[Chapter-delegates] ISOC's regional engagement

[Andrew Sullivan]

On Fri, Sep 15, 2023 at 01:43:24PM -0400, Veni Markovski wrote:
>I understand that ISOC has let about a dozen people go this week, 
>including some of the regional engagement folks.
>
>Could you share information with us as to what it means for the 
>chapters and the global efforts of ISOC to maintain a healthy 
>relationship with them and with its members?

We have unfortunately eliminated 10 positions at the Internet Society this week (yesterday, in fact), 9 of which had an incumbent when we were forced to do this.  Our income is not keeping up with our expenses and we have not been able to attract the level of public support that we need to do, and there isn't anything else left to cut, so we had to make a difficult decision about where to retrench.  Certainly, if there was another thing that we could have done I would have liked to follow that path instead.  Note that this is a permanent reduction in force, so none of these positions are eligible to be filled again until such time as we have placed the organization on a sounder financial footing.

We are not publishing a list of people's names in order (I hope obviously) to respect their privacy.  

Regional bureaux as such were eliminated in 2019, but obviously some of the staff continued using their expertise in a given region since then.  One Regional Vice President position, in Asia-Pacific, was cut. We have other staff in that region and will need to sort out in detail how we will support the work in that region.  In terms of other positions with a significant focus on a specific region, we also had to cut the position of Director, Caribbean Affairs and Development and Senior Policy Advisor-Africa.

The department that focussed exclusively on global individual members was also eliminated.  Chapter support staff were not affected, however.  One position in the team that supports the AMS was eliminated, but it was already vacant.

In general, the rest of the cuts fell among staff who worked on Internet Society projects.

We remain committed to support of chapters and SIGs. I expect that those support functions will continue very much as they have done, with continuous improvement to concentrate on engagement and ensuring that the community has the support it needs to keep supporting our vision of an Internet for everyone.

Best regards,

Andrew

-- 
Andrew Sullivan, President & CEO, Internet Society
e:sullivan at isoc.org m:+1 416 731 1261
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