[Osmf-talk] Hiring help for OSMF administrative tasks

[Henk Hoff]

Some good points have been made by several people on the list.

When we discussed this in the board meeting, we also mentioned that the time we save (either in the board or in the working groups) should be spend on other things that now aren't done or not done good enough. There needs to be a benefit. 

We already have paid part-time bookkeeper (on a contract basis). In the past we have paid for specific legal counsel; also for specific development work in order to get things done in time. The concept of having to pay people to do things is not completely new to us.

We can get into a discussion about whether we should or should not be hiring help. However, there is no disagreement in the board on whether we should be doing this. We all feel we can benefit from this. 
At the same time we are also aware that we need to spend money wisely. Hence the initial question of Frederik on the do's and don'ts. We're not the first organisation dealing with these issues.  When there are experiences available, we'd like to learn from them.

Some of you have already shared useful information. Thank you for those. 
Keep them coming :-)  We appreciate your input. 

Henk

-----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
Van: Anders Anker-Rasch [mailto:anders at anker-rasch.no] 
Verzonden: woensdag 11 maart 2015 21:49
Aan: osmf-talk at openstreetmap.org
Onderwerp: Re: [Osmf-talk] Hiring help for OSMF administrative tasks

Hi,
I'm a fairly new member to OSMF, but I have many years experience running volunteer organizations.

I will not get into the discussions of who does what and to what extent/amount of time, but I will give my input to the concept of hiring help vs doing everything as part of volunteer work.

In my experience, when volunteers first show up, they are enthusiastic and eager to contribute. But on more than one occasion, the reason for joining wasn't based on knowledge about the actually administrative work being done. Thus, given the amount of administrative tasks they are assigned, they eventually burn out because "this wasn't what they signed up for" or "I want to get back to how I initially got involved with the organization".
My experience with this is from professional paintball; where the core element is adrenaline rush and exciting competition. Administrative tasks in the national federation was making match schedules, writing(you guessed it)minutes, and follow-up on all sorts of applications, field specifications, and tournament organizing. The other, more recent was mountain biking; tasks much the same, but the actually mountain biking suffer quickly when you "have to attend that meeting with the city counsel". People burn out, and you lose the few that wanted to participate because they have to make the choice between family, and activities OR volunteer work.

TL;DR:
My advice is simple: Admin stuff get boring quickly. Get committed people to do as much "fun stuff" as possible, and pay someone to take care of the more boring tasks. Feasible? Maybe not. And, committed people will probably do many of the tasks anyway because they see the need for it ("If I don't do it, no-one else will"). But I would make an effort to establish what tasks that should be "outsourced" so to speak, and based on that see if it is possible to combine that work into a payed position. 


--
mvh/best regards
Anders Anker-Rasch
 View Anders Anker-Rasch's profile
https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/anders_ar

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