I am looking for examples of a membership organization (preferably a not-for profit organization) that currently has a board of directors that is elected by the organization’s members AND which has decided (the board of directors has decided) that it wants to move towards using Sociocracy.
Have you been involved in any such implementation of Sociocracy?
Are you willing to share your experience with me?
How did you make the move?
What steps did you take?
What hurdles did you encounter?
What suggestions do you have for this type of situation?
I don’t have an org that fits this bill, only an org where the board is elected and it hasn’t decided to be sociocratic but it’s using circles and (mostly) consent. That’s CNVC.
I have to say that the mismatch between members voting and circle/consent based running of the org can be rough.
In reference to what I said, I find that it’s tricky that the voting members don’t really have insight into what happens on the board, so you get basically a popularity contest with not enough feedback what the people are like in working relationships. In other words: the voting happens via public appearance, and is detached from the working relationships. It can lead to campaigning and can lead to situations where you get the most opinionated people on the board because they care enough to campaign. But it’s hard to work with opinionated people. And you get dynamics of “I was voted onto the board by xyz subsegment so I have to represent their voice now” and ‘giving in’ looks like favor or betrayal. So you basically plant a heavily competitive segment inside a collaborative one.
ABUNDANCE NETWORKING COOP
That’s the tentative name of a nonprofit that I’m in the process of organizing. I have quite a bit of info about it at (ABUNDANCE NETWORKING COOP - by Len Kinder) . There are only 2 other guys who are discussing with me so far (one near St. Louis, like me, and one in Nigeria). There are a few others who are interested but not discussing yet (one in Australia, another I forget). I invited people to join a core group for it. I said I want to get 6 to 8 members in order to have better sociocratic decision making.
I haven’t had gobs of sociocracy experience, but some. Someone in the Netherlands first told me about it in 2005. She was working with the founders, I think. She helped me organize a group online to teach the group sociocracy in 2006. Before that I had some experience with Quaker meetings. I really appreciated that they let everyone be heard and participate in decision making.
I still can’t afford to join SoFA, maybe in a couple months, after legal expenses diminish. But I want to start trying to be productive while I’m waiting to get more income.
My plan is to use A.N.C. to help people start sociocratic coops everywhere for income, health & political activism. The guy in Nigeria plans to make videos online, so I hope to collaborate with him on that. I’m providing him with some advice on how to start a local sociocratic business coop.
Anyone interested is invited to join my core group, or at least have discussions. LKINDRatYahooDotCom.
I am on the board of a food cooperative in Portland, Oregon, and I am looking for a strategy for how to implement sociocracy in our organization. Honestly, I wish there was an easy process, but our co-op is organized under “Chapter 62 - Cooperatives” in the State of Oregon, which stipulates a specific role where boards of co-ops must exercise “corporate powers.” Our bylaws add additional details as to what this means for our organization. Thus, state law and our bylaws are presently at odds with sociocracy. And, so, Eric, I am in agreement with you. Adopting sociocracy within a traditional organization that has operated in a specific way for decades is challenging. I, too, am wondering what bridge exists that allows for traditional organizations to adopt sociocracy.
Hey there Collin,
I think “exercising corporate powers” is not as hot as it sounds. Some delegation in organizations is standard. So it’s more about creating more clarity of who holds what domain. In a way, the Mission Circle/board “passes on” decisionmaking domains so that’s a frame of delegation.