Thank you for your interest in running for a seat on the Board of the Organization for Transformative Works!
Eligibility
To be eligible as a candidate, you must:
- Be a paying member of OTW by eight weeks prior to the election.
- Be at least 18 years old at the time of the election.
- Be a current member serving as a volunteer on a standing committee of the OTW.
- Have served as a volunteer for 9 of the 12 months prior to the month in which the election will occur.
- Not be a member of the Elections Committee during the year of candidacy.
- Be willing to provide a brief public statement summarizing your philosophy, goals for the organization, and view on future directions for the organization, among other topics of your choosing.
- Run under your legal name. All Board members must serve under their legal names according to IRS regulations for incorporated nonprofit organizations.
To declare your candidacy, send your declaration to our Elections Committee at elections@transformativeworks.org. Please include a statement that you are over 18, the committee(s) on which you will have served a total of at least 9 months by the required date listed on the timeline, and your legal name. If you have been serving under a pseudonym, the chair of the Volunteers & Recruiting committee will be asked to confirm your service, and the chair of the Development & Membership committee will be asked to confirm that you are a paid member. Your fannish pseudonym will be held in confidence.
Board Responsibilities
Note: This section was written in 2011. Information here may be out of date.
Being an OTW Board member is a serious position of stewardship. The requirement of one term’s service was written very early on into our bylaws, and it is intended to produce a pool of candidates with a demonstrated commitment to the organization and its values.
We do want to have elections rather than just appointing board replacements to ensure that changes in the fannish community over time will influence the OTW and keep it relevant. But we also want to make sure that only effective candidates who are really committed to the OTW get elected. Someone who isn’t familiar with the OTW tools and committees already would take a lot more time getting up to speed and slow down the work of the board. We also don’t want a free-for-all where any outsider can throw their hat into the ring and waste the time of legitimate candidates, or worse yet be deliberately obstructionist.
The goal of these elections is to have continuity and stability in the OTW as well as inviting fresh perspectives. But as an all-volunteer organization, it’s important to us to have candidates who understand our constraints and are willing to work to make change happen. In this, we’re pretty typical; board members of nonprofits are generally people who have a long history of involvement with an organization.
If you think you would like to run for the board in future, please volunteer: there is no shortage of work at OTW! And there is no better preparation for the work of being on the board than being a committee member. We need all sorts of skills: please check the volunteer form to see which roles we’re currently recruiting for. If no roles are listed there, please check back regularly or watch one of our official news outlets for more information.