The community access criteria evolves over time. The current version of the community access criteria was approved by a Governing Board vote on Feb 19, 2024 and went into effect on March 1, 2024.
The FinOps Foundation operates as a member-based trade association under the Linux Foundation, a 501(c)(6) non-profit trade association.
A Trade Association is a ‘not-for-profit organization’ made up of a collection of companies and/or individuals with common interests or who work in the same industry. Trade associations require their members to undergo a vetting process prior to joining and are monitored to ensure ongoing compliance.
F2 requires companies to meet and maintain robust membership criteria covering aspects of their service, including professional qualifications and service delivery. Members are audited to ensure standards are being maintained, as do many trade associations.
As with the example organizations, membership is voluntary, and members must align to its publicly published community access criteria, including certification and guidelines related to professional history, current profession, etc.
Like many trade associations, F2 sometimes limits attendance to certain events to their members who fit published membership criteria. However, it endeavors to provide publicly available events such as virtual summits whenever possible.
The Foundation offers different levels of individual access to our programs, resources and channels based primarily on your current job role. To do this we vet every member via LinkedIn and require work email addresses in some cases.
The Community access criteria are intended to maintain value in the community by strongly encouraging involvement and input from those who practice FinOps, while still involving the important perspectives of those who provide services or promote good FinOps practices.
Note on sales roles: Individuals in a sales or business development position of any kind or anyone who holds a quota (including bonuses based on sales revenue) may only hold a Supporter role in the Foundation. Examples of this would be Account Managers, Account Executives, Business Development reps, Pre-sales Engineers, Pre-sales Solution Architects, etc.
Practitioners perform FinOps functions or interact with FinOps teams in their primary job role. For Practitioners to join the community, individuals have to align with the Practitioner definition. This includes being employed or on a dedicated contract by the organization whose cloud spend is being managed and whose employers are not vendors of FinOps services or tools. We use a combination of LinkedIn title and work email address domain to vet this status. Before participating in the community, Practitioners must agree to the Code of Conduct and Linux Foundation policies.
Categorization as a vendor is based on the type of company an individual is employed by. Individuals who work for a company that provides tooling, platform or services are considered ‘vendors’ regardless of their individual FinOps Certification status (e.g., Practitioner, Professional, etc).
For a vendor to be a ‘member’ of the FinOps Foundation they must have signed a Participation Agreement with the FinOps Foundation and be a Linux Foundation member in good standing. There are two type of vendors based on their formal Linux Foundation organizational membership status:
These individuals are employed by FinOps services or tooling providers that have signed a formal participation agreement with the Linux Foundation to be part of the FinOps Foundation Member Program. These individuals must have a subject matter expert status (examples: product leader, relevant engineering or services), they must hold a valid FinOps Certified Practitioner qualification to maintain individual access, and have completed the code of conduct training. Under the Membership, companies are also allowed relevant specific marketing contacts to join to coordinate membership benefits, but these individuals are restricted and must not communicate with the community nor take part in working groups. A fair usage limit may be applied to attendance at certain events to maintain a balance in the community.
Individual employees of Non-Member FinOps-related tooling, platform, and services vendor organizations are added as Supporters, regardless of their individual FinOps Certification status (e.g., FinOps Certified Practitioner, Engineer, Professional, etc).
There are no limitations on being a designated Supporter of the FinOps Foundation. Supporters receive email updates and public event invitations. Supporters do not have access to the community slack.
Individuals who apply for Educational access must be a student, teacher, professor, or other education professionals and not hold any other conflicting roles aligned with the Practitioner definition. Educational Supporters must hold a valid FinOps Certified Practitioner qualification to maintain membership. Note, that theFoundation’s scholarship program is available to help students achieve certification in many cases. Once employed, members should switch to a different access category.
Anyone who does not hold any status to the requirements can freely access information on the Foundation website, and other public documentation areas including the FinOps Framework (with attribution requirements for republishing). They can also access any of the public events or meetups (venue dependent). Any participation in public events requires an agreement to abide by the Code of Conduct and Linux Foundation policies. FinOps Foundation Training and certification is open to all (content is copyright of the Finops Foundation)
These are organizations that provide FinOps-related tooling, platform, and services vendors that are members of the Foundation. Individuals from this organization may be permitted to join the community aligned to the ‘Individuals from Member Organizations’ section.
Organizations that join the Enterprise membership will fall into existing categories, such as Practitioners or Supporters and the same criteria apply.
If any individual changes job roles in a way that impacts individual access criteria, individuals should notify the Foundation immediately at hello@finops.org. The Foundation reserves the right to adjust access levels for any type, if required, based on current or future published community or membership criteria.
The table below shows access to a range but not all areas and programs of the Foundation.
| Type | Practitioners | Vendor Members | Non-Member Vendors/Supporters/Public |
|---|---|---|---|
| FinOps Framework | Y | Y | Y |
| FinOps Assets | Y | Y | Y |
| State of FinOps | Y | Y | Y |
| Jobs Board | Y | Y | Y |
| Summits | Y | Y | Y |
| Meetups | Y | Y | Y (venue dependent) |
| Member Summits | Y | Y (limited) | Y (limited, role dependent + additional cost) |
| FinOps X /XE | Y | Y | Y (limited, role dependent + additional cost) |
| Community Calls | Y | Y | N |
| Working Groups | Y | Y | N |
| Special Interest Groups | Y | Y | N |
| Slack Forum | Y | Y | N |