[Imc-finance] proposal for improving finance list

[Sheri Herndon]

hi everyone,

everyone on this list who is a liaison whether official or not, 
please read and consider!

PROPOSAL SUMMARY:

1.  Encourage and develop ongoing processes for greater institutional 
memory for IMC-Finance;

2.  Create a smaller IMC-Finance Working Group to take on some of the 
critical collective tasks that need to be done for this list to be an 
effective and democratic working group; and

3.  Clarify roles and responsibilities of being a liaison on this 
list and update the current list membership.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

IMC FINANCE LIST PURPOSE

This list is one of most important working groups in the network for 
several reasons:

1.  Because we are an empowered working group and we are supposed to 
have liaisons from each local imc collective in the network; and

2.  Because we make decisions "on behalf of" the network with regard 
to the collective money in the bank and are therefore accountable to 
the larger network

Therefore, what we do here and how we do it needs to be really 
transparent, clear, documented and easily transferable to new people 
joining the list.  We must take our process here seriously and part 
of that includes participation in order to create and uphold an 
empowering democratic process.

The New-IMC working group is another place where decisions are being 
made on behalf of the network and they have a website, a process and 
alot more information readily available.  I hope that we can perhaps 
achieve something similar that will make all of this work we're doing 
much easier, accessible and encourage greater participation.

Below under "Background" you will find some information about this 
list that was from the original proposal when we set up this list.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

PROPOSALS

1.  Increasing Institutional Memory

This list has grown very quickly and the critical information 
necessary for people to make decisions needs to be easy to access. 
This info is not just for new people who have recently joined the 
list but also for people who have been on the list a long time and 
may have forgotten important details re process or agreements or 
decisions we have made in the past.

Solutions:

(1)  We need to have an updated finance wiki that has all critical 
information on it for handy reference for list members, the network 
to peruse when discussions are happening on the local level and for 
new people when they join.
(2)  A link to the wiki can be included on the "welcome to the 
imc-finance list" for new liaisons with a request that they peruse 
these documents before jumping into the discussion.  This welcome 
message should also request that they make an introduction to the 
list (not everyone has done this who has joined the list).
(3)  Translations need to be done for the finance wiki just like new 
imc has for their page.

What should be on the wiki?

*  all proposals passed with just the name of the imc or project and the amount
*  the most recent roll call - which imcs are here on the list
*  the process we use for making decisions, clearly articulated
*  the proposal for starting this list (and how it would be an 
empowered working group - some of that information is below under 
background)
*  definition of a liaison
*  description of how money has come into the global account
*  any critical emails discussing process, funding issues, criteria, 
disagreements, debates, etc.
*  other ideas?  of course we can keep adding to the wiki and 
improving it and making it better and making it sure it's clear and 
we have it translated!

i just did a list summary with alot of this information:
http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/public/imc-finance/2002-December/001658.html


2.  Creating an IMC-Finance Working Group

To be an effective list we need to start doing certain things and in 
the near future we need to get everyone on this list (and in the 
network) on the same page when it comes to our history and our 
process.  I propose that a group of committed people from this list 
get together and work to make some of these things happen.  The bulk 
of the work will be in this initial stage since we have a lot of 
"catching up to do".  This working group would ideally identify the 
various tasks necessary to keep this list functioning in a good way 
internally and externally and help share the responsibilities beyond 
just a small handful of people.

What can the IMC-Finance working group do?

In the near future:

1.  meet and discusss how to move a few things forward in a positive 
way for this list;
2.  go through the imc-finance archives and pull the critical emails;
3.  update the wiki with that information as suggested in proposal #1;
4.  initiate discussion on the list using the questions from people 
on the list asking for clarification (see below)
5.  organize an imc-finance irc meeting
6.  help do the imc-finance roll call for liaisons and update the 
roll call list

In the longer term:

*  help keep the focus when a discussion is happening on the list 
regarding a proposal  (act as facilitators and help share the task 
with sascha who has been doing it pretty much solo)
*  keep track of proposals and post them to the "approved proposals" 
section on the wiki once approved;
*  prepare a "list summary" that can be then distributed to the 
global lists, local lists, put on the wiki and on imc-summaries. 
this is how we keep the rest of the network also in touch with our 
work
*  making sure that new people joining the list provide an 
introduction and update the wiki with that information.
*  checking with new imc to see whether new imcs have joined the 
imc-finance list.


3.  Clarifying the notion of being a liaison on this list:

previous proposal on this topic:
http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/public/imc-finance/2002-October/001539.html
further articulation of this list being one of liaisons:
http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/public/imc-finance/2002-April/001205.html

The stated goal of this list is to have a group of empowered liaisons 
(that means your local collective recognizes you in this role) from 
each imc and working group in the network.  That way decisions we 
make will resonate with our state principles and goals for democratic 
process and inclusion.  I think we perhaps have not been very good 
about this and that a number of people on this list are not empowered 
liaisons.  We need to correct this situation:

1.  Put forth guidelines for what does it mean to be a liaison
2.  Do a roll call and find out which imcs are "represented" and who 
is really acting as a liaison.  And then have them go to their local 
and ask them to revisit the question and either find someone who will 
do the job or have the person(s) who is/are on the list take their 
roll very seriously.
3.  update the wiki with this information.

Some simple guidelines for what it means to be a liaison:

a.  help share some of the list responsibilities as outlined above 
(rotating responsibilities such as list summaries -- if each person 
did it every 2 weeks, that means only once every few years would you 
have to do it, now that's not bad in terms of workload);
b.  participate in discussion and action items;
c.  make sure your local imc is informed of all proposals and 
decisions made (make sure global information gets passed on to the 
local); and
d.  make sure information from your local is brought back to the 
global in a timely fashion (when discussing a proposal that has a 
larger amount and thus needs the input from each local imc).

The reason i think it is important to revisit this and actually have 
a proposal around it is because we currently have 133 people on this 
list, which means we ideally would have all 100 plus imcs 
"represented".  however, our record when it comes to responding to 
proposals, people/locals are responding at between 3-10%.....That is 
worse than the U.S.'s voting record and that's not great.  One could 
argue that it's because people are all in agreement so they are just 
passively voting by not blocking.  i don't buy this argument.  i 
think it is because people are not acting as liaisons and we need to 
correct the situation.

CONCLUSION

By revisiting what it means to be a liaison, by gathering all 
critical information and updating the finance wiki, by having a 
working group take on some critical next steps for the imc-finance 
list, we can start to really do our job and address the issues of 
funding and sustainability and priorities for the network.  i cannot 
think of any more important things for this list to do.

sincerely,

sheri
from seattle imc
and various working groups
not speaking as a liaison


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

BACKGROUND

from our original proposal:

-- Make decisions according to consensus principles on a public, transparent
e-mail list, the archives of which will be open for viewing through the
"http://lists.indymedia.org" page.  It will post a budget and other relevant
financial information to "http://finance.indymedia.org" when that web page
becomes active.

-- Be empowered to make grants in response to requests for less than $500
internally, without notifying the rest of the network, not to exceed $5000 each
month.  Imc-finance will make these allocations primarily for emergency needs,
specifically for network infrastructure.

-- Be required to alert the network, through a post to both
imc-process at indymedia.org and imc-proposals at indymedia.org, when allocating
grants of more than $500, or after allocating $5000 within a month.  This is
for the sake of transparency, and will encourage members of local IMCs and
individuals to express their opinions on the imc-finance if they disagree with
the decisions being made.

-- Be required to write a monthly summary of the money allocated, to be posted
to imc-summaries at indymedia.org.

-- Always have an active facilitator who will help focus discussion, encourage
everyone to participate and help debates turn into decisions.  Facilitators
will rotate out of the task every two months.  Imc-finance will not allocate
funds unless there is an active facilitator.

-- Emphasize decentralized fundraising, consistently work toward empowering
local IMCs to help one another, support autonomous fundraising affinity groups
and other projects that raise money for the network, support the idea of giving
"matching grants" (matching money raised by a local IMC's fundraiser to support
effective, creative fundraising ideas), prioritize allocations that 
will help build network infrastructure and support the formation of 
IMCs and IMC projects in the "Global South," where financial 
assistance is
requested.

-----------------outanding process questions-------------------

-- clarifying the finance process

-- timely summaries & translations to languages other than english

-- more dialogue about our Membership, our Mandate, our Guidelines, 
our Decision-Making Process.

	* i have included some possible draft guidelines/criteria for 
our discussion

-- standard proposal format we can ask people to fill out

	*  i'd suggest something simple:  summary of proposal, simple 
background and description, pros and cons, how it meets the 
crieria/guidelines, and amount requested

-- post all this information on the finance wiki so it's handy







-- 


In sum, we are an army of dreamers, and therefore invincible.  How 
can we fail to win, with this imagination overturning everything.

-- Subcomandante Marcos