Dear All,

Please find below the notes and action items from today’s CCWG Auction Proceeds meeting.

Best regards,

Marika

Notes – new gTLD Auction Proceeds CCWG Meeting – 8 June 2017

These high-level notes are designed to help the CCWG navigate through the content of the call and are not meant as a substitute for the transcript and/or recording. The MP3, transcript, and chat are provided separately and are posted on the wiki at: https://community.icann.org/x/DLHDAw[community.icann.org].

1) Roll Call

• Roll call will be taken from Adobe Connect
• Remember to state your name before speaking for transcription purposes and mute your phone when not speaking.

2) Welcome / DOI

• Note that the letter to chartering organizations concerning the work plan and approach for dealing with the charter questions has been sent to the chairs of all the chartering organizations with the request to distribute it to their respective groups. The letter has also been posted on the correspondence page of the CCWG wiki.

3) Initial run through of charter question 9 (see template distributed)

• See template distributed.
• CCWG will need to have a discussion around how practical it is to use volunteers to oversee this process. It may not be feasible noting the scope of work this will involve. At the same time, it may attract new volunteers to ICANN to assist with this project and many existing volunteers have experience in this area. Also need to factor in potential for conflict of interest and 'wrong' reasons to volunteer for this effort. This is also where COI measures will need to come in. 
• To what extend is management outsourced / professionalised - should have an infrastructure as professional as possible, but needs to be balanced with cost and community oversight. Middle ground needs to be found.
• First need to make a decision on whether this is one time or ongoing as it would determine if/how to institutionalise these frameworks.
• Need to ensure that accountability measures are put in place and are done as professional as possible to ensure that it does not impact on ICANN's tax status and aligns with the legal & fiduciary requirements.
• Consider management to be done by professionals while evaluation is done by expert volunteers. See how this is for example done in other organisations (e.g. LACNIC).
• Certain tasks in the governance framework will need to be conducted and/or independently verified by outside experts.
• One off use of money / process, although the mechanism could be used again should funds become available in the future. Does not however mean that it is a short process as significant funds are involved. Should a part be set aside as part of a longer term investment as the money will not likely be disbursed in one go? For future discussion, including the type of risk that would / could be taken.
• When referring to overhead, does % refer to money that is granted or total amount of funds? Need to be made clear when people make comments. Also consider moving from discussion % to discussion $$. Fiscal discipline is critical - but the specific % for overhead depends profoundly on what CCWG wants to accomplish, how we decide to accomplish it, etc.  It is not particularly useful to debate at this point in time, other than to say fiscal discipline issues must be squarely addressed once the CCWG has the goals and the methods identified.

Action item #1: Staff to update template with notes from meeting.

4) Initial run through of charter question 10 (see template distributed)

• See template distributed
• Suggestion from the Board that part or % from funds would be used for reserve funds (note, this is not a formal request, just a suggestion). Is currently not at an ideal number, needs to be replenished. What are the views of the CCWG to have a one-time replenishment of the reserve fund from the auction proceeds? Needs to be looked at separately, not as part of a project to be granted - might require a modification of the charter. CCWG could consider some constraining criteria, for example, first require ICANN to set a level for reserve fund, commit to fiscal discipline to get to this level which could then be matched by auction proceeds if this goal would be met. Optics of giving any of these funds to ICANN would be terrible, noting the significant budget ICANN already has. Funding ICANN projects would also create significant COI issues.
• Great difference between part of ICANN applying for the funds and using it for operational needs. Note that a suggestion by the independent reviewer as part of the ALAC Review was to use part of the auction proceeds to operationally support At-Large (do note that this has been categorically rejected by ALAC).

Action item #2: Staff to update template with notes from the meeting.

Action item #3: Leadership team to review notes in relation to the discussion on the reserve funds and share with Xavier to allow for his input as part of the briefing next week.

5) Survey launched to help inform deliberations on charter question #2 (see https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/CCWGAPQuestion2[surveymonkey.com]) - responses to be submitted by Wednesday 21 June at the latest.

Action item #4: CCWG to respond to the survey.

6) Confirm next steps & next meeting – Thursday 15 June (briefing by Xavier Calvez on Audit Requirements). No meeting on 22 June.

Marika Konings

Vice President, Policy Development Support – GNSO, Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) 

Email: marika.konings@icann.org

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