Local control of membership dues
Here's a modest proposal from an ex-member. I'm going to stop calling myself a non-member of the IGDA. I'm really an ex-member. I'm waiting to see "a great sign" that one of several IGDA problems has been solved, before I consider rejoining.
What if when members join a local Chapter, a large percentage of their funds stayed with the local Chapter, and did not go to IGDA central? Large as in 50%.
- It would encourage members to keep their local Chapters alive.
- It would give local Chapters more financial and political power compared to the central IGDA. It would decentralize an (IMO) too strongly centralized IGDA.
- It would cut the funding of programs that benefit relatively few people, such as the GDC, or force those programs to find ways of raising revenue to offset their cost.
- It would create accounting problems for local Chapters, as embezzlement could be a real problem.
Also, if members didn't have a local Chapter within anything resembling a reasonable number of miles, their 50% would go to a pool for the region to fund the creation of a new local Chapter.
Thoughts?
Local control of membership dues is a component of the Chapter Formalization process and has been for over a year. As far as I know, the org is still waiting for several North American chapters to formalize so that this can be put into effect.
As to the status of your local chapters, I can't speak.
Interesting, Dustin. I'd never heard that it was part of the formalization process. Would you mind telling us more info, or linking me to a place where I can read it? I'm curious about the formalization process in general, why there is a hang-up like this, how much of the dues would stay with a local chapter if this plan were to be enacted, etc.
I am definitely in favor of supporting local chapters and decentralizing the organization a tad bit. I'd love to see a a more flexible system designed to empower local chapters, as long as it doesn't come at the expense of efforts like QOL - and with the way things stand, I'd bet that more vibrant local chapters would lead to more powerful organization-wide initiatives.
I'll have to see if I can dig out the docs (I'm sure I can), but as part of the formalization process, there were provisions made so that a percentage of each membership went directly to the Chapter.
There were also provisional dollars for funding of Chapter activities (like symposiums or one day conferences). These programs may or may not have been funded, but they were part of the multi-year discussion on Chapter formalization.
What if the organization considered a tiered structure for local chapters? The most basic split would be between formalized chapters and unformalized, with the formalized ones being more structured, having an individual fund/treasury, etc., but not excluding the possibility of informal chapters that don't have the infrastructure to support money handling and the like.
That would also resolve hang-ups where progress is prevented across the board because specific chapters are not formalizing.
As I understand it, the funding is incentive for Chapters to formalize, so I don't see it being available for informal groups and rightly so. Formal Chapters have elected Boards, are responsible for paperwork and updates to the HQ and have remedies for problems that occur. There's very little reason to support informal groups if you're trying to get a better control on the brand and the value proposition for members.
Right, I definitely wasn't suggesting funding informal chapters, for logistical reasons if nothing else. In order to equitably support chapters there needs to be some standardized structure to them. I was suggesting to allow some chapters to formalize and receive funding without necessarily waiting for others.
You did say that the reason this hasn't moved forward is because certain chapters have not formalized, right? Meaning that the reticence of a few is somehow preventing the IGDA from supporting the ones that have formalized?
Most of my questions are just rooted in lack of knowledge of the process, I suppose, so I'll wait for you to dig up those documents.
I agree with the OP but I have to ask what about SIGs? I know they are more decentralized than chapters but also need funding for some initiatives.
For some reason I'm having a hard time finding these docs. I know some people who have them and will ask to expedite.
As for SIG funding, there was a process for submission of a grant from the IGDA to fund various initiative, including those of SIGs. Where that is now, I don't know.
I all completly agree with that