[Imc-finance] Another crossroads again for Indymedia Finance

[Petros Evdokas]

Another crossroads again for Indymedia Finance

In this article:
- a rough sketch of our current picture, including
controversial items which hardly anyone wants to hear,
with references to important decisions and discussions,
- a set of Proposals,
- Background reading for those who would like to know
more, at the end.

* Copies of this sent to imc groups affected by what is
unfolding at imc- Finance (to imc- communication, and
imc- process), whose active members are (or should be)
concerned about the situation.
-----------------------          


Hi, 

We’re at another crossroads again with imc finance: we
now have several pending applications for financial aid
(plus a few more applications we forgot about, from the
recent past), with some well- intentioned responses,
and still, we have no collective procedure on how to go
forth with this financial decision- making process.

We lack:
-  a set of generally agreed- upon imc Guidelines
applied to *financial* concerns,
- a clear (incontrovertible) definition of Membership
to the finances working- group (*who* is making these
decisions?),
-  an understanding on how *exactly* should our
politics guide us to make these financial decisions?

There have been several efforts to generate a dialogue
around these issues, but it seeems that either as a
group we’re not very interested in them, or the general
attitude is "let’s not deal with that again" or,
"whatever, just get it over with".

Sheri and I and others  have written to the imc-finance
group repeatedly, hoping to help clarify these issues,
and I’m dissappointed that we still do not have
something real and tangible to show collectively, not
even a group dialogue. (Even if Sheri and I
occasionally have mild differences of opinion on some
of these items, we have full agreement on the general
thrust of these efforts; we are aimed in the same
direction: to help create a collective process for
dealing with Indymedia network finances, in accordance
with our shared politics, and with a special emphasis
on *applying* our collective process to financial
concerns.)

It’s positive, and heartening, to see that some imc
collectives have sent in responses recently about
"supporting/ not opposing" some of the funding
proposals we’ve received. It shows an interest and a
willingness to grapple with our issues. But, please
allow me to note: it is not really a process if
eventually all we succeed in building will be a
situation of a just a continual roll- call with a reply
of "yes" or "no"/ "block" or "no block" on each
proposal. 

What we need is to develop a concrete set of Criteria,
through dialogue, and then see how we might apply them
to each funding request we receive. These Criteria need
to guide us in how to make the financial decisions. And
also, as Red Kitten had pointed out a while ago and no
one aknowledged (she was ignored), we need to do a
broader financial evaluation, to allocate funds in
advance on the basis of certain characteristics and
projected in time (projects?, campaigns? - which should
be decided by a group dialogue), and also to put aside
some agreed- upon money for emergencies (and for
perhaps using some of it to generate more?). She had
also pointed out that we need to take the amount of
incoming flow into consideration, in other words "what
is the rate of donations - will we have the same
amounts available next year if we spend it all now?"

In a letter from 04 Oct 2002, titled "some notes re
funding/ford/network autonomy", Sheri wrote:
"What does a consensus process for the network look
like?  Do we  want to follow it?"
Also:
"What is appropriate funding for the network?" and
"Let's ask ourselves what we'd like to have the Network
look like in 10 years."

Sheri wrote: 
"Do we need a new principles of unity that discusses
funding or do we  create some guidelines for how to
make sure all of our fears/concerns  are addressed?"

And, she articulated a question which is of stunning
relevance to our work, which also went by unaddressed:
"There are many different ways of defining who is
indymedia; how do we  find our  common ground in this
discussion?"

Another of Sheri’s concepts we ignored was the idea to
include more imc voices in our decision- making
process, by way of asking specific questions. She
wrote:

"Survey to Local IMCs - let's send out a list of
questions for each 
IMC to answer over the course of 2-3 months and do a
kind of 
sustainability assessment for the network.

What are your needs and expenses?
How do you sustain your local?
What do you think are some global funding priorities?
What perimeters would you place on money being raised
and used?
What money would you be willing to accept? what
conditions?
This could include local priorities for funding, their
own local projects and needs and any grants they've
received, their ideas for  global network priorities
(this was discussed a long time ago on  IMC-Finance as
something we needed to do to get an assessment of the
global network)."

There’s obviously a lot of good stuff in the above
materials, which we need to look at. If you think that
we’re overdoing it with these continuous requests to
clarify our financial process *as a group*, please take
into consideration the following, and think again:

Up to this point, even though we have been acting with
the very best intentions, our process has not been
responsible or accountable either to our generous
donors/ benefactors, or to our network. How can we
account for the fact that we have not yet determined
membership to this group? To put it differently, we
have tried to clarify this repeatedly and the only
position which remains unchallenged is that of the
author of our most recent decision on this:  the
imc-finance group is "open to anyone". How can we face
our benefactors, or our other imc colleagues honorably,
and in all seriousness say to them that the working
group which manages the imc finances is open "to
anyone"? How can we tell them that we do not even
require of members of this working group to be members
of an imc group where they have an actual personal
(face- to- face) participation?

What do you think will be the outcome of this
information becoming public? Can anyone of you defend
this position? What I see, is that we are now open -
and correctly so -  to the criticism that our decisions
are illegitimate. Why should anyone want to be our
political or cultural allies if our financial decision-
making process appears illegitimate?

The only remedy is - I beg you to please consider it
strongly - that we should return to our original
intention (which was articulated by Jay, supported by
many of us, but eventually had gotten bumped off and
neutralised): the imc-finance working group must be
composed *only* of designated liaisons, representing
any imc group which wants to be a part of this process.
And the "finances liaison" must be  a person who has 
an actual personal (face- to- face) participation in an
imc group.

I know for a fact that most of us agree on this, and
actually some of you actually believe that that is what
we have agreed, but believe me, after we adopted the
definition given to us by the London Working Group, all
of the excellent work we did to determine *who* makes
financial decisions, was thrown out the window. If you
have doubts, see the "final clarification" of this,
here in these two letters, written *after* we passed
our definition of membership:

 "One thing i would like to be completely clear, is
that this paragraph of the original proposal *did not*
ever pass as agreed. 
"-- Be composed of "empowered liaisons" from as many
local IMCs as possible…." :
http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/public/imc-finance/2002-May/001287.html

"finance group, like all other wg's is open to anyone":
http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/public/imc-finance/2002-May/001272.html
 
If we want legitimate decisions to be coming out of our
group, we need to reverse the situation. It is
imperative to do so. 

We need to articulate our definition of membership in
ways which can not be misconstrued or misunderstood.
And we need to put it in writing, and to have all of us
state our consent to it. Ana Nogueria said it best when
she wrote "I dont know anyone who wants decisions about
our finances being made by people not connected to a
local IMC." 
http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/public/imc-finance/2002-April/001196.html 


Concering legitimacy, accountability, and Indymedia-
wide democracy: 
Where did we ever state it that in some way, somehow,
that we will be accountable to any collective imc body?
Isn’t it fair and democratic that the imc-finance
working group should be accountable to a wider,
network- wide body where all imc groups participate, a
collective body which would inform us, guide us if need
be at times, or even disagree with us in occasion if
what we decide here veers off track, away from our
mission?
The imc-communication group is slowly shaping itself to
become that, an imc- wide collective body where all imc
groups participate in dialogue through liaisons. It is
now a primordial organ of an evolving federation of
Indymedia collectives. We need to cultivate a special
relationship to that body, in a way which makes us
accountable to it somehow, so that the collective will
and intent of Indymedia guides and directs our work.
There are many ways to do this so that we can avoid
hierachy and still be responsible to each other as
equal colleagues.

A set of proposals
---------------  
It might come as shock to most imc liaisons, especially
those from imc groups which only joined recently, to
find out that we have a financial process which has no
center of gravity (I’m being polite; in the world of
corporate or government realities, such a lack of
accountability or legitimacy, is considered criminal.
For us, it should be even more so). It was a series of
shocks to me too, as I slowly began to understand the
embarassing inner realities of Indymedia. Here are
concrete proposals to solve the problems:  

1. Let’s work now, on reversing the embarassing
decision from May 7, 2002, which determines that
finance group "is open to anyone":
http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/public/imc-finance/2002-May/001260.html 
which leaves us open to any anumber of possible
accusations of being irresponsible toward  our
benefactors and to our imc colleagues. (Would *you*
donate tens of thousands of dollars to a group and have
it be administered by "just anyone" who is not even a
member of that group?)
2. Let’s create, adopt, agree upon, a clear set of
Criteria/ Guidelines to help us with our financial
decisions.
3. Let’s create a viable, egalitarian, but sensible
system of responsibility, by which we can be
accountable to our benefactors and to our imc comrades,
at least at the global collective level which - even at
this embryonic stage - is beginning to congeal now
around the imc-communication group. Let’s find a
democratic way to make the imc- finance working group
accountable to the broader Indymedia network. (Speaking
as a member of that imc-finance working group, I
propose we find the correct words through which we
articulate a willingness to voluntarily submit
ourselves for direction, or some form of
accountability, to the imc-communication group.)

Your views and opinions, feedback, disagreements,
suggestions for improvement, are always welcome,

Petros
http://PetrosEvdokas.mainpage.net
volunteer, Cyprus Indymedia
http://CyprusIndymedia.mainpage.net
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Background reading for those who would like to know
more:

An excelent critique of our (lack of) process by Red
Kitten:
http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/public/imc-finance/2002-September/001429.html

Many good suggestions by Sheri, which we still have not
debated or adopted formally, which would enable us to
return to our original structure of "designated
liaisons":
http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/public/imc-finance/2002-October/001539.html

And another set of many good suggestions by Sheri,
which we also still have not debated or adopted
formally, which would help us create a set of Criteria/
Guidlelines to help us make financial decisions:
http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/public/imc-finance/2002-October/001531.html

"We've agreed to shoulder a financial group- decision
making process which is about being responsible,
accountable, and transparent to the entire imc network,
to the global liberation movement it serves, and to the
principles  which unite us here. We need to spell them
out.":
http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/public/imc-finance/2002-September/001432.html

We need to talk about all this!
Petros
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