For the Candidates

[Tapper]

As a member here for almost a year, I’ve watched the various struggles and difficulties. My personal background includes more years than I’d care to admit involved in organizational finance, risk management, and litigation management, among other things. I’ve been a member here for almost a year, and come to love the place. I’ve made many friends, and spend a lot of time volunteering in the woodshop. I want the Space to survive and prosper. But I see several problems, and ask you potential candidates to provide your thoughts, so that I and others like me, might know better for whom we vote.

From the National Council of NonProfits:

Board members are the fiduciaries who steer the organization towards a sustainable future by adopting sound, ethical, and legal governance and financial management policies, as well as making sure the nonprofit has adequate resources to advance its mission.

1. Our finances are broken, and endanger the survival of the Space. - There has been an ongoing effort to move to double entry accounting, but little input beyond meetings, with anyone that actually knows and understands organizational accounting. I have seen no assurances that the current process (occasional advisory meetings with a retired accountant) will produce a result that will pass GAAP standards and be auditable, and absolutely no discussion about implementing the policies and controls necessary to do this. We cannot survive a financial audit. Having an accurate set of books would be a good start. But we will also need to develop a means to perform checks and balances on spending authority, appropriations, and track expenses. And first and foremost, we need accurate and timely information and projections that allow the Board to make informed log-term decisions - not gambling on monthly Voodoo. The single most important responsibility of a Board member is to manage our money. Nothing else comes even remotely close to this responsibility, and nothing else subjects a Board member to as much Civil and/or Criminal liability. This needs fixing, and it needs fixing now. What will you do?

2. There is no executive at the space. An executive, is a group of people, appointed by the Board, charged with operating the space, and authorized by written policies, to perform various actions related to the day by day management necessary to run it, including the actual spending of money (previously authorized by the board). Given that a Board member has no authority to make any decision whatsoever, in the absence of a noticed meeting at which a quorum is present, what will you do to address this serious lack of managerial oversight, and eliminate the need for board members to try to be all things to all people. The Board has too many important responsibilities, to be reduced to “calling the plumber”. They need to be Board members. What will you do?

3. There is a growing sentiment, that the Space has become dominated by a smallish group of people who tend to want to do everything, and control everything. This seems reinforced by a lack of attempts to reach out to new members, and recruit them into volunteerism or leadership roles. New members are left to their own devices, and membership turnover is alarmingly high. The terms “good ole boys” and “clique” are not infrequently heard. Those wanting to volunteer to help, are often ignored, and feel pushed away. What will you do?

I realize lots of other folks may have thoughts on these matters, but how about letting our future decision makers speak first?

[wandrson]

@Tapper

… but how about letting our future decision makers speak first?

Why? Any voting member (and any member who is eligible) is a 'decision maker for the space.

[nickdangerous]

Regarding #2, the general consensus (and many if not all of the candidates) favors increased delegation of responsibilities from the board to the committees in order to decentralize decision making, grow participation, and help to eliminate bottlenecks.

[wandrson]

@Tapper

Given that a Board member has no authority to make any decision whatsoever, …

Not actually true. Individual board members have several ‘powers’ that they can exercise when not in meeting. Which is why the statement that they aren’t board members outside of the board meetings is faulty. The most obvious is a single board member can ban a member until they can challenge at the next board meeting. This power was recently exercised by Robert.

[themitch22]

Can’t we at least find it in our budget to hire an outside firm to make sure we are in compliance (unless this has already been done or in process)?

I thought the “executives” are the officer positions at the space, not just the board members.

The clique grouping at the space is a pretty natural phenomenon. I agree we need to reach out to new members and recruit volunteerism, that’s something I’d like to see from PR and other committees. We’ll see how that comes up.

[wandrson]

@themitch22

thought the “executives” are the officer positions at the space, not just the board members.

They are. 12345678901234567890

[Brandon_Green]

1. Performing the treasury duties for our growing organization has been a huge undertaking that previously has been shouldered by a single volunteer. As we transition to new people taking on the treasury role I trust that Allen and David will be able to improve our practices by splitting the duties between at least two people and also in general pushing for a more savings oriented attitude. But other than trusting them, and following up after they have had some time to transition to see how their practices change our ability to audit / keep track of finances, I have no personal expertise in accounting, so I’m not really qualified personally to advise them on how to perform the treasury duties.

2. I think the various committee chairs serve the function of an executive who can make decisions(in their area) and spend money (that exists in their committee fund). My approach of empowering committee chairs is the only idea I have for helping to attact people to those positions. For instance the plumber calling falls under the Infrastructure committee, but not many people like to volunteer to be responsible for that kind of area unlike areas where there is a lot of interest such as woodshop.

3. Increasing the rate of member volunteering to help take an active role in improving the space is vital to our survival. Right now unless someone directly asks a committee chair (and they would have to know who that is first) it is unlikely they would be able to find out areas where help is needed. A good first step would be outlining areas where help is needed during the monthly member meetings and posting more volunteers needed threads here on Talk. As a board member I can just try to encourage committees to do that, but like you mentioned previously board members really only just set policy during a board meeting, and the actual day to day decisions / recruiting needs to be done by the committee chairs.

[MathewBusby]

@Tapper

Our finances are broken, and endanger the survival of the Space. - There has been an ongoing effort to move to double entry accounting, but little input beyond meetings, with anyone that actually knows and understands organizational accounting. I have seen no assurances that the current process (occasional advisory meetings with a retired accountant) will produce a result that will pass GAAP standards and be auditable, and absolutely no discussion about implementing the policies and controls necessary to do this. We cannot survive a financial audit. Having an accurate set of books would be a good start. But we will also need to develop a means to perform checks and balances on spending authority, appropriations, and track expenses. And first and foremost, we need accurate and timely information and projections that allow the Board to make informed log-term decisions - not gambling on monthly Voodoo. The single most important responsibility of a Board member is to manage our money. Nothing else comes even remotely close to this responsibility, and nothing else subjects a Board member to as much Civil and/or Criminal liability. This needs fixing, and it needs fixing now. What will you do?

Just some reading for those following along: BUSINESS ORGANIZATIONS CODE CHAPTER 22. NONPROFIT CORPORATIONS

[Photomancer]

All committee chairs are officers of the corporation (DMS) directly appointed by the Board (committee “elections” are advisory, but given great deference). They act and manage their respective committee domains: space, equipment, and funds allocated by the board or generated through activities.

RE: smallish cliques, they tend to be folks that are around at the same times or common interests. They also tend to be the same folks that do most of the volunteering. There is also the issue that some folks mutually enjoy NOT associating with each other, without being unexcellent to each other.

ALL members can be heard at BoD meetings and General meetings, but members need to show up or send a proxy - getting members involved is as much an individual responsbility as the BoD or PR committee (which last night had around 15 members attend and was directly discussing how to get members and the Space involved).

As active members we need to encourage people to become involved: attending committee meetings, teaching (I’m known asking people to teach a class), mentoring or impromptu “savenger hunts” such as Pearce announced the other night in Commons room - everyone went into all the rooms to empty the full trash cans … a quick 3 minute task involving everyone there scattering to rooms and then out to the dumpster helped clean the place up.

And of course there is the Talk forum, and your asking of questions I do hope gets some responses from candidates. But I’m also encouraged to see folks responding here also because there are many differing viewpoints as to what needs to be done as well as to what our current situation is. These provide input and awareness to the candidates and the membership.

I’ll now get off my soapbox (for a moment at least😜)

[ESmith]

[quote=“Tapper, post:1, topic:8614”]
Our finances are broken, and endanger the survival of the Space. - There has been an ongoing effort to move to double entry accounting, but little input beyond meetings, with anyone that actually knows and understands organizational accounting. I have seen no assurances that the current process (occasional advisory meetings with a retired accountant) will produce a result that will pass GAAP standards and be auditable, and absolutely no discussion about implementing the policies and controls necessary to do this. We cannot survive a financial audit. Having an accurate set of books would be a good start. But we will also need to develop a means to perform checks and balances on spending authority, appropriations, and track expenses. And first and foremost, we need accurate and timely information and projections that allow the Board to make informed log-term decisions - not gambling on monthly Voodoo. The single most important responsibility of a Board member is to manage our money. Nothing else comes even remotely close to this responsibility, and nothing else subjects a Board member to as much Civil and/or Criminal liability. This needs fixing, and it needs fixing now. What will you do?[/quote]
I would give the reformed finance committee a chance to produce some results before declaring our finances in dire straits. It’s a truly thankless job that makes Logistics’ tasks of purchasing, storage, and routine maintenance moderately fun by comparison.

Insofar as the spending goes, that’s a difficult balance to strike. We all pay dues and we all have varying priorities. The fiscal conservatives want us to save money for future expenses unforeseen and foreseen alike. At the opposite end of the spectrum are members that want to see their dues go into interesting projects to benefit the membership. It’s worth noting that the latter faction seems to be better-represented at BoD meetings than the former.

I would like to emphasize balance because it does not seem like an easy task. We need to both guard against contingencies as well as continuously invigorate and revitalize the space.

@Tapper

There is no executive at the space. An executive, is a group of people, appointed by the Board, charged with operating the space, and authorized by written policies, to perform various actions related to the day by day management necessary to run it, including the actual spending of money (previously authorized by the board). Given that a Board member has no authority to make any decision whatsoever, in the absence of a noticed meeting at which a quorum is present, what will you do to address this serious lack of managerial oversight, and eliminate the need for board members to try to be all things to all people. The Board has too many important responsibilities, to be reduced to “calling the plumber”. They need to be Board members. What will you do?

Oftentimes, calling the plumber (or the landlord, or a HVAC contractor) is exactly what a board member needs to do as an official representative of the Makerspace.

The board has traditionally appointed other board members as Officers, however their duties do not appear to be defined in the bylaws other than functions at meetings. The board could arguably delegate continuous authority to these officers

As others have mentioned, Board members have numerous powers mentioned in the rules, however they lack the sort of strong executive authority that you see to be wishing for.

@Tapper

There is a growing sentiment, that the Space has become dominated by a smallish group of people who tend to want to do everything, and control everything. This seems reinforced by a lack of attempts to reach out to new members, and recruit them into volunteerism or leadership roles. New members are left to their own devices, and membership turnover is alarmingly high. The terms “good ole boys” and “clique” are not infrequently heard. Those wanting to volunteer to help, are often ignored, and feel pushed away. What will you do?

I believe that I have mentioned this elsewhere, but volunteer labor is scarce at the makerspace, as such those who do get to exert more influence.

About 6 months ago I was an anonymous member. Then I got involved with a committee that most members were uninterested in. I put in time and effort, learned the functions of the committee, expressed interest in becoming chair next election, and had the confidence of the committee and the BoD when the chair stepped down early. I am not the most gregarious nor the most outgoing person nor in possession of extraordinary social skills, but I was able to work my way into a DMS leadership role without any undue hardship or barriers.

To an extent, cliques are inevitable thanks to the realities of Dunbar’s Number. With around 1100 members and something like 300 regulars, it is nearly impossible to keep track of everyone to the extent that may have once been possible.

I try to work around this by talking to people - especially other committee chairs. I may not always get the ideal response, but I also haven’t been told I’m not part of the club and been snubbed yet either.

[Tapper]

Mitch, Brandon, and Eric - I appreciate your taking the time to provide thoughtful answers to these questions. It’s good to have candidates that care enough to provide their views, and give the rest of us some insight to how they think and feel.

[Lampy]

1. I have always felt that the finances of DMS needed more structure and planning. Unfortunately it was often frustrating to engage with those who were managing the finances. Primarily they were always overwhelmed and it seemed anyone who asked came off as an asshole for even asking. My solution would to get DMS to accrual accounting and pay a professional to get us on track. The new plans will get us there.

2. I’ll call a plumber when one is needed. but seriously we have to get a representative on-site who can deal with the minute details of running the space. And give the BoD an opportunity to have a larger role in planning our direction instead of putting out fires.

3. Still part of the systemic issue that as an all volunteer group, those that help are overworked. We don’t have a good method to delegate small jobs that need to be done. The alternate to that we have people that latch onto a role and use it to crowd out others that want to help. We need to find a way to guide volunteers on a path that awards those that handle their tasks or projects well.