This is the agreement each director signs on joining the Stimpunks Foundation Board. It is the companion to Board Roles & Responsibilities, which describes the job in full, and to our Bylaws, which are the rules underneath both.
It Runs in Both Directions
A board agreement that only lists obligations is a bad agreement. Most of them read as a set of demands on the volunteer: show up, give money, stay quiet, sign here.
The first half of this one is what a director commits to — attending, preparing, disclosing conflicts, keeping confidences, taking no personal profit from the Foundation. The second half is what we commit to them, and it is not a list of courtesies:
- Indemnification under Article V of our bylaws — including advancing the cost of defending a proceeding before it concludes, rather than reimbursing afterwards, and continuing after the director leaves.
- Real information, early enough to use it. Papers in advance, the actual figures rather than a summary, problems while they are still problems.
- Reimbursement — nobody should be out of pocket for governing a charity.
- Accommodations without a diagnosis, a negotiation, or the sense that a favour is being done.
- No give-or-get. We will never ask a director for a personal donation, a fundraising quota, or their wealthy contacts.
- Honesty about how bad it is. We spend more than we take in and we publish that. No director will learn our financial position from a leaked document.
The agreement asks the incoming director to confirm they have read those commitments — because a promise nobody acknowledged receiving is a promise nobody can hold you to.
This Page Is Public. The Signed Agreements Are Not.
Anyone can read this page. Completed agreements go to our governance records and are never published — including anything a director tells us about access needs, which is nobody else’s business.
We publish the blank form for two reasons. The first is that anyone considering joining our Board should be able to read the terms before they ever talk to us, rather than receiving them after saying yes. The second is that other organizations are welcome to take it — we default to open, and that includes the paperwork. Adapt it under our license.
If you are borrowing it, the part worth keeping is Part 4. The commitments a board makes to its own members are the half that usually goes unwritten.
The Form
New to the board? Board Member Onboarding lists everything to read and sign, in order.
Signed once, on joining. You will need to sign at the end with a mouse, trackpad, or finger — and if that does not work for you, tell the President and we will take it another way.
Afterwards comes your first Conflict of Interest Statement, filed on appointment rather than waiting for the annual cycle.
Document ID: SF-GOV-BOARD-AGMT-1.0
Status: Draft — pending adoption by the Board of Directors
Companion to: Board Roles & Responsibilities (SF-GOV-BOARD-1.0)
Source: Bylaws of Stimpunks Foundation — Article V for the indemnification commitments in Part 4
If you have signed this form, the version above is the one you agreed to.
Related:Board Roles & Responsibilities · Bylaws · Board & Governance · Conflict of Interest Statement · Accountability & Transparency · Forms