DFI Board Transition & Community Engagement

 

In early January 2022, we shared our End of Year update in which we committed to refocusing The Design Futures Initiative’s time and energy on more effectively supporting our growing global community of Speculative Futures chapters and establishing a sustainable operating model moving forward.

As part of these changes, we are excited to open up leadership opportunities in both the Design Futures Initiative (DFI) and around organizing our annual PRIMER conference. In this communication, we are sharing open leadership opportunities with DFI, and will send out another email in the coming weeks with more information about PRIMER22 and ways you can get involved.

As a volunteer founded and led nonprofit (with no employees) we have a strong focus on sustainability when it comes to people and workload. For this reason, we would like to bring new voices and energy into organizational leadership roles and are planning a phased transition of many of our current Board of Directors (BOD) roles in the coming year. We are also working on a new structure for our BOD that better spreads out the work among various needed specialties, as well as establishing new structures that can bring more people to the table, such as topic-focused and region-specific committees.

Application Process

If you want to get more involved with the Speculative Futures community as part of the Design Futures Initiative Board of Directors, or nominate someone you think would be a good fit for an open BOD role listed below, please get in touch with us at the email address below. It is alright to indicate that you are interested in multiple roles.

To submit your name or nominate someone, either send an email with the following information to hello@futures.design by March 15, 2022, or click on the apply button next to the descriptions below.

Email Subject - Application for DFI Board of Directors
Body - Please write a short message that includes the below information:

  • Your Name or the Name of the person you are nominating

  • The Role you are applying (or nominating someone) for - e.g. Treasurer

  • Your Email or the Email of the person you are nominating

The current Board of Directors and Advisory Board Members will review applications received in March and contact applicants before April 15, 2022 about next steps in the application process.

Please note that Intersectional representation on our incoming BOD is very important to us! We prioritize the inclusion of multiple intersecting and overlapping social identities including but not limited to race, ethnicity, gender-identity, sexuality, caste, class, religion, disability-status, age, geography, citizenship status, marital status, and/or veteran status, as best as possible within a 7 member Board of Directors.

 
 

Open Positions

 

President

The President leads the Board of Directors and supervises the business affairs of the board.

  • The term for this role is 2 years with the 3rd year overlapping with the next BOD President for training purposes.

  • The person who fills this role must have previous experience as a member of the DFI Core or Advisory Board, or have substantial experience serving on an Advisory Board or Board of Directors for another organization.

  • Currently held by Phil Balagtas

 

Treasurer

The Treasurer is responsible for keeping accurate accounting records and managing the receipts and monetary disbursements for the organization. This person is usually a signatory on all organizational bank accounts and may need to work in conjunction with an outside accounting firm. Additionally the Treasurer is responsible for keeping track of the organization’s financial condition and sustainability.

  • The term for this role is 2 years with the 3rd year overlapping with the next BOD Treasurer for training purposes.

 

Secretary

The Secretary is responsible for recording the minutes of all BOD meetings, and maintaining an archive of all major discussion points and votes. Additionally, they are responsible for keeping track of the organization’s activities to make sure the actions of the organization are in compliance to the organization’s Bylaws.

  • The term for this role is 2 years with the 3rd year overlapping with the next BOD Secretary for training purposes.

  • Currently held by Mary Lukanuski

 

Board Member at Large (Technology)

This role focuses on the organizations IT infrastructure: digital tools, technologies, and software licensure and management.

  • Term for this role is 1 year with the 2rd year overlapping with the next At Large officers for training purposes.

  • This role is new, but the work has been supported in the past by existing board members such as Dana ‘Doc’ Martens and Phil Balagtas

Board Member at Large (PRIMER)

This role works with the local PRIMER organizational team to manage the PRIMER conference. In this iteration, the Board Member will focus on helping organize the PRIMER23 and PRIMER24 conferences.

  • The Term for this role is 1 year with the 2rd year overlapping with the next At Large officers for training purposes.

  • This role is new, but the work has been supported in the past by existing board members such as Vera Fearns, Phil Balatgas, Andrés Valencia, Dana ‘Doc’ Martens, Jack Wilkinson, and Travis Kupp.

 

Communications & Creative Direction

This role manages the organization's brand strategy, communications, social media, and is responsible for maintaining the DFI website.

  • The term for this role is 1 year with the 2nd year overlapping with the next Communications + Creative Direction officer for training purposes.

  • Currently managed by Andrés Valencia with support from Dana ‘Doc’ Martens and Raquel ‘Roki’ Kalil.

 

Chapter Leadership & Community Management

This role is responsible for managing all things people and chapter related, and focuses on community engagement and outreach. Responsibilities include establishing, building, and maintaining relationships within the Speculative Futures community and to other related groups, community moderation and ensuring the community is a safe space for all participants. They will collaborate closely with the PRIMER Board Member as well as regional and topic focussed committees (to be created).

  • The term for this role is 1 year with the 2nd year overlapping with the next Chapter Leadership + Community Management officer for training purposes.

  • Currently managed by Vera Fearns with support from Adam Zeiner.

 

Regional & Topic-focused Committees

In addition to transitioning over to a new BOD in a phased manner over the course of 2022-23, we want to establish a more federated model of community governance and organizing that will include Advisory Board members along with regional and/or topic-focused committees.

We don’t want to prescribe what form this will take and will discuss what value these committees can provide and what form they might take in our upcoming Community Forums.

 

Community Engagement

As part of this transition, we want to check in with our growing network of Speculative Futures chapters (going on 77 chapters across 6 continents) to understand how we can best support you. Since we are spread out across the globe, we will offer multiple touch-points to better understand what value DFI has offered in the past, what support you feel is missing, and how we can best serve our community moving forward.

We will hold THREE live Community Forums at the end of this month to communicate updates about opportunities to get involved in DFI leadership roles, and to allow a space for questions and concerns.

  • Wednesday, March 2nd at 10:00am GMT - Zoom Link (Meeting ID: 834 5499 3827)

  • Wednesday, March 2nd at 6:00pm EST (GMT-5) - Zoom Link (Meeting ID: 839 2976 7570)

  • Thursday, March 3rd at 9:00am PST (GMT-8) - Zoom Link (Meeting ID: 811 8396 6056)

Recordings
We will record each of these forums and share them via email and over the Speculative Futures Slack channel so that those who are unable to attend can stay abreast of what is happening.

Chapter Leaders Forum
We will also host an additional dedicated forum for Speculative Futures Chapter Leaders and will share details about that space in an chapter organizer specific email, and on the private #chapter-leadership channel on the Speculative Futures Slack in the coming weeks.

Dedicated Slack Channel
We have created a new dedicated channel on our Speculative Futures Slack, #dfi-bod-transition to support this process where you can leave questions or comments.

MURAL Board
Finally, we have created a live MURAL board where any member of the community can leave asynchronous ideas and feedback on their own time for how we can strengthen our network and what types of support you'd like to see moving forward.