[Imc-finance] confidence-unity issues

[john freebury]

  hello,

It would be good for us to start to discuss a number of positive 
consequences or outcomes to this debate, once everyone has fleshed out 
their sense of what has just happened (this discussion and all of this 
new information). All of this new information does not make me feel more 
secure, despite the best intentions of the Encentros group to keep the 
information secure, to protect Indymedia's best interests in their 
discussion with the ford foundation. So it seems to me that our process 
has matured.

People have said that this issue of the ff funding is network-wide, 
while others said that the ff funding was only to assist a project for 
imc's in north america or a group that was less than global. The 
original purpose of the finance list was for all imc's to collectively 
engage in disseminating funds that have specifically been given to the 
network for the network, and not to be worrying about other funding 
revenues for some geographically based project or imc specific project. 
This earlier definition of the finance working group suggests that the 
Encentros group where acting appropriately, by taking initiative to do 
something that made sense to their group of collectives, in seeking out 
funding for their specific project which has nothing to do with the 
objectives of the imc-finance list. Obviously, this earlier definition 
of imc-finance has changed.

How has the definition of the finance group changed? It changed with the 
decision making process. Everyone will have their own ideas, but my 
sense is that our priorities have changed from being "money-based" to 
becoming "idea-based" or "issue-based". In other words, this group seems 
less concerned now about one pot of money in one account with one 
general purpose, and is now concerned with the funding process and all 
of the things that move us beyond the meaningless fact that we have a 
few dollars to spend (who, what, where, when, why). This change began 
when imc-finance became empowered and started to make decisions. To no 
one's surprise i hope, the process appears flawed and we need to 
continue to change it, make it more transparent and accountable to 
itself. Or was the process we agreed to appropriate?

By becoming "issue-based" the imc-finance group has not only taken on 
the issues of dealing with global foundations, but has also taken on the 
issue of who is going to provide for global face-to-face meetings, 
unless we decide to hand that issue to another group. My first sense is 
that the issues have been taken away from the Encentros group and made 
to be network-wide issues, but this is not entirely the case. The 
finance working group has only addressed the issue of the ford 
foundation funding and not the issue of the need for face-to-face 
meetings -- that is still an issue of the Encentros group. And 
imc-finance would be fulfilling its global finance role by providing 
Encentros with the suggestions and guidelines it needs when approaching 
future sponsors of imc global issues (face-to-face conference meetings 
amongst others).

Here we have a dilemma regarding the ff funding -- the imc-finance group 
has never come into the affairs of another working group or local imc 
and said "no, you can not accept this funding." And yet, how can we 
discuss this dilemma before we have decided what is and is not within 
our realm of finance issues, or at what point an issue moves from being 
a "local" imc issue (face-to-face local meetings) to becoming a 
"network-wide" issue (face-to-face global conference meetings)? It seems 
we should develop these guidelines for ourselves before we start 
creating a process that would have smaller working groups become more 
than what they are. Perhaps we already have those guidelines in place 
through submission proposals.

Evidently, there are working groups that consist of only a few local 
imc's that are working on global issues. How do they know that such 
issues are truly global? If there are two or more local imc's that start 
working together on a common issue, are those then global issues, or is 
it when there are four or more local imc's in a working group? How do we 
respond to their need to discuss global finance issues? How do we create 
a democratic forum for the discussion of those issues when they no 
longer relate to our original task and purpose (spending the $42,000)?

Unrelated to the issue of diverting capital from capitalist foundations, 
the dilemma of whose issue belongs to whom places us at a crossroads (an 
intersection). The issue of the ford foundation is secondary to the main 
issue, which in my mind is that the role of imc-finance working group 
has expanded to deal with all global finance issues, including those of 
smaller working groups. By doing so, these issues are now being 
discussed on a global scale, and are becoming larger issues than they 
were within the smaller working group. This returns me to our 
priorities, and my priority toward network solidarity.

Unless we choose to become a centralized authoritarian structure, we 
must be willing to allow smaller working groups to form between local 
imc's to help us solve our global finance issues. At this point we do 
not have a clear process to understand how those global issues then 
become imc-finance group issues, but i sense that our existing process 
might work fine. In that case, the Encentros group would have gone about 
their work openly and transparently , and then, when they wanted to 
propose the ff funding solution to their global finance problem, they 
would have submitted a proposal to the imc-finance working group. From 
there the issues raised by their proposal would become understood and 
discussed, saving considerable stress. If their proposal was blocked, 
then the Encentros working group would know that their proposal was not 
empowered to solve the global issue. In this case, Encentros would take 
our advise to look for another sponsor. This is the process we have in 
place, with our willingness to discuss sponsorships as part of that. For 
Encentros, the lack of openness and transparency with the imc-network 
may have only complicated matters, as some of us on imc-finance have 
assumed the worst.

The issues surrounding foundations is evidently one that we need to 
address for each sponsorship proposal, as each foundation carries its 
own set of issues. In this case, the ford foundation issue appears to 
have been divisive on the subject of ethical sponsorships. For this 
reason alone the subject should be finished and closed until we 
understand our process. We can talk about it forever and it's pointless 
until we have come to some understanding about the process that we are 
going to use to make these issues meaningful and positive. Will the 
existing decision making process work when it is applied accordingly? 
Can the existing process accommodate sponsorships as a part of any 
proposal? Perhaps next time we can approach our issues with creative 
solidarity.

In the interest of Solidarity, i hope we use our existing process to 
make a positive and open debate of global finance issues.

saludos,

john
aimc




Sascha Meinrath wrote:

>Hi everyone,
>
>I think we should take a critical look at who has accepted funding from
>the Ford Foundation before declaring that accepting these funds would
>irreparably harm our reputation.  Here is a (very) partial list of some 20
>projects and organizations that Ford Foundation has funded.  Take a look
>and decide for yourself whether they've all "sold out" to corporations:
>
>ACLU -- American Civil Liberties Union
>AFL-CIO
>Alliance for Justice
>Center for Investigative Reporting
>Deep Dish TV
>Economic Policy Institute
>Electronic Privacy Information Center
>Human Rights Watch
>Independent Media Institute (funders of Alternet)
>Independent Press Association
>NAACP
>Paul Robeson Foundation
>Palestinian Centre for Human Rights
>Progressive, Inc. (as in the magazine)
>Progressive Technology Project
>Public Citizen Foundation (as in Ralph Nader's group)
>The Apen Institute
>The Democracy and Workers' Rights C
>enter
>The Nature Conservancy
>Tides Foundation
>
>In answer to some of the other issues that were raised, the UCIMC did not
>take a cut of the Global IMC funds when they were transferred to our care.
>However, the UCIMC does sponsor individual IMCs and IMC projects (as well
>as the Global Network) and does charge a fiscal sponsorship fee for new
>funds that come through the UCIMC.  Each of our projects is invited and
>expected to have a liaison on our finance group e-mail list; as such, each
>project we sponsor is both empowered and in-the-loop about decisions the
>UCIMC makes as a whole (which is pretty much unheard-of among fiscal
>sponsors) -- I think one would be hard-pressed to find another
>organization that keeps its projects _less_ in-the-dark.  I have posted
>numerous updates about the state of the Global IMCs funds to the Global
>Finance list, and whenever a decision or outcome directly impacts the
>Global IMC, the UCIMC has worked t
>o keep the Global Finance group
>in-the-loop.  Obviously, we should have done better in this case and I
>apologize that this issue caught several people flat-footed.
>
>The UCIMC is a non-profit organization and when we do take a fiscal
>sponsorship fee it is among the lowest in the non-profit,
>fiscal-sponsorship realm.  These fees go directly into funding the
>operations of the UCIMC, paying for registration costs (which are closing
>in on $1000) and otherwise supporting the Indymedia Network.
>
>Unlike almost any other fiscal sponsors, we also allow for an incredible
>amount of autonomy for our projects while still offering as much support
>as our projects wish.  Given this liaison structure, our inclusive,
>participatory structure, and our own integrity as an organization, I do
>not think it would be either advisable or necessary to have "Everything
>UCIMC is involved in...on this list and subject to global discussion."
>If this were requir
>ed, the UCIMC would probably not sponsor the global
>Network, and I doubt very much that we would find _any_ non-profit that
>would agree to this demand.  I do not mean this to sound harsh, but if one
>looks through this e-mail list's archives, one will find that the UCIMC
>has been incredibly open and communicative with this list.
>
>Finally, the idea for the Encuentros group grew directly out of discussion
>that happened on the Global Finance list.  The orgiginal ideas were talked
>about in February 2002 and a more formalized proposal was put forward by
>Jay in March following the ideas that Dan put forward:
>http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/public/imc-finance/2002-March/001154.html
>
>A bunch of individuals followed up on this post and created what became
>the encuentros group.  While I agree that communication could have been
>
>better, I also think that the structures and process were not set up "in
>the dark"; and, in fact, directly parallel the efforts that were utilized
>for the Threshhold Grant in November 2001.  I'm not sure how such a
>negative interpretation of events continues to persist, but would
>encourage everyone to take a look through the list's archives before
>making accusations about how events unfolded.
>
>The Ford Grant would be administered by the Encuentros group (or whichever
>group is empowered by them to make disbursement decisions).  The UCIMC's
>role is as fiscal sponsor (and fiscal coordinator) -- legally speaking,
>the UCIMC would make donations to individual IMCs that are earmarked for
>supporting regional gatherings.  Each IMC would have the option to accept
>or decline this funding.  This would be no different from what has already
>been happening with existing IMCs that have received funding through the
>UCIMC.
>
>In solidarity,
>
>
>--Sascha Meinrath
>Urbana-Champaign IMC
>
>P.S.  I changed the Finance Group e-mail list footer to the updated
>website:  http://docs.indymedia.org/twiki/bin/view/Global/ImcFinance
>
>On Sun, 15 Sep 2002, dan wrote:
>
>>Hi all,
>>
>>Personal opinion only.
>>
>>For UC-IMC to be at once the fiscal sponsor (for a percentage) and then to seek out and
>>engage in sponsoring projects related to IMC, presuambly taking percentage each time,
>>without communicating with global IMC seems to put them very close to violation of IMC
>>guidelines re not-for-profit.
>>
>>Autonomous projects are one thing.  A IMC that makes money from these projects may even
>>be OK.  that it happens in the dark is not OK.
>>
>>Everything UCIMC is involved in should be on this list and subject to global discussion.
>>
>>SF-IMC has this in discussion.
>>
>>Dan
>>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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