Derrick Farnell wrote:
What mechanisms do we have in place where we could consult with the whole Community?
None as far as I am aware - which is my complaint! :-)
But there are already mechanisms for the community to elect board members, and of course decide the content of projects, so why not also for every other decision? There could be an online location for such debates (the Foundation wiki?), which would be followed by a vote. Even if only a small percentage of the community takes part in such debates and vote, that would still be hugely more people than the 8(?) on the board -
5
and the point is
that any member can at least in theory get involved, and have a vote. I've been an anonymous contributor for years, but am new to this list - has the community actually every agreed to the board growing from merely being an unwelcome legal necessity , as described in the piece in my earlier post? As the author wrote:
The first priority of the Board is to insure compliance with all applicable laws.
The second priority, perhaps, should be to create in practice, to whatever extent possible, the sort of governance structure we would have adopted if the current structure had not been imposed upon us as a matter of law.
Did the community ever agree to abandon this aspiration?
Derrick Farnell
Little bit of history for you Derrick
When Jimbo decided to create the Foundation, he could have decided to make it a business. Instead, he wanted at that time, to allow the community to be involved in the future of the projects. So, rather than creating a simple business to make cash, he created a Foundation. At registration, he was informed a board should exist, of at least 3. He then asked Michael and Tim to be board members and decided that 2 more members from the community would join later on. The 2 other members were Angela and I, and we joined only 1 year after the creation of the Foundation.
I presume that the text from Tim you are pointing to, was written in the first year after the creation. Tim had a very healthy position with regards to hierarchy and willingness to create a flat structure.
In my view, the board has three roles (generally).
The first is to decide the general strategy that the Foundation should follow. Such as, should it only host wikimedia projects, or go beyond. Such as, should it rely on donations from individuals, or businessmen, or grants. Etc... All the strategic decisions should help us achieve our mission, such as given in the bylaws. All the strategic decisions should respect the values outlined in the mission. In *my* view, we have been roughly successful on this role. We could have done better, but given the extraordinary growth of our projects and the pressure subsequently applied, we managed rather well (at least, no disaster occured...) In *my* view, the strategy should be defined in accordance with the community, where I come from. And in my view, the current mechanisms to involve the community are not sufficient as of today. Please note that "strategy of the organization" is not 100% overlapping "strategy of the projects". There are many issues totally in the hands of the projects, and it should stay that way.
The second is to make sure that the organization has sufficient resources to implement the strategy. In particular, the board is the one hiring the executive director, who has the responsability of implementing the strategy. Well, the past year has been rough, but we now have Sue and she is doing a good job.
The third role of the board is to make sure that the activity of the Foundation is 1) toward the mission, 2) not toward other missions..., 3) compliant with US non-profit law. Note that the people (community) and the chapters are explicitely mentionned in the bylaws mission statement, which means that "not respecting and involving" those people and organization, is likely to be interpretated as "not toward the mission". Note that the controls should apply both to the staff (what they are implementing) and to the board itself (to make sure that what the board decide is fully within the mission and not impaired by various conflicts of interest).
I would summarize it as * define the overall strategy * delegate (to the staff) * control (board and staff activity)
Strategy, ihmo, not only can but should, involve the community.
Implementation is the job of the staff primarily, and of volunteers willing to help
Control is essentially the job of the board, even if stakeholders are very welcome to ask for reports and clarification, within reason.
ant