[Foundation-l] The fallacy of power

[Samuel Klein]

On Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 10:55 PM, Brian <Brian.Mingus at colorado.edu> wrote:

> I would like the important decisions that are being made on a daily basis
> by
> board members and foundation employees to be made by people who understand
> the global communities. Is it too much to ask that their be an explicit,
> wikified guiding principle that we will introspect and look within the
> projects for qualified people before looking outside? To a large degree it
> obviates much of the worries expressed by the community... Isn't there

something missing from the following job
> description, a qualification that you happen to have, but that foundation
> employees are increasingly lacking with every new hire? How many of these
> people is the foundation going to absorb? How detached from the community
> is
> it going to become?


I agree with Birgitte and David that everyone joining the foundation cares
deeply about it, and none of them 'just want a job'.  That said,  Brian,
your comments above resonate as well; I think the foundation will do its job
best if it makes an effort to find resources within its community, rather
than creating a class of staffers who are  a few steps further removed from
the projects.

Especially when a project becomes sufficiently famous, people who care about
it (and want to take it home and hug it and squeeze it and fix it and call
it George) may have counterproductive ideas about how to do so, and may also
become detached.  The WP Review, for instance.

@Mark : thanks for the followup on the practical protection offered by the
corporate check of fiduciary duty.  which means that bringing experts onto
the board because of that legal duty may not be very effective.  On the
other hand, the honor of being on an important board often is effective.  I
would suggest that this honor is more effective for community members than
for outsiders, with an eye towards keeping the support of the community --
whereas outsiders, even when they are deeply motivated by this honor, then
see their goal as keeping the support of the other board members... they
have no social stake in the opinion of the community, and want mainly to
extend their membership.  All of which contributes to inbreeding of Board
policymaking, amplifying any founder effects and increasing the likelihood
of a synchronized movement in a well-meant but misguided direction.

SJ