The Kuali Foundation is the umbrella organization to help manage the Kuali software community. Volunteers from around the world, at institutions and commercial affiliates, serve on the Kuali Foundation Board of Directors. This team of community leaders works with the small executive staff to lead and support Kuali community-source software.

By joining the Foundation, members pay annual dues so that the Foundation can provide the following services:

An objective, 3rd party entity to hold and manage the IP.

This ensures that new partners and adopters know that no single institution has the ability to direct what happens long term with the IP. Kuali provides assurance of all legal, trademark, and licensing issues.

Financial compliance

This ensures all reporting is completed properly to the partners and to the IRS, and that Kuali follows Generally Accepted Accounting Principles and is audited each year.

Governance best practices

Kuali has created a set of best practices in governance for a project to deliver open source software:

Over the life of the eight Kuali projects so far, the following governance structure has worked best for all of them, so it is recommended as a starting point.

Project Board
This group has voting members from each investing partner and guides use of resources and overall strategy.

Functional Council
This group is made up of functional users from each investing partner, and they set the direction, specifications and priorities.

Technical Council and Representation on Rice
This group would oversee the ongoing technical viability of the software and interface with teams of Kuali shared services.

Development Team
This group is comprised of development resources, either from the investing partners or bought in the marketplace, or both. The development team’s work is guided solely by the project, not by the individual institutions' interests.

Project Manager
This person is tendered from one of the investing partners or is purchased in the marketplace. They oversee the “reality triangle” to manage the tension between scope, resources, and timeline.

Event management

We provide economies of scale in finding event space, and we hold one user conference and one community face-to-face workshop/meeting annually.

Tools & Infrastructure for Development

The Kuali Foundation provides, in a cloud environment, the infrastructure for development, testing, documentation, bug-tracking, code commitment, and delivery of final packaged open source code.

Shared Services & Technologies

With Kuali Rice, many technology frameworks and shared services code are available and already tested, to be incorporated into any Kuali software base. Included are such services as identity management, notifications, workflow, business rules, etc.

Flexibility in procurement and contracting

Because Kuali is not part of an institution of higher ed, we are not required to adhere to bureaucratic contracting and procurement policies.

Facilitation of engagement with and across communities

Kuali has multiple outreach and communication channels to engage higher education within Kuali communities and beyond to other types of communities.

Brand

The Kuali brand has become recognized for its reputation in community building and sustainment.