[Chapter-delegates] Notification: Individual Donation campaign

[Evan Leibovitch]

Hi Todd,

> ​T​
> his campaign is the first in a long while from the Internet Society, it
> used to be a common practice and ISOC has raised money from individuals
> before. We haven’t done so in the last few years for several reasons, but
> mostly because we felt that our processes and mechanisms were not
> professional enough.
>
>
​No, it wasn't all about processes. The creation of a chapter in Canada was
originally started after the 1997 INET meeting in Montreal, but was
cancelled because of an inability to reach agreement on
revenue​/solicitation sharing between HQ and Chapters (this was before the
PIR windfall). As a result, there was no Canada chapter until a reboot
effort started a few years ago. Some of the people involved in that
original effort are on the Canada Chapter board now so they know the
history.

Broadly, the concept of ISOC fundraising from members independently from
Chapters is not new, and has been controversial when it occurred in the
past. Perhaps the plan's designers might have encountered more of this
information and institutional memory, had Chapters been consulted in the
planning stages rather than after everything was finalized.


> Our reasons for doing this now are in line with our position as a global
> non-profit organization including diversity of our funding sources, which
> has been a stated goal of ISOC for years; to strengthen the mid and long
> term financial sustainability of the organization. And secondly, to
> maintain and strengthen the status as a non-profit organization that needs
> to meet certain rules of revenue sources.
>

Section 2 of the ISOC bylaws state that its two advisory committees exist "*for
the purpose of providing information and advice to the Board of Trustees
and the President of the Internet Society on matters of strategic
importance*". The whole reason some of us worked so hard to create a
Chapters Advisory Council was to establish an appropriate bi-directional
channel that would inform HQ about local sensibilities while then working
together in international initiatives.
​ Think global, act local.​


Surely a tax-status-related crisis of income diversity qualifies as
'strategic importance'. Why was the Chapters Advisory Council not asked for
advice on this as the Bylaws explicitly indicate? Who made the call that
this issue was not sufficiently strategic to consult Chapters in advance?

Had the ChAC been approached by staff and told "we need to diversify
revenue sources from our community", you may have discovered a breadth of
innovative approaches. The discussion of whether it is reasonable to have a
nominal fee for ISOC membership may have proven useful. Or you may have
come to the exact same conclusion as you have now, but this time with
Chapters as enthusiastic allies rather than potential competitors for the
same sustaining funding.

Consider the fundraising model used by American public broadcasting.
Consider that PBS doesn't do any membership or individual fundraising
campaigns without the close collaboration of WETA, its local partner in
Washington. Having parallel national and local campaigns could be a
disaster.

> It is not the intent of this campaign to divert attention from the
> chapters or try to confuse the recipient at all.
>
As you know -- or at least know by now -- there are Chapters that charge
for membership, and some that do their own
​financial ​
solicitations of members based on
​local
 initiatives.
​Starting
 a
​solicitation ​
program now will catch them off
​-​
guard and with very little time to determine how to work (or cope) with it.
How can
​anyone
 state definitively that these initiatives will not be confusing or
competitive without having reached out to these Chapters -- either
individually or through the Council?

> I believe the message will touch on the breadth and depth of what the
> community does in the world and that obviously includes the work in the
> chapters. Both messages will go out on our standard mailer format which has
> been used to this list for the entirety of 2017.
>
​At worst, this is a potential for direct conflict with some Chapters.

At best, this is a missed opportunity to let the Chapters Advisory Council
fulfill its Bylaw role as an integral part of the ISOC decision-making
process. ISOC can't be a trusted advocate for multi-stakeholder approaches
to Internet governance when it ignores its own internal multi-stakeholder
structures. There is a further missed opportunity in that shutting Chapters
out of the campaign architecture reduces the potential for a network of
local champions ​once the donation campaigns are launched.

To use a tennis metaphor, this is an unforced error. Not too late to fix.

-- 
Evan Leibovitch
Toronto, Canada

Em: evan at telly dot org
Sk: evanleibovitch
Tw: el56
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