Here’s a word of explanation behind the decision to establish M17 Foundation.

As of December 6th, 2024, the authoritative sources of information regarding the M17 Project are M17 Foundation – m17foundation.org (the legal entity guiding M17 development) and M17 Project – m17project.org (technical information for M17) web pages.

M17 Foundation manages these social media accounts:

• “M17 Foundation” Discord server: https://discord.gg/4brEP8wwVp
• “@m17_project” on X: https://x.com/m17_project
• “@m17_project” on Mastodon: https://mastodon.radio/@m17_project
• “M17 Project (ham radio)” Facebook group

The group formerly known as the M17 Project (prior to December 6, 2024) has been completely dissolved. A number of reasons contributed to this:

• The group did not form any legal entity.
• The group suffered from loose organization and operated uncoordinated, sometimes working at cross purposes.
• Relying on external fiscal sponsors proved to be expensive, unreliable, and did not always “transparently pass through” grant funding to support M17 activities.
• Funds disbursal was not under legal, strict control.
• Our previous website, m17project.org, was hardly seeing any updates. Currently, the website is being maintained.

Most of the personnel based in the US, previously involved with M17, are not affiliated with the M17 Foundation. Also, unfortunately, some of the former M17 personnel decided to keep the assets purchased with grant funds, preventing the M17 Foundation from managing that equipment in alignment with its goals.

All grant funding for M17 through the end of 2024 has been completely disbursed. All the expenses related with the establishment of M17 Foundation (legal work, M17 logo registration, new website hosting) have, to date, been paid for with personal funds.

At this moment, the M17 Foundation needs donations from those who care about continuing the mission of M17: continuous development of a modern digital voice/data ecosystem for VHF/UHF bands, based on open source technology, specifically for amateur radio.

A roadmap of M17’s proposed goals and projects for 2025 and beyond (if sufficient funding is secured) will be published soon.

Future grant funding is not assured, and grant funding is not a long term solution for funding M17 Foundation’s work. The Foundation is investigating other (non-grant) funding sources.

The future of whether M17 Foundation will be able to continue the M17 development is in your hands. Please donate to M17 Foundation at the link below, so that we can continue our mission:

https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=4HTHZCS8UYPU6