[IAEP] Executive Director- some benefits and risks

[David Farning]

Background

For the past couple of months, we have been working on setting up the
governance infrastructure for Sugar Labs.

We have laid out the basics of the membership structure.  Our members
are our owners.  In for profit organizations, owners invest their money
in the expectation that they will have a positive return on their
investment; the stock price goes up

At Sugar Labs, instead of money, we ask our members to contribute their
time and effort to improving the Sugar Labs ecosystem.  Our members
should receive a positive return on their investments.  The value of
their individual contributions increases because of Sugar Labs.

Our members own Sugar Labs.  As owners, they have control over the
assets and direction of the project.  Because of the transaction costs
of large group decisions, our members elect an oversight board to
represent their interests.  The boards job is to direct and protect.

The board directs the project by establishing goals and assigning
resources to those goal.  The board protects by insuring that the
foundation is working towards the goals stated in our mission statement
and vision.

In for profit companies, the board appoints a Chief Executive Officer to
oversee day to day operations.  In not for profits, the CEO is typically
referred to as the Executive Director.

Executive Director

The decision to have an Executive Director boils down to one question,
'Do the benefits of having a single point of control outweigh the risks
of a single point of control?'

Benefits

1.  Fund raising.  The single largest advantage of an Executive Director
is their ability to raise money.  This stems from the fact that people
and companies that are in a position to donate money are more
comfortable dealing with an individual than a group.

2.  Public relations.  The Executive Director can be the voice of the
organization.  He can become the canonical source of information about
the foundation.

3. The buck stops here.  The Executive Director's job is to execute the
vision of the board.  As a result, he is in a position to make the hard
decisions.

Risks

1.  Philosophical.  In the world of free and open source software,
individual contributors can be philosophically opposed to the
centralized control granted to the Executive Director.

2.  Losing control.  For an open source project to be successful, there
must be a balance of power between the members (owners), the board
(directors), and the Executive Director (manager).  It is possible for
strong Executive Directors to run roughshod over inexperienced, part
time board members.

3.  Herding cats.  There can be significant tensions between a manager
who is responsible for executing the vision of the board and volunteer
contributors.

As always, I appreciate your feedback on other benefits and risks of
having a Executive Director in an open source project.

In a few days, I will form a recommendation on the value of an Executive
Director to Sugar Labs based on the consensus of the list.