April 07, 2009

Board of Director’s Meeting

2009-04-07 5:30pm EST
Via conference call through Calliflower.com – unrecorded.

Attendees

Shadee Malaklou, President
Ellen Williams, Vice President
Kristen Guskovict, Secretary
Patrick Benz, Treasurer

Wayne Moses Burke, Executive Director

Commitments and Decisions

• All
  • Continue on to monthly board meetings- board together to work on committee needs and committee heads need to continue to lead in moving things forward
• Shadee and Kristen
  • will look up board responsibilities on-line and send them out via email to the group for discussion
• Next meeting
  • Fundraising strategy – April 22^nd at 5pm
  • May TBD

Minutes

• Updates
  • Danny Feltsman is Director of Community Outreach
    • Danny will be focused on reaching out to high value donors
  • 501 C 3
    • Status is pending
    • Will be reviewed by IRS within next two weeks
• Web- redesign
  • Site is being re-written by KaosMedia
• There is a difference between the current website that we’re redesigning and the Project (formerly Project One) that we’re working on, which will require a website as the main interface for its development.
  • The Project has to be more than just a website- needs to be a platform, infrastructure
  • Site to be one that provides something substantial and useful to everything that is already out in this arena
  • Patrick: “Is this still, essentially a website”
    • Yes- our website will be one entry point into the Project
    • Can access info from multiple areas but information still coming from one central location
  • Need to connect with vendors that services advocacy groups and the vendors that services congressional offices that aggregate this information currently
• Fundraising
  • Board expressed difficulty with fundraising
    • Most people and foundations need/want to see the 501 C 3 in place first
    • attempting to reach out to those who know us / trust us already
    • Difficult to look for donations without having anything to show- the project website will cost $150,000 + to design- without showing it to potential donors it is difficult to raise the money to develop the technology
  • Hoping the new website will help us establish online community of smaller donors
  • Beginning to create relationships with foundations- to establish connection
• Accounting- need to open a bank account and keep track what Wayne is spending out of pocket. Instituting regulations
• Board responsibilities and training (Discussion)
  • Are the current committee breakouts effective?
  • What are the responsibilities of the board to the completion of projects?
    • Boards are sometimes ineffective because they do not know what their responsibilities are
  • Initial committees were: Marketing, finance and community outreach- however all three committees blend together at this point, and our group is not big enough to maintain 3 separate groups
  • Difficult for Wayne and Shadee to juggle all of the differing priorities and responsibilities
  • Suggestion: Suggestion: meetings once a month- each month focusing on one committee.  Then the ‘off’ months the committee chair is committed to move it forward (plus our normal quarterly board meeting) (Kristen)
  • Question: do people feel comfortable to with their current ‘assignments’- need to commit with knowledge of what you’re committing too (Kristen)
  • Are there other committees that would serve you better? (Ellen)
  • What do you find yourself focused on most
  • How do committee responsibilities overlap with officer responsibilities?
  • Suggestion: Board meeting- once a month. Everything overlaps.  The ‘chair’ can track the task and update.  (Ellen)
  • Suggestion: Meetings not focused on one specific area- they all overlap. But, monthly board meetings (Shadee)
  • Suggestion: need help with the discussion- to refocus, prioritize, develop the idea (Wayne)
  • DECISION: Continue on to monthly board meetings- board together to work on committee needs and committee heads need to continue to lead in moving things forward
• Developing our community
  • What about adding volunteers
    • Is it too soon? How do we engage them?
  • Next Steps
    • Board Training? Shadee and Kristen will look up board responsibilities on-line and send them out via email to the group for discussion
    • Fundraising strategy- Meeting April 22^nd at 5pm
    • Open Forum Bank Account
    • Next board meeting (by phone) May 2009- date TBD
      • Are there days of the week that work better for board members than others?

Agenda

• Updates
  • Danny Feltsman as Director of Community and Outreach
  • 501(c) 3 status pending!
  • Website redesign and marketing
  • Additional updates:  Wayne
  • Additional updates:  Committee chairs
• Priorities moving forward
  • Fundraising strategy (deadline:  next two weeks)
  • Open Forum Foundation bank account
  • Recruiting new board members as active workforce
• Next two Board meetings
  • Next Board meeting (by phone):  July 2009
  • First in-person Board meeting:  October 2009
• Any other items of business?
  • Open conversation