items that can be purchased with the microgrants.
After registration for the training has closed, Tajuddeen will review the requests against the available budget and approve or work with participants to revise the request.
For all approved requests, Tajuddeen will share the full name, email address, country, and state/region of participants, and the approved micro-grant amount, with CS&S to initiate payment. 2i2c will need to approve the payments before CS&S can proceed to contact recipients via Mercury.
Once 2i2c approves the payments, Tajuddeen will notify the community/hub champions, with Angelique Trusler (The Carpentries) and Sabrina Lopez (MetaDocencia) Cc’d that the process has been initiated, and that they should watch out for an email from Mercury.
Within 2 business days, participants will receive an email from Ramp (if they’re located in the United States) or Mercury (if they’re located outside of the US) requesting their payment details.
a. If you have not received the email from Ramp/Mercury, please check your spam folder.
b. If you cannot find the email in the spam folder after 5 business days or have any other questions regarding providing your payment information, please contact accounting@codeforsociety.org, cc-ing tajuddeen@we-are-ols.org.
Upon receipt of payment information, CS&S will process payment to participants within 15 business days.
a. If you have submitted the required payment information via Ramp/Mercury and have not received payment after 20 business days, please contact tajuddeen@we-are-ols.org and Tajuddeen will follow up with CS&S.
Upon expiration of the 20 business days for CS&S to process the payments, Tajuddeen will contact participants to confirm the receipt of payment.
Appendix#
Items that can be purchased with the microgrant#
These are items to help you participate in online calls with the cohort and your mentor.
Mobile data top-ups
Broadband provider fees (Cable, DSL, Satellite)
Wireless or wired headsets (try to choose something with a dedicated microphone)
Mouse, keyboard, webcam, microphone
Diesel for generators
Backup batteries in case the power goes out, if the battery can be sourced in your country.
Childcare
Other items needed? Please discuss with the Catalyst team.