@Sophie.Xu I started this Hub post to track our YPC governance training project!
I’ve tagged this project as in the exploring phase right now because we need to figure out things like what’s on the agenda. I made this post a wiki so it’s editable by both of us.
Agenda Brainstorm
What is governance?
What’s your existing experience with decision-making?
What works for you?
What doesn’t?
What are the basics of our governance process?
Sociocracy
Advice process
What is intergenerational governance?
What’s YPC’s governance structure?
What are our circles?
Show Peerdom
Consent to using Peerdom (Deborah: I question this. I think we can more get feedback but it’s not time to consent because we’re introducing it for the first time and can get full consent after)
What does it mean to be a member?
All members of partner organizations are members of YPC!
Team members
All members of our working circles are members of the team
Working members and supporting member?
What are the different circle roles?
Leader
Secretary
Facilitator
Delegate
How do we update governance structure?
What do we need to know as leaders to implement governance successfully?
Lead/facilitator breakout
Membership process
Facilitation process
Secretary breakout
Notetaking process
Collaboration platforms onboarding process
How do we continuously learn governance?
Share-out of what you learned today
Commitment to learning within our role descriptions
#learning-governance channel
Learning Library
Everyone has their buddy
Everyone’s work is to train others
What else is needed?
Recruitment Brainstorm
All YPC team members are highly encouraged to attend. Lead, facilitator, and secretary role holders are required to attend or to watch a recording of the training and respond to guiding questions.
Members of partner orgs are invited to attend as paying attendees to receive training. Frame YPC specific training as an opportunity to see how we set up systems to make governance possible.
Here are the notes from the governance section of our November Mission Circle meeting! I thought it would be helpful to capture here.
What is governance?
Governance is how we make decisions as a group.
What are the goals of good governance?
Think about one word and a one-sentence explanation, and we’ll just go around in a circle.
Deborah: Equity in power and decision making to transform our world from an oppressive system to a transformative system
Sophie: Transparency, accountability, trust, honesty, anti-corruption to make sure we respect each other’s dignity and prevent harassment. (in a previous comment: how structures + power impact styles and different features/methods commonly used in governance. Governance includes many collective processes that help form decisions, so I’m excited to hear about how you’ll describe the “how.”)
Kellen: Making sure all voices in the room are heard. Just because we’re the majority doesn’t mean we should be any more included than others. Evaluate the minority in the room.
Jackie: Governance to be a process that everybody knows about. We have to agree upon ways of working.
Julisa: Communication and inclusion.
Emmanuela: Being caring and mindful. Being respectful to those not in the room. Making decisions through consent as we already do but with transparency. Think of everyone being part of the decision making. Add different factors into the whole equation.
Rachel: Responsiveness and transparency.
William: Intersectional because even if someone might be specialized in one area, we want to make sure we know and are responsive to all areas.
Carline: Making sure we listen to people. Efficiency and practicality.
Far: Transparency is intersectional and even intergenerational.
Michael: Efficient with synergy. Objective.
What are key elements of governance at YPC?
Who: It’s everyone’s responsibility!
Why: Governance is inseparable from our mission of powering youth-led collective impact. What does “power” mean, for example, it means the power to decide and make change in the world. The way we act internally is the change we’ll manifest in the world.
How: Our blueprint at the moment is Sociocracy, but as we evolve, so will our governance structure. We also acknowledge that Sociocracy is an European formation of principles that have been around for many generations and that we especially need to learn about governance indigenous to this land. Ultimately governance is a strategy for fulfilling our mission of youth-led collective impact and so needs to evolve into our own thing that’s truly aligned with our vision, mission, and values.
What: Examples of some key practices of governance
We have conversations in public. Communicate at the greatest level of transparency possible so everyone has access to information.
We move at the speed of trust, taking time to build relationships, understanding and exploring decisions together before making decisions.
Deborah: Efficiency with trust.
We actively solicit and give feedback so we can all learn and grow together. We are all responsible for the principles and values of YPC, including protecting our governance practices.
Deborah: Train each other so that governance does not fall apart as things grow.
We take part in a learning community. Check out the #learning-governance Slack channel.
We develop all members as leaders through clearly defined roles (more on this to come) that we both fully embrace and gladly train others to take over
What are other elements that are important to you about governance at YPC? And, where have things been unclear?
@Sophie.Xu@Far-Pritte expressed wanting to spread sociocracy and our governance practices far and wide! I shared an idea that this governance training can be both for YPC team members AND a leadership development training for people outside of the YPC team.
