Organizational Effectiveness (SCOE) Project: Discussion Forum

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This space is for all those interested in updates and discussion regarding Transforming ALA Governance. This space was originally created to share the work of the Steering Committee on Organizational Effectiveness (SCOE) who was charged in June 2018 to carry out a comprehensive review and study of ALA’s governance, member participation and legal structures and systems, with the goal of proposing changes that will vitalize its success, strength and agility as a 21st century association. The results of this committee are the Forward Together recommendations.

Forward Together: Recommendations for a reimagined American Library Association governance model 

Nov 18, 2019 03:13 PM

Dear Members,

We heard you. Members want an effective, nimble, inclusive, member-driven American Library Association. Maintaining the status quo with our 100-year-old governance structure will not allow ALA to be the leading library association that members demand. In order for libraries and librarianship to thrive in the future, we invite members to move ALA Forward Together.

Relying on input from thousands of members and data about ALA membership trends and finances, the Steering Committee on Organizational Effectiveness (SCOE) has worked since 2018 to develop and refine a package of recommendations to ALA members. Forward Together aligns with the streams of change already underway within ALA related to finances, real estate holdings, technology, and staffing.

Forward Together proposes a package of interrelated recommendations which are necessarily complex -- because ALA is large and complex. We recommend changes to the board and committees for more direct election and input by members. Forward Together streamlines ways for members to get involved, participate, and influence ALA.

The financial realities and advocacy needs faced by libraries calls for bold leadership. Share the excitement in moving ALA Forward Together. We invite you to review the attached document that details the input and refinement process, background information, rationale for recommendations, and some of the most important data reviewed related to membership trends and dues, ALA finances, and streams of change. 

Forward Together was presented to the ALA Executive Board at their Fall Meeting in October. Recognizing the multiple streams of change occurring in the association right now, the Executive Board decided to move into the next phase of Forward Together including a transition of the work from SCOE to a new member group. The details of this transition and move to the next phase are still being worked on and we hope to share more information with you all closer to Midwinter, as well as a new, extended timeline that will allow for continuous changes to our governance model and Forward Together, modeling the iterative, 12-month process with continuous checks and balances to increase member participation in not only Forward Together but also in our association. The attached document is the report as it was presented to the Executive Board in October. Forthcoming changes are not reflected except in the opening note.

We thank you for all of your input and feedback thus far and look forward to sharing even more information and details over the coming months. Stay tuned for participation opportunities both virtually and in person!

All the best,
Lessa

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Dec 19, 2019 03:57 PM

Hi Everyone!

Please feel free to start a new thread in the discussion area of this Community! It is often easier to reply directly and have more conversation in that area, rather than the comments portion of this document.

Best,
Lessa

Dec 19, 2019 01:06 PM

Hi Mark and Susanne!

Thanks for your comments, observations, and questions. We plan on promoting Forward Together and it's reading more thoroughly through a public facing website which will be launched tomorrow, so stay tuned for more information on that. We know that it's an intimidating document and there is quite a bit to absorb and fit all together in the large picture of all that is occurring within ALA. We also know that folks have downloaded and shared person to person and that folks will continue to read, share, and discuss it through December and well into January and February (and beyond!) as we figure out next steps.

Susanne, you ask great questions and bring up good points that the next team of folks will start to really go through, answer, and analyze. Forward Together is a very high level view of the association and we know that folks want details and testing, something which will occur before major changes and votes occur, likely beginning on a larger scale after Annual 2020 in Chicago once the new group has been determined, received it's official charge, and had the opportunity to get a firm grasp on all that encompasses Forward Together.

We are collecting all of these questions and will be sharing the common ones, along with the answers that we have on the forthcoming website, so please stay tuned and keep engaging, everyone!

Thank you again both for your insights and questions, more to come!

Dec 19, 2019 11:13 AM

I’m sure the committee has put a lot of thought into this document. It is a heck of a lot of work, so my thanks for their efforts to get this done.

The section on Round Tables also is lacking in detail. I have some questions, and thoughts that I haven’t seen addressed here yet- so:

“These recommendations, some of which are already being discussed by the Round Table Effectiveness Committee identified above include the following”

A correction might be in order, the Round Table Effectiveness Committee as of now, was never formed so it couldn’t “discuss or identify” anything yet. The wording makes this sound like these proposals have been considered more thoroughly by the Round Tables before the report was released and implies a level of approval and input that hasn't happened yet.

  • Post all future documents in ALA Connect …
Is this really the best forum? This is an important report and so far there are 3 comments.
  • Administer all necessary elections through ALA Connect. .. Has this been tested?
  • Replace individual round table bylaws and create a shared policies and procedures document. ..

How would this work? RTs are, by their nature, different. This could result in a) a confusing mashup or b) something so generic that it is useless c) large an unwieldy documents. Putting it all together will also cause issues regarding changes- bylaws have to be voted on- does that mean all the RTs will have to vote to approve? Who will be allowed to update the documents when changes are made? Currently RTs handle this this themselves.

  • Work with the Membership Office and Membership Committee to align dues and dues structures across ALA so that discounted rate opportunities for special categories are consistent across the association. It is recommended to explore the rate of $20 for each round table from the preliminary fiscal analysis models. This would have the least fiscal impact overall and is only a recommendation for the Membership Office and Committee to further explore and test this model.

I don’t have any problems with consistent fees. This sounds like a good idea.

  • Increase the minimum number of dues-paying members needed to create a round table to one percent of ALA’s membership unless identified as a strategic priority by the Board of Directors. Membership numbers will be revisited and averaged over a period of three years. Current round tables will be able to remain intact for the first three years to provide them the opportunity to grow their membership. This will provide round tables with more fiscal stability and the resources to accomplish their mission-driven goals.

The size requirement will squeeze out some smaller, but active RTs. It also assumes that smaller RTs are not financially stable. My RT has been active for almost 50 years, has given our many scholarships, awards, has well-attended programs, written resolutions, has been very active overall, a long-standing publication, and is financially stable. This kind of recommendation ignores the good work of the smaller groups- which if forced to be a Membership Initiative Group (MIG) will lose their funding since those groups cannot have membership fees.

Dec 19, 2019 06:28 AM

I want to second Esther's thanks for SCOE's hard work on the Forward Together report. I know that this will not be the final draft of SCOE's recommendations, as they still need to undergo legal analysis, constitution and bylaws analyses, and other checks. In the coming future versions, I would again echo Esther's sentiment that the report is surprisingly scant on the fate of Council. The obvious outcome is that Council will be eliminated, but the report seems hesitant to say as much. More frankness on that point would instill more confidence by ALA's members who are watching this process unfold. 

Also, I worry about that small number of times that this report has been downloaded. I wonder if SCOE could explore more ways to push this report out to ALA's membership.

Dec 02, 2019 08:00 PM

Hi Esther!


Thank you for your request. The main goal of all of the recommendations in Forward Together is ultimately to create a 12-month association with high member engagement and participation. We want as many of our 56,000+ members’ voices to be heard and to create multiple spaces for participation. The structure we have proposed allows for not only over 70 member elected positions accountable directly to ALA members but also allows for different avenues to bring issues of the profession to the forefront and bring members together to engage. Forward Together imagines these conversations happening in a timely, year round fashion both virtually and in person, allowing members to engage where and when they want to and are able with many different options to fit the needs of our members.  We see these recommendations as allowing for the same-level, if not increased member driven engagement and action around issues with fewer formal constraints and barriers to participation, creating pathways to more immediate impact year round.


We recognize that there are many, many ways to move ALA forward and we discussed and contemplated a number of different models over the course of the last almost year and a half. The number of other models that we discussed and considered make us confident that this structure and this model was the best one to fit the needs of our association now and in the future. We also recognize that as our association and our profession continues to develop in our changing world, our structure will need to be nimble enough to change over time and we believe this model allows for those necessary and important changes, some of which may happen before final implementation.


That is a short(ish) answer to what could potentially be a whole report itself, and I hope that it helps to clarify the major themes and points of the relationship between the Forward Together relationships and a new way for our members to engage directly with the association. 


Opportunities for virtual sessions will be available very soon as well, where we hope to continue the conversation further. Thank you for your engagement!


Best,

Lessa

Nov 27, 2019 11:27 AM

Thank you for the document and the hard work that went into it. I was curious about the ALA Council, as I didn't see much mention of it, so I did a search of the document. The only mention of eliminating the Council was on page 28 under SCOE Recommendations/Potential Fiscal Impact,  Area 1, where there was information about how much money would be saved by eliminating the Council. I didn't see a discussion of the pros and cons of eliminating the Council, just description of the proposed 17-person Board of Directors, as compared to the current structure. I understand the point about directly electing Board members, rather than having them appointed by the Council, and that makes sense. But, unless I'm misunderstanding it, eliminating the Council completely, also directly elected by ALA members, would be a very major change, so I hope that you can add some information about the reasons for proposing it, and the various alternatives structures that could take the place of the Council, rather than completely eliminating it. Thank you.    Esther Grassian

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