Another consideration:
We need our resources accessible to folks who are undocumented.
Had a convo with Sarah of the Peer Defense Project. Main ideas:
- Separate accelerators from those being accelerated
- Check out the worker self-directed non-profit
- Potential payment structure
- Every person be capped in terms of number of hours they can work
- Every person be paid the exact rate. Know what you want to spend time on. Benefit of everyone having the same hours and being paid the same wage, for example, is not needing to update the budget every three months. If hours and pay rates are variable, then you’ll be spending time on the internal structure and not on program activities.
- Creating budgets so that if the organizational budget is $100,000, then this is what our hours cap and hourly rate is. If it becomes $200,000 then we all get a raise. If it becomes $300,000, $400,000, etc. continued
- They can connect us with people like tax and labor attorneys!
Amazing example by the Open Collective Foundation, which documented how they came to their current pay process.
Excerpts:
Our compensation model combines elements of a formula (calculator), self-set factors (determined solely by the individual), and collectively set factors (determined in dialog with the team). It attempts to live up to the values of OCF and to meet organizational needs (fit our budget, attract and retain the staff we need). We’ve strived to balance privacy with transparency, as well as trust with accountability.
- Formula: The OCF compensation calculator gives a baseline starting point and embodies some key decisions about how we’ve decided pay should work in its design (see below for a breakdown).
- Self-set: Certain personal factors that adjust pay are set solely by the individual, and are not shared with or debated by the team. We trust each individual to set these variables on their own, using a rubric that we continue to develop together.
- Collective: The overall process and the formula have been agreed collectively by the team, and are overseen and continuously improved by a working group of team members. Individual compensation processes involve a review in a small group, and a point where anyone on the team can give input.
Try out the OCF compensation calculator for yourself!
Explanation from The Sterling Network on who makes the Core Team: Sterling Network NYC — Blog — Robert Sterling Clark Foundation
While network weaving is an ancient practice indigenous to many cultures, network practitioners often refer to June Holley’s definition as she literally wrote the book on the topic. In her guide, Holley offers:
“Network Weavers help people become aware of the web of relationships in which they are embedded and encourage them to become more intentional about those networks…network weavers help shape and weave their networks so that they become more intentional and effective.” Network Weaver Handbook, p.38
Holley further articulates the role of weavers by describing the four basic ways weavers tend to show up:
Connector
- Mapping networks
- Analyzing maps
- Closing triangles
- Building trust
Project Coordinator and Coaching Project Coordinators
- Forming action groups
- Setting up coordination systems
- Helping others form action groups
- Sharing back learning to the larger network
Network Catalyst and Facilitator
- Convening people to organize an intentional network
- Helping networks determine purpose and structure
- Setting up agendas and facilitating meetings for intentional networks
Network Guardian
- Identifying what a network needs
- Setting up communications systems and platforms
- Helping people use social media and the social web
- Setting up Innovation Funds
- Setting up evaluation and reflection
- Support and provide training for Network Weavers
In the most thriving, impactful networks that I’ve had the privilege to be a part of, each person takes up the responsibility for these different weaving needs and lends their time and gifts in these various ways. Sometimes the roles are defined - rotating facilitators or compensated project coordinators. But often they are fluid - members show up to a meeting and volunteer to facilitate or to connect key people in the network to the information and next steps post-meeting. It all depends on the needs, culture, and agreements of the given network. But the spirit of collective responsibility for weaving tends to be consistent across vibrant networks.
Though Holley places the “guardians” role on par with all other weaving roles, I have found that this is a role that requires special intention and a deeper level of network trust. Network Guardians are those who not only see and hear network needs but take on the added responsibility of building systems and processes that respond to those needs in alignment with the values of the network. For the Sterling Network, this critical role is reverently held by our Core Team. While the focus of the SNNYC Core Team has and we imagine will continue to evolve as the network itself evolves, the Core team is grounded by this charge to be weavers who also build culturally-aligned structures that will last beyond their term and serve the network for as long as possible. They are not the deciders. They are servant leaders.
Would it make sense for Youth Power Coalition to define itself this way as well?
June Holley makes another distinction that can be helpful when considering what activities are most crucial to the core functions of Youth Power Coalition, and that is that Network Guardians and Network Facilitators focus on the macro while Project Coordinators and Connectors focus on the micro. Could that be another way to distinguish what we consider core team functions?
Example of how the Sustainable Economies Law Center describes its structure:
Gifts that flow like water
Funding the Law Center is very different from donating to most nonprofits. We use participatory budgeting, so all 16 staff work to spread our funds across dozens of programs and projects. There are no bosses around here making the budgets or taking higher salaries. We have an equitable pay structure at the Law Center, where EVERYONE gets the same base salary based on location, with additional pay based on family support needs. The funding flows like water to where it can nourish the work we all find so inspiring and impactful. Here’s a gallery of current projects that would be fed by funding.
When the Law Center has an overflow of funds, we channel it to other projects and organizations in our ecosystem, which recently has included groups like Community Democracy in Action, Nonprofit Democracy Network, and People Power Solar Cooperative. This is even true of our staff: This year, four staff members voluntarily reduced their salaries and we directed $18,000 toward other organizations.
You might wonder why we don’t do as most lawyers do, and ask clients to pay us $300+ per hour. Indeed, the majority of our time is spent supporting other organizations – cooperatives, land trusts, and grassroots groups. Our choice not to charge most clients has to do with solidarity. The world our clients are creating and the lessons they teach us mean they support us as much as we support them. The Law Center exists because of them. We are all cells in the large movements for social justice, and we all survive by the same means: Asking for and giving support.
Learnings from Next Up: Young People Building Power in Oregon
Youth Compensation Matrix and Planning
To truly realize youth justice, we must incorporate economic justice and compensation into our programming. Why We Can't Wait: A Youth Data Portrait on Economic Justice | CLASP
Volunteers vs. Employees Research
The one commitment we’d like to not use stipends, it screws people over tax wise.
● Employee or Volunteer: What’s the Difference?
● Tempting But Confusing and Dangerous: Paying Volunteers Just a Little Something
● AVOID THE TAXABLE COMPENSATION PITFALL WHEN ACKNOWLEDGING VOLUNTEERS
A key idea is that paying youth organizers is about access and effectiveness. When young people are paid, they stay with the work!
Amazing, AMAZING resource from the Peer Defense Project
Key Categories
- Youth Worker Rights as Individuals
- Youth Worker Rights to Unionize
- Money and Compensation in Coalitions
Key Resources within Money and Compensation in Coalitions category
- Worker Self-Directed Non-profits
- Templates for worker-directed non-profits and projects
- How-to guides for nonprofits and worker-directed organizations
- Policies in a worker-directed nonprofit
- Non-profit democracy “learning journey” (models) doing collective governance work!
- Guidance for Youth on Negotiating Pay
Here’s a wonderful article! https://networkweaver.com/brave-questions-recalculating-pay-equity/
What I appreciated the most was this list of factors to consider.
- “Historical discrimination1.”
- “Net worth – wealth, not income2.” We ended up taking both wealth and income into account because the data shows both matter when looking at disparities in economic opportunities between black and white households.3 .
- “The number of people you support through this income4.”
- “Emotional labor5.”
- “Monthly expenses6,7.”
- And finally, “distributed and anticipated inheritance8,9,10,11.”
I incorporated many of these elements into our survey of financial experience.
See their pay scale calculator below