This is the front door for paid staff and volunteers. Directors have their own page — the board’s job is fiduciary and governance, and most of it does not apply here.
Like everything in Orienting, this is a map rather than a test. Read it however works for you.
Which of These Are You?
Paid staff. Our Executive Director and Program Director. You have a contract and a scope of work, renewed every six months — those two documents, not this page, define your actual job. This page covers what surrounds them.
Volunteers, including Co-Creative Directors. Unpaid, and in some cases doing full-time work. You sign a Volunteer Agreement instead of a contract. It says you keep the copyright in what you make, which is the question volunteers most often have no answer to.
If you are also a director — some of us wear more than one hat — read the board page as well. Where a role is paid and a hat is a board seat, you are out of the room for decisions about your own pay.
The Duty Only You Can Discharge
If you touch mutual aid applications, read this part twice. Everything else on this page is context; this is the job.
People applying for aid tell us things they should not have to tell anyone — what their diagnosis is, what their housing situation is, why they cannot work this month, what happened to them. They tell us because the alternative is going without help.
We have published a promise that we delete that material as soon as the decision it supported is made and recorded. It is in our Document Retention & Destruction Policy, on a public page, in our name.
Staff are the only people who can actually keep it. The Board can adopt the policy; it cannot delete a form submission. What survives is the transaction — who received a grant, how much, when, under which program. What goes is the account of why they needed it: the narrative, the uploaded letters and bills and notices, the form submission once it has been acted on.
Two things follow. Deletion means deletion — including the copy in your own inbox, your downloads folder, and the export you made to work on it. And all deletion stops immediately if there is any sign of an investigation, audit, claim, or legal proceeding; tell the President and the Executive Director, and do not delete anything until the hold lifts.
Our communities are asked to prove their need over and over, to strangers, in writing. The least we can do is not keep the file.
What to Read
These bind staff and volunteers, not only directors. You are not being asked to read the governance library — the bylaws and the board pages are there if you want them, but they are not your job.
- Document Retention & Destruction Policy — the section above is the summary; the policy is the detail.
- The Covenant — how we treat each other. Applies to everyone here.
- Whistleblower & Concern Reporting Policy — including your right to report outside Stimpunks without our permission, and the protection from retaliation that comes with it. Read it before you need it.
- Conflict of Interest Policy — it covers executive staff and anyone with decision-making authority, not just the Board.
- Expense Policy — how spending is classified, and why your work counts as program rather than overhead.
- Welcome Aboard: Start Here — the community front door, and the culture underneath all of this.
What to Sign
If you are paid staff
- Your contract and scope of work, renewed every six months. Kept with our governance records, not on this website.
- A Conflict of Interest Statement when you start, and once a year after. Most people have something to disclose, and that is expected.
If you are a volunteer
- A Volunteer Agreement — what we ask, what we owe you, and the copyright terms. You keep the copyright in what you make.
- A Conflict of Interest Statement, if you have decision-making authority or handle money or grants. If you are unsure whether that is you, ask — and if still unsure, file one. There is no penalty for over-disclosing.
If filling in a form is itself the barrier, say so. We will take your answers out loud, over email, or in a call, and transcribe them for your review and signature.
What We Owe You
- A scope of work that matches the actual work, revisited every six months rather than left to drift. If what you are doing has stopped resembling what you signed, that is a conversation, not a failing.
- Reimbursement of what you spend doing this work.
- Accommodations, without a diagnosis or a negotiation.
- Credit for what you make, in the name you choose — and if you are a volunteer, the copyright stays yours.
- Honesty about the money. We spend far more than we take in and we publish that. You will not learn the state of our finances from a rumour.
If something on this page was wrong or missing when you arrived, tell us and we will fix the page. That is what it is for.
Document ID: SF-GOV-ONBOARD-STAFF-1.0
Status: Draft — pending adoption by the Board of Directors
Companion to: Board Member Onboarding (SF-GOV-ONBOARD-BOARD-1.0)