OSPO as a Service
Institutional memberships are designed to support a range of organizations, from those actively involved in open source software development to others who simply rely on open source technologies as end-users. Apereo Foundation provides a “center of excellence” for the institution’s internal open source operations and structure, acting as an Open Source Program Office for the Institutional Member, where best practices help mature and sustain projects and communities.
Membership Benefits: Professional Support for Your Organization
Membership benefits revolve around Apereo’s consulting expertise and are tailored to extend the member’s open source community and resources. Apereo understands the unique needs and challenges facing educational institutions. Our Institutional Membership model provides organizations with comprehensive guidance on developing, implementing, optimizing, and maintaining open source solutions and the diverse communities that enable them. Through a collaborative approach, Apereo’s consulting and support empower campuses to leverage the flexibility, cost-effectiveness, and community-driven benefits inherent in open source software, ensuring seamless integration and sustainable utilization across various academic and administrative functions.
Recognizing some organizations will want to continue to manage and maintain their open source projects locally/internally, Apereo provides consulting support and resources for a variety of core open source activities.*
- Legal: IP/Asset Management, Licensing & Compliance, Contracting, Regulatory Compliance, Public Policy
- Community: Advocacy & Awareness, Community Development, Constituent Management, Developer Relations, Peer Communities
- Infrastructure: Cloud Hosting, Enterprise Applications, Web & Network Services, Code Repositories, Bug & Issue Tracking, Email, Groups & Lists
- Business Services: Accounting & Bookkeeping, Banking Services, Budgeting & Finance, U.S. Mail Services, Document Management, Insurance
- Marketing: Lead Generation, Promotion, Commercial Development
- Events: Conference Planning, Event Management, Release Management
- Research: Case Studies. Surveying, Quantitative, Knowledge Base
- Fundraising: Grants & Gifts, Partnerships, Sponsorships
- Governance: Foundation Board, Project Management
- Mentorship: Health Metrics, Incubation, On-Boarding, Sustainability
- Communications: Bulk Emails, Newsletters, Social Media, Internationalization
- One organizational board seat vote in foundation elections
*Should organizations require dedicated or increased service levels, each of the above can be offered through extended contracting.
Institutional Membership Contribution
50% of the cost for core foundation membership and Apereo services are available on a contract basis.
| Member's Annual Budget | Institutional Membership Contribution |
| $0 to $25 million USD | $1,080.00 |
| $25 million to $100 million USD | $2,340.00 |
| $100 million to $750 million USD | $4,860.00 |
| $750 million to $4 billion USD | $6,300.00 |
| More than $4 billion USD | $8,100.00 |
Ready to join us?
Contact membership@apereo.org to become an Institutional Member today!
Example Institutional Member Profiles
Leslie State, Campuses Leveraging Open Source
Leslie State has implemented several open source software applications at both the enterprise and departmental levels. These include WordPress to deliver the university and department websites, Moodle in support of a recent campus-wide online educational initiative, the FOLIO library services platform supporting three campus libraries, and CiviCRM to manage alumni and student relations. Several departments have also adopted open source solutions. The Geography Department is using OpenGIS for both teaching and research. The Art and Design Departments now offer students access to an online portfolio through Mahara. Computer Science uses two open source IDEs, Eclipse, and Visual Studio. The Leslie campus data center runs open source locally, including Ceph, Kubernetes, MySQL, NGINX, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and many more, and broadly through several cloud services through Amazon Web Services.
While some faculty, researchers, and even students may be contributing to open source projects, the campus itself has not initiated an open source software project, nor does it manage any development efforts. Leslie State is solely an end-user of open source software; however, campus officials understand open source software and the communities that enable it are mission-critical to the success of many academic initiatives that rely on continuous availability, high-quality services, and reliable support. Considering Leslie State’s investment in open source tools, campus leadership realizes the value of engaging with their now mission-critical infrastructure. This includes non-technical activities to help identify new features and functionality, participating in governance to help determine the direction of projects, and supporting broader adoption to further shared sustainability.
Leslie State joined Apereo as an Institutional Member to maximize the value of the open source software currently deployed across campus, foster authentic engagement between the campus and the open source projects it relies on, find peers and colleagues working in and with similar technologies to share best practices, and remain current on developments impacting communities of practice and--more broadly--the sector.
Technische Forschungsanstalt Berlin, Investing in Open Source Development
Technische Forschungsanstalt Berlin has a long and impressive history in the research and development of software tools and technologies, including open source initiatives. The institute participates in and with open source software projects and communities in various ways: as users of global open source infrastructure such as the Linux operating system, TensorFlow, Kubernetes, and others; as code contributors to research-focused projects like Cesium, Jupyter, OpenCV, rOpenSci, and many more; as maintainers of locally developed software to support grant-funded faculty research; and through customization of internally managed open source teaching and learning platforms.
Technische Forschungsanstalt Berlin has the experience, resourcing, and capacity to manage the open source software in use and under development across the organization. However, the institute's faculty and staff’s expertise is primarily technical in areas such as coding, infrastructure, integration, security, testing, etc., revealing a gap where non-technical skills and services would help to ensure continued success and greater returns on the open source investments made by the institute.
Technische Forschungsanstalt Berlin joined Apereo to extend their own internal technical expertise with the community resources and experts provided through the Foundation. As an Institutional Member, TFB’s projects not only achieve their development goals but also benefit from a culture of knowledge exchange and a broader community of practice. Apereo strengthens TFB’s open source ecosystem, serving as a center of competency for ongoing and future collaborations within, between, and beyond the institution, ensuring high-quality programs–not just software–and fully realizing the potential of open source software and communities in service of the institution.