[Chapter-delegates] What should ISOC's future goals be? How can we work toward achieving them as ISOC Chapters?
Borka Jerman Blazic
borka at e5.ijs.si
Tue Sep 28 01:02:02 PDT 2021
+1, our experience is similar.
Borka
ISOC.SI
Alexander Blom via Chapter-delegates je 27. 09. 2021 ob 16:16 napisal:
> Hi everyone,
>
> In this respect it is interesting to take a look at
> https://www.isocfoundation.org/about/our-projects/
> <https://www.isocfoundation.org/about/our-projects/> which confirms
> that from the 4+ million in grants in 2020, roughly 10% of ISOC's
> grants go to chapter activities; the rest goes to outside parties. To
> all probability, the foundation spends more on itself than on chapter
> grants. Then on top of that there is the 600k for the NSRC, another
> cause that ISOC spends more on than on chapter grants. To sum it up:
> chapters are at the bottom of the list.
>
> My chapter was refused a grant 4 times, and so we have given up on the
> foundation more or less, which, unless we are able to find
> other means, reduces us to a chapter that writes clever letters and
> participates in public consultations but not much else.
>
> Some possible fixes (very much coloured by my chapters' experience I
> am afraid):
>
> * institute the possibility to appeal a decision by the foundation
> to reject a grant application. Currently, three anonymous judges
> can render hours and hours of volunteer work useless in a matter
> of a few sentences, whether they misunderstood aspects of a
> proposal, use inappropriate standards or show themselves to be
> human in another way: an appeal procedure could do a lot of good here.
> * Judge a grant application from a chapter on all its merits; not
> only for what it can do for ISOC.org itself but also how it
> strengthens a chapter, what it does for the local community etc.
> * Involve the regional chapter managers: they are based locally and
> often know the people within the chapters much better.
> * Spend more money on chapter grants: 10% is NOT enough.
>
> Second of all, I very much appreciate the effort by George and
> Muhammed to get feedback from the chapters directly instead of going
> through the official 10 step process. Does the latter needs to change?
> Let's keep in touch!
>
> Met vriendelijke groet,
> Kind regards
>
> Alexander Blom
> ISOCNL
>
> Op ma 27 sep. 2021 om 14:13 schreef Veni Markovski via
> Chapter-delegates <chapter-delegates at elists.isoc.org
> <mailto:chapter-delegates at elists.isoc.org>>:
>
> Hi, everyone.
> There's a lot in Richard's words, which could be used for the good
> of ISOC *and* the Chapters. I hope it will be, and won't remain
> only as a possibility. See some comments below (warning - it's a
> long read).
>
> On 9/25/21 10:40, Richard Hill via Chapter-delegates wrote:
>>
>> Dear George and Muhammed,
>>
>> Here are my thoughts regarding your two questions:
>>
>> 1. Allocation of resources for activities: as far as I can tell,
>> an overwhelming share of the resources is allocated to projects
>> that are driven by staff. I would favor allocating more resources
>> to chapters. I do realize that there are various mechanisms for
>> chapters to request grants, in particular for projects, but I
>> feel that it should be simpler for chapters to obtain grants, and
>> that more funding should be available for chapters.
>>
> Sounds logical; I'd add - there are already criteria that chapters
> cover for the admin funding. These can be expanded, or updated, to
> reflect such a change.
>
>> 2. Effectiveness of activities: it seems to me that most of
>> ISOC’s activities are US-centric. There are a number of reasons
>> for this: it is a US organization, subject to US law, as Andrew
>> frequently reminds us. But I think that ISOC would be more
>> effective if it were less US-centric. That might require a change
>> in ISOC’s legal status, but I understand that there is no
>> prospect for discussing any such change in the foreseeable future.
>>
> Richard, there are many US-based NGOs, which do great work overseas.
> An example I gave earlier, was the Global Internet Policy
> Initiative or GIPI: https://www.internetpolicy.net/
> <https://www.internetpolicy.net/>
>
> What GIPI did in Bulgaria helped a lot the local Internet
> community in providing expertise to the Bulgarian Parliament in
> order to change some relevant laws to be Internet-friendly. This
> has resulted in having 880 ISPs today (at the peak they were about
> 2,000) for a country with 7 million people population...
>
>> 3. Effectiveness of exchange of information: in my view, the
>> voice of the Chapters is not sufficiently reflected.
>>
>
> Agree.
>
>> I’m not sure how to address that. A number of proposals were made
>> during the early stages of the Reform Group, but that group has
>> been quiet for a while, perhaps because there hasn’t been much
>> push from the co-chairs to restart discussions.
>>
>> I agree with Gihan’s suggestion: “ ISOC [should] take a bottom-up
>> approach in much of its activities, where the chapters (and org
>> and individual members) initiate most of the work and the staff
>> implement them under the guidance of the members. Right now, most
>> programs are staff driven and have little input from members.”
>>
>
> Changing the approach will be very difficult, if not impossible.
> By now ISOC is a well-established organization with exactly the
> opposite approach. Chapters are not (and IMHO should not be) in
> the position to dictate the staff what work to implement, but
> neither should be the organizational members. I say that, because
> I've heard opinions that all members of ISOC are equal, but the
> org members are more equal than the Chapters. While it may be
> based on observations that I don't have access to, I always
> remember one of the arguments from my time on the Board of
> Trustees: chapters can't have the same say in ISOC matters,
> because they don't contribute to the budget. While this is a fact,
> it's also a fact that the Chapters provide a different level of
> diversity, legitimacy and international spirit of ISOC. Without
> the Chapters, it will be purely US-based, US-populated
> organization. The Chapters provide diversity that ISOC needs (at
> least IMHO). Chapters are the ones, who elect Trustees, majority
> of who are non US-based. Chapters also try to elect equally male
> and female Trustees... Fun fact: when Chapters-elected Trustee
> Olga Cavalli resigned earlier this year, the Board appointed in
> her place a man. It's good he is from Pakistan; few years ago, in
> a similar situation, the Board appointed an American - in a Board,
> which already had plenty of Americans.
> Today, there are 10 Trustees, who are based in the US (including
> the CEO), 1 in Senegal (chapters), 1 in Mexico (chapters), and 1
> in Pakistan (appointed by the BoT). Similar is the situation with
> the top leadership among the staff, where there's only one, who is
> not US-based.
>
> So, to answer George and Muhammad's questions - perhaps this is an
> area, where ISOC should start looking into. Maybe change the
> by-laws, to make sure that Trustees are representing the geography
> and gender diversity of all its members - organizational,
> chapters, individuals? Maybe something else - up to the BoT to decide.
>
>>
>> Best,
>>
>> Richard
>>
>> *From:*Chapter-delegates [mailto:chapter-delegat
>> <mailto:chapter-delegat>
>>
>
> --
>
> Best regards,
> Veni
> Chair of the Board
> Internet Society - Bulgaria
> https://www.isoc.bg <https://www.isoc.bg>
> pgp:5BA1366Eveni at veni.com <mailto:veni at veni.com>
>
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--
Prof.dr.Borka Jerman-Blažič Ex-Head, Laboratory for Open systems and
Networks Jožef Stefan Institute and Faculty of Economics, Ljubljana
University Slovenia tel. +386 1 477 3408 tel. +386 1 477 3756 mob. +386
41 678 410
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