Please note that this post does not necessarily reflect views shared by all OCS posters and sympathisers. I put it here on my own initiative.
Norbert has placed the following post in the brainstorm forum on CS. I felt it should be cross-posted here, so that it can be given due public support by those who feel that’s appropriate. It sure has mine!
“This is my final appeal to Casey and the Leadership Team. I haven’t filed my report yet with the Attorney General of New Hampshire. I would prefer not to do it. I don’t like the role. And I don’t like the fact that this may divert resources into legal procedures, costs, and possible fines. Don’t get me wrong, though: I’m not making any excuses for myself. I will do it if I have to, whether I like it or not. It will not be my fault for reporting it, but the fault of those who broke the law. Yet I feel there is still time to ‘heal’ the situation. CouchSurfing has been represented as a charity without being one, and has thus violated the law. It has failed to comply with registration, reporting and disclosure duties. It has obtained donations of money, time and skills under false pretenses. It has broken the law. It has done the wrong thing. The best defence against those charges obviously is to make it a real charity immediately. That would not undo the legal violations, but it would make them ‘technical’ rather than substantial, and I suppose they could then be overlooked.
This would have to be done with credibility. Mere words will no longer be enough, especially when they are cold, and don’t show an intention to reach out. It would be good to hear an admission of mistakes here and there, or at least an acknowledgment that help from members could be useful. I would like to see the true message of strength from the Leadership Team that comes with admitting they’re not perfect. How could they be? They are mostly young, motivated people, at the beginning of their professional lives, working for us in exchange for a bag of peanuts! So be who you are; don’t claim to be Bill Gates! If you say: this is what I’m good at, and here’s where I need assistance, people will come and help you. If you claim to be perfect, and are arrogant with it, people will try to prove you’re not so perfect after all. If we disagree, by all means do it your way, and not mine, as you’re the ones doing the work, but don’t lie and don’t bully.
I believe a genuine charity is the best way forward, as it will allow motivating future volunteers. This organisation has to spend a lot of time and effort on finding out what it wants from volunteers, and more importantly: what it wants to offer them. It needs to learn urgently that volunteering is a give and take situation, and not a one way street. That doesn’t negate that many volunteers are perfectly happy. They have found rewards for their work, mostly in their own local communities. But that is their own achievement, just like the volunteering itself. The organisation does not seem to be offering much. Where’s the volunteer training? Where are the written testimonials given for thousands of hours of dedicated services, that people might use for job applications in their CV, proving they exercised and acquired skills? Instead cold emails are sent out that “your services will no longer be retained due to personal differences”. Wrong way. Volunteers need to be at the very heart of the organisation. Please treat them as ‘human resources’, not as free labour without minds. I fear there is no ‘healing’ of the wounds suffered by some ex-volunteers, as some of them seem too deep. The effort here will need to be: not to let it happen again.
CouchSurfing, and a number of individuals, may face serious legal consequences, and real pressure can be put on you to honour your word and become a charity. That will happen unless you make it obsolete by doing the right thing now. You can’t, however, be forced legally to put the word ‘irrevocable’ in your bye-laws asset dedication, but you may realise it’s the ‘open sesame’ that leads forward and restores trust. In any event, the obligations that come with genuine charity status (irrevocable or not) to adopt acceptable (team) corporate governance instead of a one-man-band, to have annual reporting and disclosure duties, in other words: public supervision, will be a huge improvement. It will be both: control and support mechanism, to ensure you’ll do the right thing. Please do it.”
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