At the beginning, I think all of our work will be to get in a position where we can accept applications, review them, and make grants.
We’ll be providing detail on each grantmaking decision, and I believe grant applications will be public so people can review those.
Re: making all internal communications public, I think it’s usually helpful for small groups to have some space where they can speak off-the-cuff with each other without worrying about being taken out of context. For example, if we’re discussing a grant, we might want to give a frank assessment of the grant without worrying about offending the applicant. If we can’t do that, I’d worry that it might lead to the MGRC making worse grants.
So I’m in favor of having detailed meeting minutes to start with, and lots of detailed decisions on grantmaking decisions, and making applications public. There’s something really cool about having public meetings, but on balance I don’t think it best serves the process of making good use of MGRC funds, because it inhibits frankness.
We’re going to be public about a ton of stuff on the forums and if you ever have a specific question about the meeting minutes, please ask and I’ll give the best possible answer I can!