[Imc-finance] imc philly thoughts

[Amy Lorraine]

Hi folks,

At IMC-Philadelphia’s June general meeting, we
discussed the global finance process in general. Here
are some of our thoughts:

* We agree that there should be a cap on the funds
that can be disbursed in a short time period, even on
“emergency” funds and especially since we have no
working definition of emergency funds.
* In general, we think that local IMCs should think of
the money as seed money, not as major funding. We felt
that the norm should be that groups aren’t asking for
over $1000 for projects that are being proposed for
the first time. I don’t put this out as a formal
proposal, but just to report back on our discussion. 
* We are in favor of the amendments from 4 days to 1
week for under $500, and from 1 week to one month for
over $500 – though we are not sure why $500 was
picked; $1000 seems a more reasonably helpful figure
for seed money. But, regardless, we are in favor of
the spirit of moving the timeline back a bit.
* We agree with the spirit of the “after translation”
clauses as well, but were concerned that this might
slow the process down considerably – would we require
all the proposals to be translated into every single
language? Or is there a set of languages that we have
translation facilities arranged for? We thought
perhaps there could be an assumption that after the
proposal gets to the translation lists, there would be
a three day waiting period. Then the week of
discussion would begin. 
* In general, we felt that the finance group should
start to give out small sums of money as seed grants –
this would help us to evaluate the process tangibly,
not just in the abstract. So we are in favor of moving
forward with the process proposals. But we are not
sure that the global finance group should give out
large grants yet without the sort of budget priorities
that Atlanta had mentioned. This, however, does not
have to hold up the approval of a procedure.

On the discussion about what “work for the network”
is… I know that this is technically tabled for three
months, but here’s some thoughts on it, anyway. We
discussed this at our May meeting, actually, but not
in time to weigh in for the decision. We felt that the
way the clause is written it allows the local IMCs to
basically say this is how we can contribute to the
network at this time. We thought that this makes sense
– its like a social contract, with the burden to
define the terms and take the initiative is on the
participants. IMC-Philly could say that our primary
work for the network right now needs to be
participating in good faith in the democratic process,
and working to empower our own members to be active
liaisons. That should be fine, under the definition,
if that’s where we’re at. We thought it was reasonable
to ask a local that wants to have decisionmaking power
in the network to state what their relationship is
with the network and how they intend to carry that
out.

There’s a clause in there that says the finance team
has a right to reject the local group’s definition of
“work for the network,” and I’m not sure that this
makes sense… it seems to put too much control in the
finance team’s hands. Our group did not discuss this
last point; it is my opinion.

Amy
IMC-Philly Liaison


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