Jason Della Rocca on Formalizing IGDA

I've been reading the ongoing discussions about reconstructing IGDA, and this all feels like deja vu. In early 2007, IGDA proposed the formalization of chapters. A comprehensive debate about chapter formalization, the future of IGDA, and membership value ensued on the [chapter_admin] listserv. Chapter leaders met at GDC San Francisco that year for a leadership/formalization conference. Jason Della Rocca was a wonderful executive director, and as I was going through the archive I retained, I found some gems that I thought would help further the discussions here. (Only the former executive director is quoted here, but there's a lot of good stuff in that listserv by a lot of bright people.)

IGDA serves chapters to serve members
Forget about the brand junk, the mission and whatever. The real chain here is that the IGDA serves the chapters so that chapters can serve the needs of local members. The IGDA's mandate is to provide the tools, resources, support, etc, that chapters need to be awesome and to do great things for local developers. End of story. No doubt, in helping chapters be awesome, the IGDA will benefit in different ways. The key here is that the IGDA is serving you, and not the other way around! Formalization helps the IGDA to better serve chapters.

Current model was born of ignorance
Having "real" formal chapters is the way that associations are supposed to operate. Of course, the specific details vary substantially from org to org. The point being that the current model is not a valid model. It is a model that CMP and Jason came up with 6 years ago when we had absolutely no clue how any of this was supposed to work. Holding on to something that was created from complete ignorance, just for the sake of tradition is a flawed approach. Just as one example, SIGGRAPH has a very similar formalization process, requiring bylaws, a petition from 20 local members, elections, etc. Some form of formalization is the proper way for a legit/mature association to do things.

Framework for distributed leadership
The IGDA is not interested in rigid command-and-control leadership structures. Everything we do is about pushing leadership and the ability to take action as far and wide as possible. Our approach to leadership has been much more about coordinating and cultivating. Are we great at this? No, not yet. It is an ongoing challenge and we strive to improve at it every day. Some of the boring elements of formalization is what will enable us to better empower local leaders. Right now, the pieces are simply not in place from a legal and financial perspective to allow for it. Formalization provides the necessary framework for chapters to lead themselves.

Value needs to be greater than effort
The crux of the problem for those who are resisting this change is a sense that the (hopefully minimal) extra amount of work done, will provide no tangible value to the chapter and/or local members. If the rewards for that extra bit of work were so overwhelming, we wouldn't be having this discussion. So yes, the challenge is for the IGDA to make this all worthwhile. We believe the answer to be yes. Yes, this will improve chapters and yes, this will enable all of us to better serve members. Also, we are so accustomed to the hacked and ad hoc approach to chapters today (reference the "broken model" paragraph above), that it is admittedly hard for us to envision what a proper model will bring us... Formalization is the first step in providing greater value and support to chapters.

One-Size Fits All
Guess what, we already have a one-size fits all solution! There's only one current model and it is the same model we use with all chapters. So, kinda odd that everyone is so against a similar one-sized approach. The idea here is that we want to gut the current solution and put in place the formal solution. However, even with formalization, each chapter will still have a massive amount of control and leadership, and get to decide what your "end product" is. I think of it like Internet infrastructure: we want to upgrade the TCP/IP protocol, and have no intention to mess with the actual content that fly across the pipes.

Pro Developer Focus
Perhaps we do a poor job of communicating this, but the IGDA's board (and our mission) is focused on professional developers first and foremost. Yes, we do a lot to encourage links with academia. Yes, we help guide students and provide resources for them to better integrate into the industry. Yes, we are friendly with government officials who want to support the industry. Etc, etc, etc. Yet, it all comes back to professional developers as our focus (ie, we do all those other things because we believe that it/they will help professional developers). And, if other people can benefit from the work/focus, great! So, we will definitely expect chapters to take a similar approach. BTW, Austin's targeting of pro developers, but still helping out local students with different resources, it a great example of this in action.

Student Future Fallacy
The whole "students are the org's future" is a fallacy! The IGDA supports students because they are the future of our industry - not the org. Current practice is that a student joins the IGDA as a way into the industry, leverages the various resources and programs, gets a job, realizes that the IGDA was primarily a tool to help him/her get a job, and subscribed to the common misconception that the IGDA is irrelevant to pros, and never renews again. BTW, we have seen this happen time and time again, even with the students who gain the most from the IGDA (eg, GDC scholarship recipients). This is not only true of the IGDA, but it is an ongoing challenge within the entire non-profit membership association community. The key being that few people stay out of a sense of obligation. Instead, we need to ensure that the IGDA is as useful/relevant to them as a pro as it was when they were a student.

Foster vs Encourage
For the record, we have always pushed chapters as a tool to "foster" community. That is to say, chapters are to serve an EXISTING community (or more so an existing local industry that have yet to come together as a community). No doubt that encouragement/growth aspects are a byproduct of that fostering. However, we specifically state that a chapter is NOT a sufficient framework for creating an industry/community from scratch (ie, build an IGDA chapter in a given city and a game industry will materialize where there was none previously). Sure, chapters are a great thing, but they are not that great

Scare Tactics = Bad
We have no intent to "scare" chapters into formalizing. Yes, insurance is a good thing to have, but that's not what we are pushing here. Insurance is just one of the elements of the overall plan. Another potential scare would be from the IRS. Our legal counsel has hinted that the current approach leaves us in a very grey area and would likely be heavily scrutinized if we were audited (oh boy, would that be ugly if chapter coordinators were taxed personally for chapter related sponsorship dealings, etc). So ya, formalization helps clean that up too. Regardless of the potential pitfalls, we want formalization to be so obviously valuable for all the cool stuff it will provide chapters and the local community. (Though, sadly, it seems we're not doing a good job of that so far

Board Flexibility / Advisors
The election portion of the bylaws will have flexibility built in. So, for example, "has shipped a commercial game" could be a criteria for being a board director (this came up several times at the GDC workshop, and also seems to be what Austin would want). Also, like the IGDA itself, you could simply not allow student members to vote. The bylaws could also include a section for the appointment of an "advisory board" (which sounds a lot like what Austin is doing with their board of studio heads).

Revenue Action
We are open to exploring revenue sharing options. One model, as mentioned, is to allow for each chapter to set their own local member fee (say $10). Then, when a member joins at the IGDA site, they would pay their $48 regular IGDA fee, select chapter x, and be charged the additional local due of $10. Total dues are $58. The IGDA could handle all the online processing/etc, and then simply deposit all collected dues into the chapter bank account each month (or whatever interval). The key with this approach is that chapters are on the hook for providing local member benefits (ie, if you are collecting dues, you will be under the same pressure to make it worthwhile to join (which, ultimately, should not be hard given you are hosting meetings, giving out booze, etc)). Also, FYI, in this case, a chapter can opt to set $0 as their due... Another option is for the IGDA to simply collect the regular member fee of $48, and then allocate, say $5, of that to be paid out to the chapter the member is linked to. In this case, it would have to be the same rate paid out to each chapter, and may necessitate raising the membership fee... Personally, I'm fine with either option (or some other approach) and actually would want to enable this kind of funds generation for chapters...

Formalization? Run for the hills!
OK fine, the doc we presented was not a good "sales" tool. Yet, why does everyone freak out when they hear the word "formalization"? Seems like a lot of the resistance is standard human nature to resist change. Also, lots of concern over the workload. What if we said, this will take 2hours up front to set up and then 1hour of additional work every year thereafter? Would formalization still be so scary? What if we were there to hold your hand every step of the way, provide all the templates and tools, etc? Still so scary? What if we had called it the "USA Chapters Upgrade Phase 1"

International is gonna be 100x harder
Thanks for the input from our international folks so far. As suggested, figuring this out for international is going to be crazy hard. That's scary and why we are pushing it out. Also, being a USA based org allows for a lot of short cuts, so what we do internationally will not look anything like what we do in the US. It will have similar intent/etc, but implementation will be different.

Incubation Period
We anticipate the need to have an incubation/gestation period whereby start-up chapters are given a certain amount of time to get the ball rolling, get things organized, etc, etc. Allowing chapters to stay in that incubation period indefinitely, however, would not be an option as it would defeat the whole purpose of formalization...

Necessary Evolution
We would not be embarking on this (and giving you all heartburn) if it wasn't a necessary step in the maturation and evolution of the IGDA as a professional organization. As noted previously, the current model is not a valid model for association chapters.

Chapter Success
The IGDA cannot succeed if chapters do not succeed. While it seems we are at times in an antagonistic role, our ultimate pursuit here is to enable chapters to kick ass. Awesome chapters is what the IGDA/chapters/members all want and need. Formalization - done right - is the path to that success.

Future Vision
Part of the challenge is that we are so mired down in the current work and challenges and structures of chapters today, that it is hard to envision what chapters of tomorrow will look like. Asking coordinators to do more work for exactly what exists today is a dead end. Agree 100%. We are asking for cooperation to enable the "next gen" of chapters to materialize. And, as part of this, we admit that there's a whole other bunch of IGDA stuff that needs fixing (eg, org identity, membership value proposition, etc) -- all things we are also working on.

Phased Approach
Dallas has offered to be the first chapter to formalize. Chicago and San Diego have also offered to be guinea pigs. So yes, a phased approach is very likely. Plus realistically, setting things up the first few times will help us write the "how to" manual with more accuracy

Separate USA/International Models
To Emanuele's points on international models, in the end we will have to have two models: one for USA based chapters and another for chapters outside of the USA. So, in effect, will not have a one-size fits all OVERALL chapter solution. We'll have one size for the USA and one much more complicated size abroad...A restructuring of membership (with seven tiers) was proposed later that year, too. I don't know how any of these proposals fared during 2008 since I had left by then to work on my current venture.