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Policies and Procedures
As I (Randy) seem to operate a lot of our procedures without talking with anybody about them... it's probably time to start writing down what we do (document updated by Cyril).
- October, November, and December: Send an email to members who haven't logged in during the current year explaining that their account will be deleted in early January of the following year if they don't log in. The emails sent and the technique for sending them are described in Warmshowers Member Emails google doc.
- December: Renew our liability insurance.
- January 1 or so each year: Send out an email to the entire membership explaining the year's events, thanking volunteers, and mentioning donations. Example: http://www.warmshowers.org/happy_new_year_2013. Note that this has to be prepared in advance as it has to be translated into several languages and it's not nice to land rush jobs on top of our kind translators.
- January 5 or so: Delete members who have not logged in during the previous year. Described in Warmshowers Member Emails.
- Before January 15 of each year: Post the balance sheet and income statement for the close of the year. A donation report would be good too.
- January 15 of each year (or adjusted time): Hold the annual required meeting of the Board of Directors. The meeting should include membership information, financial status, outstanding issues and problems, etc.
- April 15: File Nonprofit annual return to the IRS
- Review the various translations to see that they are mostly translated. Do a user registration and see if it all is translated. Encourage the translator to do a full review.
- Update our accounting system in WaveAccounting.com and prepare reports as needed. The Treasurer should have access to this.
- Monitor our bank account at Compass Bank. The Treasurer should have access to this.
- Monitor our paypal account. Make sure that money gets moved out of there any time it builds up.
- Acknowledge donations. Donations are tracked at warmshowers.donortools.com and they are acknowledged from there. Complete reporting is available as well.
- When email to a member bounces, see if the member has any feedback or recent activity. If no, delete the account. If there is feedback or other activity, try to text them or call them to ask them to update. This is optional and may be unsustainable.
- Respond to member help requests within 24 hours.
- Detect spam or fraudulent member signups within 24 hours and delete the offending account.
Site quality monitoring: Review the forum, comment, and user posting summaries daily and take action as required.
- When a member makes a specific feature request that has some validity, create or update the github issue related to it (hopefully provide a link to the member as well in the issue). And provide the issue link to the member.
We are working toward specific conflict and member misbehavior procedures. Currently the overall strategy is outlined in the FAQ. When a member is accused of serious misbehavior, we have an obligation to follow up. The team of Alex and Russell are currently in charge of this. The conversation to get to where we are now was held in the WS forum. Difficult interactions are logged and monitored using the private ticket system. Members of the leadership council and the conflict team may have access if they request it.
Randy and Chris currently receive notification of problems with the server on which Warmshowers runs. When a problem is detected, resolve it.