We default to open — not because transparency is easy, but because openness is a form of care. This log is where we share what’s happening behind the scenes: decisions, changes, setbacks, and ongoing work that usually stays hidden.
Most organizations hide context, labor, and uncertainty. We don’t. When we document what we tried, what worked, and what didn’t, we make space for collective learning, mutual accountability, and real trust.
This isn’t a polished record of outcomes. It’s a living journal of the choices we’re making, the labor involved, and the reasons behind them. You’re invited to read it, learn from it, and hold it with us — because defaulting to open means you don’t just see the finished product, you see the hands that built it.
Entries reflect real dates and real decisions. We log events as they happen, and when we miss one we backfill it rather than leave a gap — the date shown is always the date the thing happened, not the date we got around to writing it down.
The Log
| Date | Activity |
|---|---|
| 2026/09/04 | Published a Volunteer Agreement, openly. It says you keep the copyright in what you make. A volunteer is not an employee, so work-for-hire does not apply automatically — which means that without something in writing, ownership of a volunteer’s work is simply undocumented, and that ambiguity is worst for the person who made the thing. Writing is published under CC BY-SA like the rest of the site; rights in art stay with the artist; you are credited by the name you choose. If you are borrowing our forms, take that section — unpaid people making things for organizations deserve a written answer about who owns the result, and most never get one. |
| 2026/09/04 | Published Staff & Volunteer Onboarding, and found something while writing it. Our Retention Policy promises the public that we delete what mutual aid applicants tell us — and staff are the only people who can actually keep that promise. The Board can adopt a policy; it cannot delete a form submission. That duty is now written down where the people who hold it will see it. We also learned that Article V indemnifies directors and officers but not volunteers, which means our unpaid Co-Creative Directors may have no protection at all. §5.7 lets the Board extend it by resolution, and that is going to the September meeting. |
| 2026/09/04 | Published Board Roles & Responsibilities and a Board Member Agreement, both openly. The half worth borrowing is what we do not ask a director for: no give-or-get, no personal donation, no fundraising quota, no travel, no performing wellness. Most board descriptions quietly select for wealth, free time, and good health. The agreement also runs in both directions — what a director owes us, and what we owe them, including advancing the cost of defending a proceeding rather than reimbursing afterwards. A Board Member Onboarding page now lists everything a new director reads and signs, in order — including which three to read first if you only have an hour, and what we owe them in the first ninety days. Onboarding is our obligation, not their homework. |
| 2026/09/04 | Published our bylaws in full, for the first time. The version shown is the one proposed for adoption at our September board meeting, with one sentence removed from §2.1 — the clause requiring directors to be members of the Boren family. There are no family members on our board any more, and a governing document that says otherwise is a document that describes an organization we are not. It is published before the vote rather than after it, marked plainly as not yet in force, with the sentence being removed quoted so anyone can see exactly what changes. |
| 2026/09/04 | Published our Conflict of Interest Statement as a working form, and made the page public rather than gating it. The questions were already public in the policy, so hiding the form protected nothing — and a small nonprofit that needs one otherwise has to buy a template or pay a consultant. The page is public; the answers are not. Completed statements go to our governance records and are never published. Anyone is welcome to adapt the form. |
| 2026/09/03 | Rewrote our expense policy, which was the last page still describing the classification we retracted in August — it listed fundraising activities we do not do and filed our two paid staff as administration, which is exactly how we ended up publishing 65% program when the real figure was 88%. It now states the four rules we actually apply, carries the real numbers, and says plainly what a high program share hides: with 88% going to program there is no overhead layer to trim, so a deficit comes out of the aid. |
| 2026/09/03 | Rewrote our Gift Acceptance Policy against our own founding documents. Article NINTH of our Certificate of Incorporation limits what we are allowed to be given while we remain a private foundation, and the old page said nothing about it. It now also carries the donor protections it was missing: no gift that would jeopardize your own finances, your adviser rather than ours, an absolute right to give anonymously, and no valuation from us on anything but cash and traded securities. Pending board adoption. |
| 2026/09/03 | Discovered that counsel had already written us a Document Retention Policy in 2022 — after we had built the new one from a consultant’s sample without checking the formation binder first. The two disagree about who is responsible for the schedule. That is the board’s call, so the new page says so plainly and the 2022 policy stands until they make it. |
| 2026/09/03 | Published a Document Retention & Destruction Policy — what we keep, what we delete, and how long we keep it. It also commits us to stopping all scheduled destruction the moment there is any sign of an investigation. Pending board adoption. |
| 2026/09/03 | Added Your Right to Report Outside Stimpunks to our Whistleblower Policy. A consultant read the draft and found the gap: we had explained every way to report a concern to us and said nothing about your right to skip us entirely. You never need our permission to go to the IRS, an attorney general, or law enforcement. |
| 2026/09/03 | Corrected our officer titles across the website. Our bylaws make President and Secretary the required offices; we had been publishing “Board Chair” for the President. |
| 2026/09/03 | Completed our assessment and conversion plan for terminating private foundation status under IRC §507(b)(1)(B) and becoming a public charity. Nothing is filed yet — the board resolution and the Form 8940 submission both come next. |
| 2026/09/03 | We missed our summer board meeting. Vacations, and we did not reschedule in time. We are booking one for this month, and the conversion resolution is waiting on it. |
| 2026/09/03 | The Treasurer seat is vacant and we are recruiting. It opened when the founder’s spouse resigned from all board and officer roles as part of the board diversification behind our public charity conversion — there are now no family members on our board. The President is covering the duties in the meantime. |
| 2026/09/03 | Revised our Conflict of Interest and Whistleblower policies against our 2022 formation documents. Pending board adoption. |
| 2026/09/03 | Corrected the financial figures on Frequently Requested Information to match our restated accounts. |
| 2026/09/03 | Moved the Transparency Log to its own page. |
| 2026/08/28 | Issued mutual aid grant for August. |
| 2026/08/10 | Put roughly $22,000 of 2025 investment income under review — it may be reserves moved rather than earned. Our accountant is tracing it. Details. |
| 2026/08/09 | Corrected our published 2025 expenses. We had reported $120,000 split 65% program, 25% administration, 10% fundraising. The real figures are $122,626 and 88% program. Where the Money Went. |
| 2026/07/01 | Issued mutual aid grant for June. |
| 2026/06/12 | Closed mutual aid grant pipeline. |
| 2026/06/11 | Issued creator grant award for Spring 2026. |
| 2026/06/04 | Closed creator grant pipeline. |
| 2026/06/01 | Opened grant pipelines. |
| 2026/04/30 | Issued mutual aid grant for April. |
| 2026/03/30 | We are now an ASAN affiliate. |
| 2026/03/24 | Spring Board Meeting |
| 2026/03/10 | We are now Candid Silver Transparency certified. |
| 2026/02/28 | Issued mutual aid grant for February. |
| 2026/02/05 | Published Fundraising transparency documents. |
| 2026/02/05 | Working on compliance with BBB Standards for Charity Accountability |
| 2026/01/19 | Closed grant pipelines |
| 2026/01/01 | Opened grant pipelines |
Where Else We Show Our Work
This log records decisions. Three other places record the rest:
- Now — what we are working on at the moment, and what comes next.
- Changelog — week by week, what actually shipped.
- Accountability & Transparency — governance, finances, disclosures, and the policies underneath all of it.
Transparency is mutual aid for donors, contributors, and community members.