ben and john,
There are many models and it is important to pick one that works well for your organization.
- true consensus based decision making in my opinion includes all
"members" equally meaning that if one member is against the idea it will not pass. As a "member: it is important to note you should not be blocking a proposal unless it is against your organizational mission, the law, or some other compelling non-personal reason. so hear the tricky part is defining the membership and i will leave to you to decide ...
Our organization has no paid staff and all new members must pass a consensus by current members in order to have blocking right at meetings (this only matters if there is a contentious enough issue). Anyone is welcome to participate in out meeting and in fact encouraged and can voice any concerns they have with any decision being discussed. We have written in a few ways to fall out of being current in membership standing to avoid having people only showing up to block a particular decision (they must be continuing to participate in the organization to maintain this right to block). Also we have a rigorous requirement to resolve the conflict which falls as a responsibility to the blocker to facilitate.
2)there might be a problem with that but as i said in our organization the board basically exists in name only and has as little responsibility attached as the law will allow. our teams or subcommittees as we call them deal with more specific decisions in smaller groups of the individuals who are concerned with that part of the organization. We also allow minor decision (defined by their monetary and time value/commitments) to be made by smaller groups of members (we say minimum of 3) to make non-permanent day to day(or time dependent) scale decisions.
3)bylaws should deal with the law and be your basis/minimum requirement to make large decisions. a handbook should have more detail and reflect you current day to day way of operating.
The way i look at it is by-laws are hard to change so they need to be specific enough to give your organization a cohesive goal, but intentionally vague enough to allow many acceptable paths of achieving said goal. They also need to act as a fail safe fall back in case the stuff rally hits the fan and members need it to get the organization back on track and headed in the right direction again. a hand book should change as the organization changes evolves learns etc. it should be easier to change and should act as a guide line for what the organization is here and now. it should be very detailed if possible it should elaborate on goals methods processes etc to make sure members new and old understand the current culture of the organization.
- is a hard one this needs to be discussed and come up with an
acceptable method, we had discussion on this problem last night including is there a good way for customers or participants of the organizing to voice concern as well. My current thinking is so establish some form of ombudsman system for the organization as an anonymous feedback to making change in the system.
This is also one of the core reasons we have no paid staff ... it is a complication that adds motives that can direct the decision making in direction not inline with the organizational goals. I would not allow paid staff to make decisions regarding pay. leave a way they can voice concern but not make the decision.
the las two relate to what i have said above or have little to do with the way we run in that we have no paid staff.
Best of luck to you and your organization
~robbie Davis Bike Collective
On Mon, Nov 8, 2010 at 4:23 PM, Ben Tsai ben@thehubbikecoop.biz wrote:
Hello, We are working on creating new and updated policies for our organization and have lots of questions regarding board and staff roles. We would be happy to hear experiences or feedback on any of the following questions if folks have time.
- Who should be able to vote at board meetings in a consensus based
non-profit, where there is a general desire for as much democracy and particapation as functionally possible? This organization is small and there is considerable overlap in the duties of board members and staff. How many staff should have a vote at board meetings(should there be a restriction on how many)?
It seems common that non-profit advisers warn about having staff voting in board meetings (many say limit it to one representative max). Does this still hold if the staff are doing planning and research equivalent to a board member? The executive director or staff representatives are sometimes voting members in other nonprofits we have heard of, but ours doesn't currently have those positions.
- Our organization has teams that operate semi-autonomously. Staff and
board members overlap in these too, but the decision making is by all members of the team (not just board members for example). Reversing question #1, are there issues with having board members voting in groups that focus on daily operations?
- Who should be allowed to edit the operations manual; staff, board, or
both? This isn't the bylaws, but what we call the " handbook for board of directors, staff, and volunteers". Should the staff be able to alter it as long as it doesn't go against the bylaws established by the board? If so, what if no one checks on a regular basis? Are there better ways to divide bylaws from an operations manual.
- Who do staff turn to when they have problems, or are unhappy with their
working hours, pay, coworkers, etc. (There is no executive director).
- How board members volunteering as staff, on project teams and programs
maintain objectivity as a legal employer, while working as part of a team. Are there processes in place that help keep authority issues clear? I guess this ties into question 2.
- Who are staff accountable to for reviews and pay raises and performance
issues?
thanks for any info, ben and john
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