Further define Evangelist role to include "protective" language and implement immediately
Opened this issue · 5 comments
Required Information
Description
Referring to Evangelism post from April 4th, I believe the Evangelist role at ProgCode needs to be further refined to include more "protective" language for the community's culture instead of just "promotion" language, and be implemented as soon as possible for the community's benefit.
Problem
ProgCode does not have a Chief Evangelist or a team of Evangelists outside of administrative staff. The absence of this position (with refined "protective" language) presents obvious conflicts of interest to ProgCode's Staffers Policy & Guidelines in the following sections:
- Mission, Objective Goals
- Values
- Facilitation Norms
- Conflict Resolutions
With the absence of the Evangelist role(s) to promote AND protect the ProgCode Community, projects and staff at ProgCode are subject to future cooptation efforts and further violations of ProgCode's Staffers Policy & Guidelines. Left unchecked, this would invoke further instances of outside influence and possible harm to the community.
Benefit
Proposed changes and their benefits:
Further define Evangelist role to include "protective" language
- Evangelist would help promote AND protect the ProgCode Community from instances of undue/harmful outside influences
- A capable Evangelist would add immeasurable moral support, authenticity, and accountability to the community. The perception alone of having a "community coach" and a "protector" would add incredible value to the PC community.
- Presence of a trusted Evangelist would boost community morale and effectiveness on projects
Implement Evangelist role immediately
- Newly implemented role can create and manage #vetting channel for funders, partners, and other outside forces separate from ProgCode
- Newly implemented role will perform routine "in-house audits" of projects and staff activities to ensure ProgCode Staffers Policy & Guidelines are being met
- Newly implemented role will alleviate administrative staff of "wearing too many hats", and will assist in removing duplicative services and conflicts of interest
- Newly implemented role will ensure that proper attention is dedicated to essential tasks, including, but not limited to vetting, 1on1 or group coaching sessions, and preservation of community culture
Plan
- Vote to Proceed
- A new Evangelism blueprint will be created by Zachary Straub (myself), based on the following criteria:
- Personal Experience - this is to provide a basic roadmap for detailing the Evangelist role based on my professional work experience
- Community Input - this allows the community (volunteer staff and project contributors) to add their feedback to the document based on their professional work experiences and based on their perceptions of the community's current needs that may or may not fit within the scope of this role
- Academic Review - an Organizational Development specialist will add their expertise to underscore and clarify the "promote and protect" goals of the newly defined Evangelist Role
- A final draft of the Evangelist role will be presented to volunteer staff and community to Vote to Implement
- Revisions, if needed, otherwise the new Evangelist goes into effect immediately
Decision Making
by-consent and by-network-vote
Optional Information
Reference link(s)
Related discussion thread.
This is great perspective and background. Evangelism is definitely a focus area, although like most things it can definitely be built out and refined. Any input you have for establishing more regular process and ensuring we're effectively representing the community would be awesome to see.
Really like this tact and thanks so much for putting this up! I think "chief evangelist" could be tweaked and can fit the organizational structure, I just worry that the language puts hierarchy into the network. I would suggest to switch the language to a more facilitatory / coordinator role.
Also, as per process, I believe the decision making is by-consent and by-network-vote/vote-of-confidence. Please kindly update! Thank you
Thanks Rapi!
Decision making process has been updated per request. I'm still pretty confused on how all that works. My thoughts were to make sure that the community at large has a vote on this.
And yea, I agree with your point- I think it's going to be important to be mindful of adding hierarchal language to this role.
A role with these types of responsibilities does not imply any assigned hierarchal power if there are communal checks in place in the creation of the role. I have a few ideas on how to address this further and can bring it up when we discuss at #operations.