MDF Handbook page update: April 2023

Why is this change being made?

The previous version of the MDF policy had the terms (Focus partners list, Tier 1 and 2 countries) that are not publicly used by the channel team (CAMs and their respective regional directors), they are not mentioned in any way in the GitLab partner program. The MDF Handbook page is the only source of truth for the partners regarding our MDF policy, there is no additional documentation on the GitLab Partner portal (to my understanding). That's why the publicly available page on MDF should be tailored in a way that shows our partner-agnostic approach. As for the internal information on the Focus partners list and country tiering, it would be better to keep it internally and have a separate page in the Internal Handbook.

Please refer to the following commit as well: 29f8c05c

The main changes:

• erase the internally used terms: Focus list, Tier 1 and Tier 2 countries. Change them into neutral wording: 'GitLab supports a limited number of partners in the selected regions, please check your eligibility with your regional Channel Account Manager and Channel Marketing Manager'
• provide clarification on what 'Marketing Ready' means (depends on the approved version of this merge request
• delete Partner Training as an example of an MDF activity, since based on our internal guidelines, we can spend MDF only on customer-facing marketing activities.
• add Lead lists as a required PoP for the Sponsorship type of the MDF activity
• use the full terms of Channel account manager and Channel marketing manager throughout the page
• add MDF Lead List template to the PoPs section of all suggested MDF activties

Author Checklist

• Provided a concise title for this Merge Request (MR)
• Added a description to this MR explaining the reasons for the proposed change, per say why, not just what
  • Copy/paste the Slack conversation to document it for later, or upload screenshots. Verify that no confidential data is added, and the content is SAFE
• Assign reviewers for this MR to the correct Directly Responsible Individual/s (DRI)
  • If the DRI for the page/s being updated isn’t immediately clear, then assign it to one of the people listed in the Maintained by section on the page being edited
  • If your manager does not have merge rights, please ask someone to merge it AFTER it has been approved by your manager in #mr-buddies
  • The when to get approval handbook section explains the workflow in more detail
• If the changes affect team members, or warrant an announcement in another way, please consider posting an update in #whats-happening-at-gitlab linking to this MR
  • If this is a change that directly impacts the majority of global team members, it should be a candidate for #company-fyi. Please work with internal communications and check the handbook for examples.

---