> > Boards of non-profits: > > -give legitimacy to the organization > > -provide an overall direction for the organization > > -liaise with other organizations > > -HELP RAISE MONEY
This is all good, and right on the mark, except for one thing. The GNOME Foundation (and GNOME itself) is only accidentally a non-profit making organisation. They key point in the problems that we face is not that we are non-profit oriented it is: (ta-daaaaaaaah!) A loose collaborative effort of volunteers, or at best weakly connected network organisation. All our problems stem from this. All our strengths stem from this. We need to stop applying standard business logic to the organisation of ourselves. In particular, this relates to the planning function. The point, of course, is that we can (almost) never tell someone to do something. We have ask, cajole, wheedle, persuade, inspire and respect ourselves into getting things done. (As an aside, this is way cool in my book.) We do, however, need to start/increase applying standard business logic to the relationship between ourselves and our customers (or "stakeholders", if you really want to go all the way). That is the function of the board, as outlined originally: to be the interface between GNOME and the rest of the world. And probably not much more than that? Oh well, that's enough abstract academia for Saturday morning. Back to the coffee! Ciao, John _______________________________________________ foundation-list mailing list [email protected] http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
