I just wanted to provide some clarifications and professional suggestions on this proposal. For those who don't know me, I am Omni's soon-to-be former bookkeeper / finance person. I am not opposed to this proposal at a "high level" but there are things that should be considered.
Silver also shared this with me last month: 2021 delegates meeting with
summary "agreed to hire Operations Coordinator (eventually) ":
https://omnicommons.org/wiki/Event:2021/03/11_Delegates. More discussion
was done the week before
https://omnicommons.org/wiki/Event:2021/03/04_Delegates. Operations
Coordinator shakes out to be the same thing as Executive Director.
As someone who was part of the discussions around the Operations Coordinator role (which was conceived partly in the context of Omni's initial efforts to refinance), saying that it is the "same thing" as Executive Director is actually inaccurate. There was a lot of discussion at the time about whether it would be the same as an Executive Director, and the consensus was that it would very much NOT BE an Executive Director role, with the ability to make unilateral "executive" decisions. That was why "Coordinator" was included in the title, Having an "Executive Director" is actually new territory for Omni.
The closest thing was when Emily was hired in December 2022 as "Finance Manager" after delegates decided that giving her an "Executive Director" role was too much power, among other reasons.
- Jamal
has a lot of organizational and professional experience, and connections to
city officials and orgs who may help. His primary immediate strategy is to
try and get our lender to give us another extension.
It is a bit awkward to read this, as we have received multiple communications from the lender through our lawyer that there would not be another extension. However, if someone new wants to give it a go, maybe the results will be different? But I am skeptical. However, I have been told that my natural skepticism is a personality flaw. At the very least, I would hope that Jamal has been forwarded / filled in on all the communications to date on this topic.
- *How can we pay for it?* Jamal has offered to fund the position
himself for the most part (current proposal, some small monthly fee ~$250,
with the rest of the money coming from a percentage of what he raises).
This is a big deal for Omni, which has almost no funds right now!
Here's the professional guidance, as someone who has worked in the "nonprofit industrial complex" for the past two decades ... being paid a percentage of fundraised income is really counter to "best practices" and is generally frowned upon by most "aligned" non-profit fundraising professionals. There are numerous reasons to avoid a contract where a staff person is "paid a percentage of what they raise." Some of them are legal regulations about "private inurement" -- which I believe Jesse can explain to you.
In general, having a staff person responsible for "raising their own salary" is something that is frowned on, because it creates a lot of stress for the staff person, and it is tied into equity issues. However, considering Jamal being hired for this role is an effort to create/improve equity (in the DEI sense, not in the financial sense), it does make things more complicated and worthy of discussion.
Sincerely,Sarah L