Hi all,

So timely, as always! We at Freeride Montpelier are in the process of discussing a transition from all-volunteer run to a worker-directed non-profit community bike shop. This is essentially a hybrid between a cooperative and non-profit, which is pretty much what we're hoping for as we'd like to keep our collective/cooperative-type values. Here's a resource on this idea, for anyone who is interested: 
https://www.theselc.org/worker_selfdirected_nonprofits 

We're still in the beginning phase of this process, so this thread is really helpful to see! Some of the reasons why we're transitioning:
- We'd like to be able to serve the community more, and having some paid staff would help with the shop being open more
- We're in need of some more processes in place (especially with COVID and having new volunteers who may be interested in helping out at the shop)
- We've had 1-2 people volunteering and doing the bulk of the work. They're interested in getting paid for this and the core volunteers thought that this idea (compensation) made a lot of sense, especially as sales have exponentially increased! 

Best,
Laura - Volunteer from Freeride

On Tue, Jun 23, 2020 at 2:54 PM Audrey Wiedemeier <audrey@bikelibrary.org> wrote:
Hello All, 

Great thread. The Bike Library went through a rough transition about 5 years ago when we hired our first full-time staff member (and Executive Director). Many volunteer mechanics left, but in my opinion it was for the best. In the last year we have hired a 2nd staff person who serves as the Volunteer Coordinator and works 25 hrs per week. I can't tell you how much it has helped, and I am so glad we did it last Nov so that she was trained-up for Spring. We went from having aprox 30 volunteers working on various tasks 7 days a week to only staff working after covid started. We are in the process of transitioning volunteers back into the shop, and we are grateful to have them. I think we could better serve our community if we were to hire another paid staff (thank you for this thread because it's really got me thinking about bringing this up). After visiting with folks from BICAS at BIKEBIKE and hearing more about how they operate I am much more interested in the coop model vs traditional non-profit, as well as how well they are able to serve their community with their paid staff. Our volunteers are wonderful and we value them tremendously. 

Peace & grease, 

Audrey Wiedemeier (She/her/hers)
Iowa City Bike Library, Director 

700 S. Dubuque St, Iowa City
COVID Hours: Tues. - Thurs. 10 AM - 5 PM; Sat. 10 - 3 PM
Need something? Set up an appointment by email. 
Want to donate? Drop off anytime during these hours. Thank you!

C: (515) 450-1651



On Mon, Jun 22, 2020 at 10:14 AM Jean-François Caron <jfcaron3@gmail.com> wrote:
The AMS Bike Co-op & The Bike Kitchen at UBC in Vancouver went through
two such transitions.

One was a transition on the Bike Kitchen (DIY social enterprise bike
shop) from worker-run to having a formal manager.   The transition was
forced by the volunteer board of directors of the AMS Bike Co-op
(student club under the university's student union) who officially have
authority over the Bike Kitchen.  It was not a friendly transition, but
it was deemed necessary since the business was basically failing.  There
was not enough coordination between stocking supplies, parts, scheduling
shifts, and pricing policy.  We (I was one of the directors) made the
seniormost existing mechanic into a manager, and some mechanics left as
a result.  IIRC they left explicitly because they only wanted to work in
a worker collective context.  Since then, a new manager has been hired
as a joint effort between the outgoing Bike Kitchen manager, employees,
and the AMS Bike Co-op.

The other transition was on the AMS Bike Co-op side.  We're still
technically a student club under the university student union, but in
addition to the volunteer board of directors, we have now had permanent
paid staff for many years.  We initially only had temporary student
labour paid out of grants, but at some point we passed a student levy
that greatly increased our funding.  Our initial move was to hire an
"Executive Director" permanent employee.  The title was just chosen
because that's what we saw other non-profits using, but it turned out to
be a problem because it implies global scope and it gave directors the
wrong idea about what their job was, and the contract was too vague so
everything became their job.  We renegotiated a contract with the title
changed to "Programs Manager" along with other terms to make it more
clear what was the scope of the job, and things went pretty well from
there.  The Programs Manager managed the various outreach, volunteer,
and collaboration programs, and also hired other permanent staff as
needed.

My little summary probably grossly oversimplifies things.  If anyone
adds further details that contradicts some of what I said, I assume
responsibility for misremembering.

Jean-François

On 2020-06-19 8:39 p.m., Carlyn Arteaga wrote:
>    We are paid-staff-run but still consensus-based and mostly still
> sales-via-donations sustained. I wasn't around during the transition,
> though, so I can't help much on that front. But happy to answer any
> specific questions about how we make it work.
> ~Carlyn
>
> On Fri, Jun 19, 2020 at 1:29 AM Dennis Wollersheim <dewoller@gmail.com
> <mailto:dewoller@gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>     I would also like to hear about this.  Our organisation is trying to
>     hire a manager for the first time, and I can see it will be
>     difficult for the board / senior volunteers to let go of control.
>       I get exasperated when the board spends an hour discussing the
>     wording of a social media post.  In my view, these should be
>     procedural issues, dealt with by the manager.  It will be a painful
>     transition, I reckon.
>
>     Cheers
>     Dennis
>
>     On Fri, Jun 19, 2020 at 9:13 AM Thomas Butler
>     <thomas.unavailable@gmail.com <mailto:thomas.unavailable@gmail.com>>
>     wrote:
>
>         I’m interested to hear from people whose organizations made
>         transitions from:
>
>         volunteer-centric to staff-centric
>
>         all-donation to grant-(or retail-)funded
>
>         consensus-run to exclusive/majoritarian board (or something else)
>
>
>         In particular what were peoples’ objections to the transition?
>         What problems or pitfalls were there? Did the shop lose its
>         independence? What net-negatives were there (even if
>         overwhelmingly outweighed by all the positives?)
>
>
>         Please feel free to reply to my personal email here if there’s
>         something you don’t want to put on blast:
>
>         thomas.unavailable@gmail.com <mailto:thomas.unavailable@gmail.com>
>
>
>         My interest is not regarding articles of incorporation or how to
>         fill out 501c3 paperwork. (there are threads on those topics in
>         TheThinkTank archives
>         <http://lists.bikecollectives.org/pipermail/thethinktank-bikecollectives.org/>
>         if anyone is curious). Your testimonial is likely more relevant
>         if your organization's incorporation is far in the past relative
>         to its transition(s).
>
>
>         Thank you all so much for the work you do in your own
>         communities and for the work you do in this community of ours.
>
>
>         Thomas Butler
>
>         he | they
>
>         Austin’s Yellow Bike Project
>
>
>         ____________________________________
>
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>
>
>     --
>     --
>     -------------------------------------------
>     Dennis Wollersheim
>     -------------------------------------------
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>
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>
>
> --
>
> *Carlyn Arteaga*
>
> /pronouns: they/them/theirs/
>
> Youth Program Coordinator____
>
> *BICAS____*
>
> 2001 N. 7th Ave. | Tucson, AZ 85701 | Shop: 520-628-7950__
>
> carlyn.arteaga@bicas.org
> <mailto:carlyn.arteaga@bicas.org> |www.bicas.org
> <http://www.bicas.org> | Facebook
> <http://www.facebook.com/bicascollective/> | Instagram
> <http://www.instagram.com/bicastucson/>
>
> __ __
>
> /Through advocacy and bicycle salvage, our mission is to participate in
> affordable bicycle transportation, education, and creative recycling
> with our greater Tucson community./
>
>
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--
Laura Brooke
she/her/hers or they/them/theirs