Purpose
This policy describes how Stimpunks Foundation approaches performance and effectiveness assessment. Our goal is to understand whether our work is useful, sustainable, and aligned with our values—not to enforce productivity norms, surveillance, or compliance culture.
Assessment exists to support learning, accountability, and care.
Guiding Principles
Metrics that ignore pain, fatigue, and access erase real work and real people.
Most productivity metrics measure speed, consistency, and output under ideal conditions. They ignore pain, fatigue, sensory load, and the uneven distribution of energy. When disabled people don’t meet these metrics, the failure is blamed on individuals instead of the metric itself. Work that values only what can be counted erases real contributions—and real people.
Instead, we heed these guiding principles:
- Lived experience leads. People closest to the work define what effectiveness looks like.
- Usefulness over output. Impact is measured by whether work helps real people, not by volume.
- Care is infrastructure. Capacity, health, and sustainability are part of effectiveness.
- Default to open. We share context, constraints, and learnings whenever possible.
- No punishment for limits. Burnout, disability, and fluctuating capacity are expected realities.
How Stimpunks Defines Effectiveness
At Stimpunks Foundation, effectiveness means being useful, humane, and sustainable. We measure success by whether our work helps real people navigate learning, work, and daily life—not by output volume, speed, or polished optics. Lived experience guides what matters, and care for contributors is part of the work itself. We value learning, adaptation, and honesty over perfection, and we share what we’re trying, what’s working, and what isn’t. If something reduces harm, increases access, or helps people live more authentically, it’s effective.
What We Assess
We assess work, systems, and support conditions—not personal worth.
1. Mission Alignment
- Does this work advance Stimpunks Foundation’s mission and values?
- Is it led by or grounded in lived experience?
2. Usefulness & Impact
- Is this resource, tool, or activity actually being used?
- Does it reduce harm, increase access, or improve understanding?
- What qualitative feedback are we hearing?
3. Sustainability
- Is the work sustainable given current capacity?
- Are contributors supported, resourced, and able to rest?
- Are timelines realistic?
4. Learning & Adaptation
- What did we learn?
- What should change next time?
- What should we stop doing?
What We Do Not Assess
Stimpunks Foundation does not evaluate:
- Hours worked
- Speed of output
- Constant availability
- Masking, tone, or conformity to professional norms
- Productivity divorced from context
Assessment Methods
Qualitative Feedback
Primary signals include:
- Community feedback and stories
- Contributor reflections
- Observed use and adaptation of resources
- Thick data
Lightweight Metrics (When Helpful)
Used sparingly and contextually:
- Resource usage trends
- Event participation
- Donation or funding stability
Metrics inform questions—they do not define success.
Reflection Cadence
- Quarterly: Review goals, capacity, and learnings (e.g., OKRs or Now page check-ins)
- Project-based: Reflect at natural stopping points
- As-needed: Pause and reassess when capacity or context shifts
Reflections may be public (e.g., Transparency Log) or internal, depending on sensitivity.
Contributor Context & Care
When discussing effectiveness, we explicitly consider:
- Disability and access needs
- Fluctuating capacity and energy
- External stressors and systemic barriers
No one is penalized for protecting their health or setting boundaries.
Accountability
Accountability focuses on:
- Clear communication
- Shared understanding of priorities
- Adjusting plans when something isn’t working
- Following our advice process
- Blameless post-mortems
It does not involve blame, pressure, or extraction.
Decision-Making
Assessment outcomes may lead to:
- Continuing work as-is
- Adjusting scope or timelines
- Pausing or stopping work
- Redistributing resources or support
Decisions are documented openly whenever possible.
Transparency
When appropriate, assessment insights are shared through:
- The Now page
- The Transparency Log
- Annual reports or retrospectives
- Blog posts
- Social media
This supports trust, learning, and collective improvement.
Review of This Policy
This policy is reviewed periodically and updated as Stimpunks Foundation learns and evolves.
Effectiveness is not about doing more. It’s about doing what helps—and being honest about what doesn’t.
