Foundation Board Minutes for Tuesday, August 21st 2018, 15:30 UTC
Next meeting date Tuesday, August 28 2018, 14:30 UTC
Attending
Regrets
Missing
Agenda
- Executive Director report (Neil)
- ED remunerations and appraisals (a guest advisor with nonprofit experience dials in from 15:45 UTC - 16:15 UTC)
- Foundation hackfest (Allan)
- Formal thanks to Max Huang for his work on GNOME.Asia (Neil)
Minutes
- Executive Director report
- Neil sent a draft of a report, everyone please review it. It's quite verbose and took a long time to put together, so if we want to maintain that level of detail it should be monthly. If we are okay with less detail, it could be biweekly.
- Carlos: This draft is great. Can we have this and also a shorter weekly update?
- Neil: Weekly could be too short to properly give context for some things.
- Nuritzi/Neil: This will also tie into our discussion with the nonprofit advisor later in the meeting.
ACTION - Everyone please review the report if you haven't already.
[ Neil and Rosanna leave ]
- ED remunerations and appraisals (a guest advisor with nonprofit experience dials in from 15:45 UTC - 16:15 UTC)
- The goal of the session is to review our current practices against the advisor's best practices, as well as California law which the Foundation is subject to.
- The most important job of the board is evaluating the executive director's performance and setting their compensation. This is standard practice across many nonprofits but has not happened in a consistent way over the last few years.
- We need to figure out if this is something we want to do, and if so, how.
- Anything relating to the rest of the Foundation's staff, is the responsibility of the ED, not the board.
- What's the best reporting frequency for the ED and what form should these reports take?
- It's important to ensure accountability to the board, but on the other hand it should not be overly burdensome.
- We decide that, going forward, the ED should aim to present a report in the first board meeting of every month.
- Many nonprofit boards create a compensation committee to set the ED's compensation.
- We think this is a good idea.
- Points raised around the importance of continuity in the board as relates to accountability and accomplishing goals.
- We discussed the pros and cons of having staggered board terms of 2 or 3 years with half or a third of the board turning over every year.
ACTION - Rob: Propose a charter for the compensation committee.
[ Neil and Rosanna return ]
- Foundation hackfest (Allan)
- Allan: 17-19 October (not including travel). Very likely going to be Cambridge, office space is booked, we just need to figure out who needs accommodation and when
- (Info from Kat:) Cambridge accommodation options (e.g.):
- £62 per room 1-2 people for Travelodge
- £25 per person for 3 people per room in Travelodge
- We'll look for an Airbnb or equivalent local large place as well
- Nuritzi: Staying in the same place increases informal camaraderie
ACTION - Update the GitLab ticket with who needs and who doesn't need accommodation (provisionally assigned to Allan, Kat)
VOTE - Approve travel for the Foundation board and Foundation employees to attend the Foundation hackfest 17-19 October
- +1 Nuritzi, Rob, Federico, Allan, Carlos, Philip
[ Carlos leaves ]
- Formal thanks to Max Huang for his work on GNOME.Asia (Neil)
VOTE - The board expresses its thanks to Max for all the hard work he has put into GNOME.Asia and requests that Neil sends a formal thank you
- +1 Rob, Philip, Allan, Nuritzi, Federico
Actions
- Everyone - review the Executive Director report
Allan, Kat - Update the GitLab ticket (https://gitlab.gnome.org/Community/Board/issues/75) with who needs and who doesn't need accommodation during the hackfest
- Rob - Propose a charter for the compensation committee