[Osmf-talk] Board meeting/closed session
Christoph Hormann
chris_hormann at gmx.de
Fri Apr 20 13:05:39 UTC 2018
On Friday 20 April 2018, Peter Barth wrote:
>
> re your point 1+2: I think the main reason for that is or was, that
> based on the original inquiry we didn't know what they exactly want
> from us. So the idea was to move it to the end to a closed session so
> we can openly discuss or talk about the motives without disclosing
> the name (yet).
>
> As there remained questions, the only outcome of that discussion was:
> We'll get back to the potential donor and try to clarify before any
> further discussions.
Hello Peda,
that provides some more detail on what you did in the closed part of the
meeting (which i had a somewhat different impression of before since
based on what was written in the agenda it seemed fairly clear what the
potential donor wants).
Anyway my questions were fairly specific regarding the procedure of
closing the meeting for this matter and regarding what kind of decision
can be expected about this kind of inquiry and how this requires
discussing the identity of the potential donor here.
> Re COI: Only Frederik refrained completely. But as there had been no
> real discussion but only questions, it might be too early to judge if
> there is a COI for others or not. Except you'd argue there's a
> general COI for any kind of (corporate) donations.
No, for specific donations i expect a COI primarily in cases where the
potential donor is in a business relationship or in competition with an
organization/business the board member in question is involved with
(via employment or otherwise).
For general policy development regarding donations (which as said is IMO
the more relevant case) you could argue that any board member who is or
works for a potential donor has a COI. But you could also argue that
the most common reasons of people making donation (tax reasons, desire
to support the OSMF, positive publicity) do not actually bear the
possibility of a conflict with the interests of the OSMF.
Things are more tricky though since OSMF policy on donations has the
potential to influence the distribution of income of the OSMF and
potential donors might have an interest to influence the distribution
of income of the OSMF in certain ways.
> On a general note: I personally find this COI topic quite difficult
> and it still needs a lot more discussion. But from what I've seen so
> far (at board but also in private chats) is, that there are very
> different opinions as to what a COI is and how to handle it.
Indeed. The concept of a COI is a fairly abstract thing - many people
mistake it as meaning a case where an undue influence actually occurs
in an objectively verifiable form - which is not what a COI means.
Instead it refers to the mere risk of this happening.
The other frequent evasive argument that is brought up, in particular in
the non-profit domain, is the "we are all working for the same goals
anyway" argument, the claim that because everyone is evidently invested
in a common primary goal this automatically rules out the possibility
that secondary interests affect the pursuit of this goal.
In my eyes this topic is one of the most obvious points where the OSMF
needs to change radically. The lack of clear procedure and
transparency requirements in that context in the OSMF looks frightening
to me, in particular in terms of reputational risks this creates. The
idea that in an organization of the size and scope of the OSMF this can
exclusively be based on personal trust in those in decision making
position is unrealistic and ultimately reckless IMO.
--
Christoph Hormann
http://www.imagico.de/
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