Re: Question for candidates

[Ekaterina Gerasimova <kittykat3756 gmail com>]

On 20 May 2014 00:48, Michael Catanzaro <mcatanzaro gnome org> wrote:
> On Mon, 2014-05-19 at 16:55 +0100, David King wrote:
> > Finally, and only once the financial situation is more clear, the
> > board
> > needs to find a new executive director. I anticipate that these
> > goals,
> > which in some ways amount to getting the Foundation "back on track"
> > will be challenging to meet over the next year.
>
> I have a follow-up question (for David and incumbents): why do you want
> (or not want) to hire a new executive director? What responsibilities do
> you think the executive director role should entail? Can the foundation
> afford to wait to hire a new executive director?

I would expect the executive director to be responsible for the
day-to-day running of the Foundation, for executing instruction from
the board, fundraising, making sure that adboard fees are paid in a
timely manner, seeking out new sources of funding, communicating with
the community, representing the Foundation in an official capacity,
seeking out legal advice from pro-bono lawyers when needed… there are
many important tasks that an executive director does on a week-to-week
basis which the current board has taken over. Unfortunately, these do
add up to more than can be reasonable expected of any board to do on a
volunteer basis, so I think a second employee is essential.

The issue from a financial point of view is that the Foundation cannot
afford to hire an executive director right now. Doing so right now
would threaten the existence of the Foundation. I think the Foundation
will be more stable from a financial point of view by around GUADEC
time, which means that the hiring process can probably be started in
June after revisiting the finances.

> I'm asking because most of Karen's work was not highly-visible. I'm
> aware that she worked on recruiting new advisory board members and spoke
> at conferences, both of which seem important. But I'm sure there must be
> more to the job that I am unaware of, to justify the significant
> expense.

Apart from fundraising, it is difficult to assess the impact of an
executive director on the Foundation as most of the other duties do
not produce an immediate and quantifiable result. I agree that the
expense is quite significant, especially from a European point of
view, which is why I am keen to partially tie it in with our income.

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