Friday, November 30, 2012

Tweeting for trustees


(Photo from my twitter stream, November 30, 2012)

That tweet is something I've never seen before - "Tweeting for Trustees" I called it when I retweeted it and watched it take on life.

The idea is impressive to me - My Society, the brand name of the UK Citizens Online Democracy, is inviting people to apply to be trustees of the organization. MySociety is home to such services as FixMyStreet.com, WhatDoTheyKnow.com, WriteToThem.com and TheyWorkForYou.com and has recently received financial support from the Omidyar Network and Open Society Foundations. Here is a primer from the UK Charity Commission on what it means to be a trustee. I wish I qualified, I'd apply.

Back in the winter and spring of 2012 I wrote about how governance would need to change given increasing expectations of accountability. This was one of the more important lessons of the Komen Foundation meltdown, in my opinion. It's going to be fascinating to create new models of governance that take advantage of the tools we have and help organizations better serve communities. (This is a theme in the coming Blueprint 2013) .

If you know other nonprofits or foundations that are really opening up their governance methods, processes, participants please point me to them.  I'd love your help in finding great examples - as always, please load them in comments, tweet me at @p2173 or send via email.

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