[Chapter-delegates] Notification: Individual Donation campaign
Susannah Gray
susannah.gray at gmail.com
Wed Nov 15 11:00:40 PST 2017
Hi Todd,
Thank you for this email and for pausing this campaign while further
discussion with the Chapters takes place.
Look forward to figuring out a way forward.
Regards,
Susannah
—
Susannah Gray
President
San Francisco-Bay Area Internet Society Chapter
www.sfbayisoc.org
On 14/11/2017 06:32, Todd M. Tolbert wrote:
> Chapter Leaders,
>
> I appreciate this comment and all the others. They are not falling on
> deaf ears, I promise.
>
> I have postponed the campaign for now. I am interested now from this
> group, what the next steps would be to get to a point where we can
> come to an agreement that this test (in some form) should be run and
> attempted, with the support of the chapters.
>
> I believe there is a Steering Committee meeting on Monday the 20th. I
> believe I return from my travels around the time that meeting is
> happening, so I will do everything in my power to be on the call.
>
> Thank You,
> Todd
>
> On Nov 14, 2017, at 7:59 AM, Eduardo Diaz <eduardodiazrivera at gmail.com
> <mailto:eduardodiazrivera at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>> Todd:
>>
>> ISOC should start to apply to itself the same multi-stakeholder
>> mechanisms that it so much promotes around the world. The Chapter
>> Advisory Council is one of those mechanisms. Use it.
>>
>> My recommendation going forward is to send a request for advice to
>> the ChAC Steering Committee and let the ball roll there. This will
>> give ISOC the chapter's insights and ideas on how to move ahead with
>> this program. Even if the final ChAC advice is not 100% acceptable,
>> at least all chapters will be aware of the program and consulted
>> previous to launching it.
>>
>> Reactions like you got from ISOC San Francisco and others (like ours)
>> are an indication of how ISOC is still disconnected from its chapters.
>>
>> -ed
>>
>> ISOC-PR
>>
>> On Tue, Nov 14, 2017 at 4:47 AM Evan Leibovitch <evan at telly.org
>> <mailto:evan at telly.org>> wrote:
>>
>> 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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>>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
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