cda-gov.md

Civic Data Alliance - Draft Core Membership Bylaws

I. Legal Entity Overview: II. Civic Data Alliance Project Based Philosophy: III. Core Membership:

1. Purpose:
2. Membership Number of core member members Core Membership Member Roles and Voting Developer Advocate (1 vote) Project Delivery Lead (1 vote) Communications Lead (1 vote) Community Organizer (1 vote) Core Members (1 vote for each)
3. Committee Meeting Details:
4. Committee Voting Process IV. Core Membership: MISCELLANEOUS
5. Books and Records Account Management
6. Fiscal Year
7. Conflict of Interest 4a. Nondiscrimination Policy 4b. Anti-Harassment Policy
8. Bylaw Amendment V. Project Representation Types of Projects Active Projects Representation on the Core Membership VI. Elections Protocol VII. Code of Conduct Ombudspeople

I. Legal Entity Overview: II. Civic Data Alliance Project Based Philosophy: The Civic Data Alliance (CDA) is focused on advocating for inclusion, diversity, equity, accessibility, openness and transparency in civic tech and open data, interested in liberating, improving, gathering, defining, and reporting on public data and the state of civic tech, while fostering an inclusive, diverse, equitable and accessible civic tech community.

III. Membership:

1. Purpose: The Civic Data Alliance Membership will actively work on providing and fostering an equitable, inclusive, diverse, accessible, supportive and safe environment for the creation of projects, creation of space to share knowledge and volunteer engagement.

The Civic Data Alliance Membership will operate on the assumption that activities and events will be activated on an as needed basis. The group will come to a consensus regarding what activities will need additional support outside of the HackTheVille hacknight program by reinforcing the volunteer project intake and proposal process.

The Membership of the Civic Data Alliance shall seek to build and maintain relationships with our community, citizens, municipal partners, and local governments as long as these relationships do not come at the expense of the organization’s independence and ethics.

The Civic Data Alliance Membership commits to creating an equitable, inclusive, diverse, accessible and safe Brigade community by developing governance which strives to support and amplify the voices of traditionally marginalized groups, the community members and shared leadership.

Member Roles and Voting All Membership Leaders must be active in Civic Data Alliance activities: making maximum effort to attend HackTheVille nights and participating in projects, securing event space, securing sponsorships, events and/or development and marketing activities.

Developer Advocate

• Helps coordinate and choose build tools for project sustainability.
• Promotes best practices in the development cycle.
• Recruits new developers for projects.
• Help project developers get unstuck

Communications Lead

• Coordinates external communication efforts, including but not limited to: contributing posts to the Civic Data Alliance website, press releases, social media, maintaining toolkits for project promotion and partnerships.
• Leads the effort to tell the story of Civic Data Alliance through activities such as: collecting blog posts and press links which showcase Civic Data Alliance’s projects and events.
• Stores and maintains the Civic Data Alliance brand repo and guidelines and provides assets as needed.
• All public-facing communications should be run thru the approval process on github and Buffer

Community Organizer

• Responsible for recruiting and welcoming new members (brief intro + Slack/tools integration) and helping them explore opportunities to join a team or get started with their own project.
• Volunteer engagement, keeping a database of volunteers and any individual that attends a hack night. When there isn’t much of that to be done, help with updates to web presence and maybe share some progress externally.
• Metrics: # return for a second meeting, new projects or project team members, tasks completed / shipped on their first visit

Members (1 vote for each core member)

• Core members are expected to actively contribute to the growth and mission of the organization and to engage and support the leadership committee as needed.

The CDA Membership is charged with maintaining the definition of an active project in a publicly viewable document. Members are responsible for checking the private slack channel to keep up with all org announcements and events. All info is posted in the private Slack channel prior to publicizing, however, the onus is on the individual Members to avail themselves of the information in a timely fashion or forfeit their input.

In other words, those who show up make the decisions. 4. Members Committee Meeting Details:

• Monthly - second Monday of each month, 45-60 min unless specified, prior to HackTheVille hack nights.
• Agenda is set and published one week before meeting (one hack night must pass after agenda is introduced, before voting meeting may occur)
• Meeting Roles (every meeting):Two specific meeting roles shall be designated at each meeting of the core membership:

Chairs The Membership will function as chairs. Chairs are responsible for:

• Facilitating Core Membership meetings and representing the Membership.
• Responsible with the Recorder for soliciting items for and establishing the agenda for each meeting.
• Ensure the Recorder has posted the agenda one week prior to the meeting

Process Observer (Rotating Role)

• The process observer will ensure that the Membership is keeping on track with the agenda during meetings. This could include keeping track of time limits for each item.
• Process Observer will ensure that all core members are heard and allocate speaking time fairly by implementing the Progressive Stack technique
• Report out at the end of the meeting if the group upheld the working agreements and are working in a productive manner.
• Help enforce voting process and supporting recorder in counting and verifying votes.
• Keep track of members that are participating and checking in with members who have been absent to ascertain if they need anything from the org to help better facilitate their participation..

4. Committee Voting Process (A) Quorum. A majority of the core membership (50% + 1) immediately before a meeting shall constitute a quorum for the transaction of business at that meeting of the board. No business shall be considered by the board at any meeting at which a quorum is not present.

(B) Majority Vote. Except as otherwise required by law or by the articles of incorporation, the act of the majority of core member present (in person or via internet) at a meeting at which a quorum is present shall be the act of the core member.

(C) Participation. Except as required otherwise by law, the Articles of Incorporation, or these Bylaws, core member members may participate in a regular or special meeting through the use of any means of communication by which all directors participating may simultaneously hear each other during the meeting, including in person, internet video meeting or by conference call.

IV. Membership: MISCELLANEOUS

1. Books and Records The Core Membership shall keep correct and complete books and records of account and shall keep minutes of the proceedings of all meetings, a record of all actions taken by its members without a meeting, and a record of all actions taken by any subcore members. In addition, the Core Membership shall keep a copy of these Bylaws as amended to date.

2. Fiscal Year The fiscal year of the corporation shall be from January 1 to December 31 of each year.

3. Conflict of Interest The core member shall adopt and periodically review a conflict of interest policy to protect the organization’s interest and maintain it’s autonomy, when it is contemplating any transaction, agreement, arrangement or project which may benefit any core member member, government entity, government official or volunteer with or without voting powers.

4a. Nondiscrimination Policy The core member members and volunteers that participate or are served by this organization shall be selected entirely on a nondiscriminatory basis with respect to age, gender, race, religion, national origin, and sexual orientation. It is the policy of Civic Data Alliance not to discriminate on the basis of race, creed, ancestry, marital status, gender, sexual orientation, age, physical disability, veteran’s status, political service or affiliation, color, religion, or national origin. Civic Data Alliance activities follow a Code of Conduct posted on Civic Data Alliance.org -current Code of Conduct.

4b. Anti-Harassment Policy CDA is dedicated to providing a harassment-free experience for everyone regardless of gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, age, or religion. We do not tolerate harassment of staff, presenters, and participants in any form. Sexual language and imagery is not appropriate for any CDA event or network activity, including talks. Anyone in violation of these policies may expelled from CDA network activities, events, and digital forums, at the discretion of the event organizer or forum administrator. Harassment includes but is not limited to: offensive verbal or written comments related to gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, religion; sexual images in public spaces; deliberate intimidation; stalking; following; harassing photography or recording; sustained disruption of talks or other events; inappropriate physical contact; inappropriate messaging, unwelcome sexual attention; unwarranted exclusion; gaslighting, tone-policing, sealioning and patronizing language or action. If a participant engages in harassing behavior, the members may take any action they deem appropriate, including warning the offender or expulsion from CDA organization, network activities, events, and digital forums.

5. Bylaw Amendment Amendments and/or alterations to these bylaws may be proposed by any member to the Membership which may be adopted by a 2/3rds vote of the Membership at a regular meeting, provided that… Amendments do not affect the voting rights and processes of the Membership as laid out in Section 2. A minimum of 30 days is allowed between the proposal of and voting on the amendment.

V. Project Representation Types of Projects Projects may fall under, but are not limited to, these categories:

• Civic Tech Projects - providing tools or services to citizens, community organizations or public agencies to increase access to and understanding of government.
• Events - major events which require a team to execute, which should all implement the Progressive Stack technique
• Civic Data Alliance Sustainability Projects - efforts to improve and sustain Civic Data Alliance as an organization.
• Digital Inclusion and Equity Projects - efforts to make the civic tech space and our community more equitable, inclusive, diverse and accessible.
• Citizen Scientist Projects - efforts to share the knowledge of tools and resources available in the civic tech space and empower citizens to implement them.

Civic Data Alliance projects may in no way, help to facilitate, participate in nor add to the stress or profiling of marginalized communities. Projects involving the use, application, or handling of data should strive to incorporate the Data Science Code of Ethics (project repo, particiapte)

Active Projects A project is considered active if:

• Meaningful progress is demonstrated at 2 of the last 3 HacktheVille nights. Presentations may be recorded, presented remotely or written (blog or article format).
• The Core Membership forms an Event or Sustainability Project.
• Captains are responsible for keeping documentation of presentation attendance.

Project Representation on the Membership Once a project is considered active, it may seek representation by: Submitting a project brief which includes:

• Project Name (can be changed)
• Project Owner
• Current members (optional)
• Description of project for web publication
• Project goals
• Core Membership representative
• Majority approval from Core Membership. Core must vote on new projects at the next meeting after receiving the proposal. If rejected, a project may submit again in 2 months.

If a project fails to demonstrate progress for 2 of 3 HackTheVille nights, then the Membership may vote to make the project inactive. The vote should include a rationale and the project can reactivate later by meeting the 2 of 3 HackTheVille night rule again.

VI. Proposed Elections Protocol

• Elections occur annually during February to select Core Membership officer positions.
• The leadership roles of the Core Membership will be elected by the volunteer core member population of Civic - Data Alliance, with a 3/4ths vote into office.
• All leadership members will commit to a two year term.
• The Core Membership may propose a question to Civic Data Alliance membership at its discretion, including the election of an officer for an open position.

To ensure a fair election and nominations process, the Membership is responsible for: Ensuring online participation is available.

• Designating two trusted parties from Core Membership (not on the ballot) to tally and report on results. A Core Membership majority vote is needed to approve the trusted parties.
• Allowing 72 hours for nominations. Nominations can only come from Core Members. Nominees for leadership can only come from the Core Member pool. Nominations are required for officer positions described in section II. An individual can nominate themselves or another individual as long as they are a Core Member. Only Core Members are eligible to hold leadership positions.
• Allow at least 72 hours for candidates to campaign prior to the election.
• Allowing 72 hours for voting.
• Announcing voting and nomination opportunities to membership at least twice during each respective time period through official Civic Data Alliance channels (Slack at the time this was adopted).
• Track and publish all votes results on Github
• Appointing replacements for trusted parties if they recuse themselves or the majority of the Core Membership members decide they are no longer fit to administer the election.

The Memberships’ trusted parties are responsible for:

• Alerting members that they have been nominated within 24 hours of nomination closing and sharing names of other nominees if requested.
• Drafting the poll with members that accept their nomination.
• Closing the poll at the appropriate time.
• Reporting the results of the election within 1 hour of closing the poll.
• Recusing themselves from the process if they become a candidate in the election.

VII. Code of Conduct Ombudspeople The Civic Data Alliance Code of Conduct provides a mechanism for reporting violations of the Code. To ensure that people are comfortable reporting violations, even if the violation is caused by an action of a member of the Core Membership or event organizers, 2 independent ombudspeople are available to receive complaints.

The Membership shall elect 2 members of the Civic Data Alliance community to act as ombudspeople for terms of 2 years.

At least one of the ombudspeople shall not be a member of the Core Membership and must resign this position, if they are elected to a position on the core member. This person may not be an appointed nor elected government official.

The Core Membership shall make a good faith effort to select the ombudspeople to provide the broadest possible diversity as to gender, orientation and race, only selecting those of a non-marginalized group if no one else is available.

The ombudspeople will be identified in the Code of Conduct document and will be the only ones to monitor the safespace@CivicDataAlliance.org email account.

Complaints may be forwarded directly to an event organizer, Membership member or one or the other of the ombudspeople as desired.

The ombudspeople must avoid intervening in cases where they have a beneficial business relationship, friendship or personal relationship with the accuser or accused. They should handle the issue in accordance with the code of conduct or refer it to members of the Membership, maintaining any confidentiality requested by the complainant. Any decision to ask someone to leave the organization must be approved by the Membership. Violation of #6 by an ombudsperson would be grounds for immediate removal. Removal of someone from the ombudsperson position requires a ¾ vote of the Membership.

Complaints shall be process according to the Code of Conduct Process and Ombudsperson Role. (This process is pending final approval by the Membership.)