Implement Four-Pronged Test for Change Proposals to Guaranty Furtherance of ProgCode Core Objective & Legal Compliance

[PamelaJohn]

Problem

The inclusion of best practices suggested text for a ProgressiveCoders/functions New GitHub Issue (Proposed Issue) under the Benefit subheading which asks members to consider, "How does this change relate to our core goal of getting money out of politics and/or the symptoms it causes?" was a great inclusion to remind members that their proposals and proposed changes should be aligned with ProgCode's core objective.

Unfortunately, this improvement has not in itself solved the problem of misalignment of purpose in community proposals for consent. Some items presented to the community in early stages of knowledge/understanding/development (i.e., budget requests to approve invitations to speak/present at events held by outside partners) were not sufficiently detailed when presented in early stages and seemed aligned based on limited information which was presented for consideration by the community. Those proposals were given community consent and were enacted based on community trust.

Later, as details of hosting individuals/orgs and the partisan nature of some relationships with outside partners/orgs grew more clear, volunteer operations staff and other community members expressed concern whether those acts were unaligned to the non-partisan promise of ProgCode's core objective and could be considered out of compliance with the legal limitations of ProgCode's business entity and tax status upon routine examination by government entities.

This problem has resulted in:

• General increase in negativity in ProgCode community Slack discussions (frustration, disagreement, contention, bickering, division) over seemingly superficial issues which are symptomatic of deeper, systemic problems of loss of focus on core objective and misalignment of purpose:
  • Fundamental erosion of trust and internal relationships, a sense that dedication of volunteer time and contributions have been a waste of those volunteers' time due to a misalignment of vision/purpose and overall disillusionment.
  • Loss of morale of volunteer staff members and an inability to recruit additional necessary volunteer staff to help maintain the community at scale.
• Future risk to ProgCode community's Board and Executive members:
  • Risk of loss of ProgCode's non-profit tax filing status.
  • Risk of future tax liability for the future Board and Executive members.
• Lack of Member & App Partner engagement:
  • Lost momentum on projects which are aligned with ProgCode core objective and legal purpose:
    • Inattention to projects.
    • Stalled projects.
    • Failure of projects to launch.
  • Lack of engagement by volunteer community members.

Plan

To keep the ProgCode community focused on its four-part core objective and in compliance with its statement of corporate/tax purpose, the existing Change Process should be amended to add language such that:

• Future Issue proposals seeking consent for implementation of budget requests and/or change process should not contradict ProgCode core objective and should pass a four-pronged test when considered by operations:
  • All proposals are non-partisan in nature;
  • All proposals are geared toward removing the influence of big money in politics;
  • All proposals seek to empower the grassroots through the creation of open source technology;
  • If the proposals are sponsored or funded by an outside organization, the source of the funding must be disclosed.

NOTE: The foregoing language is conceptual and not verbatim. As with all source-of-all-truth ProgCode Wiki documents, the actual language incorporating the above concepts will be written collaboratively with input from the community.

Decision Making

Seek Consent to Implement immediately upon the expiration of the 4 day period following the May 15, 2017 meeting.

Reference link(s)

• Core Objectives as defined by the ProgCode community in:
  • Organizational Structure Document, "Abstract", para. 8 and
  • ProgCode Volunteer Staffer Guidelines, "Mission, Objectives, Goals", para. 2
• GitHub Issue 151 re Legal Compliance
• Change Process

[jpb5013]

This is really thorough and a great summary. This has been a great example of continual storming and I'm extremely impressed with how we've approached it and how it will lead to improved clarity and continually improving performance.

[PamelaJohn]

5/15/2017 At the operations meeting tonight, I introduced this proposal and requested consent to implement. @progcodepreston added a fourth question: "Who is funding the event."

I requested consent to implement with the addition of Preston's fourth question.