X-Message-Number: 30523
Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2008 19:06:56 -0700
From: hkhenson <>
Subject: On governing non profits.

On the more general theme of non-profit organization members voting 
for officers or for board members who then vote in officers, when it 
is set up that way (IEEE, NSS) it's effectively a sham working in 
favor of the permanent staff.  I have been on the NSS board several 
terms and was a founding board member of the L5 Society.  The NSS 
board is prestige without appreciable real world effect, for some of 
the same reasons you see at Alcor.  (It may be harder and take longer 
to get off the planet than to revive the suspended patients.)

IEEE is the largest technical society in the world.  I have been a 
member for over 40 years and have watched the politics and even voted 
some years.  For much of that time they only had one candidate for 
each office.  In about the last ten years they have had more than 
one, but it's usually the difference between Tweedledee and Tweedledum.

In both organization there is intense time wasting politics without 
substantial effect I have noticed.

National Geographic Society is much larger, approximately nine 
million members, 120 years old, and has been run from the start by a 
Board of Trustees. "The Society is governed by a twenty-three member 
Board of Trustees composed of a group of distinguished educators, 
businesspeople, scientists, former governmental officials, and 
conservationists."   Members don't vote as far as I know.

Now that I think about it, looking into the history of the National 
Geographic Society might be useful.

Heh.  If membership implied voting power, I would be helping elect 
the board of American Express.

Keith

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