Managing A Proposal#

A proposal is the penultimate stage of making a change to the IATI Standard. It is preceded by consultation and research and, if unopposed, is followed by deployment.

Stage the change#

A proposal includes the specific, line-by-line change that is being proposed, to ensure that there is no ambiguity.

This requires a GitHub pull request to be prepared which details the change. See instructions for:

Updates to the schema and rulesets are made through regular PRs on https://github.com/IATI/IATI-Schemas and https://github.com/IATI/IATI-Rulesets

Author the proposal#

Make a copy of the proposal template and fill it out with the relevant details.

Make a copy of the gazette template and fill it out as well.

Open a PR against https://github.com/IATI/iati-standard-gazette to preview the proposal and Gazette entry, and to prepare for publication. This proposal from June 2026 is a good example for reference.

Once the date of publication has been agreed, update the PR on iati-standard-gazette that you made earlier:

  • Correct all dates and notice periods

  • Add a note to the top of the proposal to note the Gazette circulation date

  • Ask a colleague to review your work to check for any errors, inconsistencies, typos, etc

Publish the proposal#

On the day of publication:

  • Merge the pull request on iati-standard-gazette

  • Copy the relevant details from the Gazette template into the Mailchimp email template (in Mailchimp itself) and send it to the Gazette mailing list

30/45 days later#

Once the notified period has elapsed, assuming no objections:

  • Update the note in the proposal to say that it’s been accepted via a PR against iati-standard-gazette (see example)

  • Deploy the change