Candidate Response Page

Notes

All questions were sent to the candidates in English and (TBD) (Translated via https://www.deepl.com). Candidates were encouraged to answer in a language that was comfortable to them, and should the responses need to be translated back to English, the Election Committee would do so, again using DeepL.

Candidates were provided the Official Questions from the membership here: Talk:Humanitarian_OSM_Team/Board_Elections_2023. While questions were separated by theme, there may have been some overlapping responses in some of these questions. Responses from candidates may be combined in their previous answers or may have chosen not to answer that particular question. Please read read all responses to get a better understanding of the candidate's thoughts.

Order

The ordering follows the order of Humanitarian_OSM_Team/Board_Elections_2023#Nominations_for_Humanitarian_OpenStreetMap_Team_Board_of_Directors.

Answers Per Questions

General

1.What are your views on an operational versus strategic board for HOT?

Candidate Response
Nate Smith Response	In the last two years the Board has made a decision to become more strategic in its nature and this is the right direction for the organization. Moving towards a strategic board is a healthy step for the organization in order to focus on forward-looking planning, recommend directions for long term success, and work with the staff and members to execute on a strategic plan. An important part of a strategic board will be helping set goals and objectives for the organization and continuously envisioning what is next as they define and work to achieve the mission. I believe that the past two board years the team has taken great steps towards being that strategic board and that has benefited the organization. One primary example is the Living Strategy. The role the Board took in that process was one of oversight and recommendations and not implementer. The board set goals and terms with the staff team that helped execute on the process and this resulted in a thoughtful and strategic living strategy.
Shoaib Burq Response	Operational board would be quite impracticable for the size of the organisation HOT is today, given board members are volunteering their time and are unpaid. Thus strategic board is the only practical way to operate without causing burnout amongst the board. Now how we operate as a strategic board is for the board to build a strong and trusting relationship with the HOT leadership, community and within board members themselves. Board role thus becomes one of supporting the leadership while holding them to account for key metrics. A good working relationship between the board and the leadership means the leadership isn't afraid to share bad news and seek council on difficult problems.
Kuo-Yu slayer Chuang Response	Operational board is more about "to keep our things going smoothly, and even better". The strategic board is "to create the possibility of greater impact and results". This might reuiqre different skill set and experiences, thus, the variety of board members is important. My thoughts to board member is to serve and work with staff from high/strategic level perspective. Even for the operaitonal board, the board member(s) can still contribute with their expertise on organizational principle/framework/governance so our daily operation can work smoothly. Strategic board can contribute to HOT from tech community, fundraising, outreaching, partnership engagement, and so on. Both operational and trategic board are crucial to HOT, also the boards need to work and align together with consensus so it won't become the dragging force to each other.

2. As HOT's budget and staffing increase rapidly, what are the most important roles for the Board to take?

Candidate Response
Nate Smith Response	Financial oversight is one of the primary roles the Board must take. Understanding staff hiring needs and direction of the organization is key a part of the budget review process (annual and quarterly) and the Board must take on that role in order to ensure the needs and direction are linked to the mission of the organization and long term sustainability of the organization. The Board must be asking questions not just about the budget, but also question about the goals and objectives the organization is setting globally or within each of the regions and hold accountability to the Executive Director.
Shoaib Burq Response	Board needs to ensure a sustainable trajectory of the organisation. This means keep a clear eye on the budget and finances. The duty of care towards the staff by tracking staff well being. Making sure that the strategic goals are being achieved. Keeping an eye to the changes in the world that impact HOTs mission and ensuring the strategy is updated as needed to align with them.
Kuo-Yu slayer Chuang Response	Sustainability is the key, also BE BOLD to have greater impact is the goal that we should have well plan and to be passionate for it. The board member should be able to contribute to HOT with their expertise and experiences, to keep the sustainability of HOT, build the resilience against risk, and together with team to plan & actions for the goal of HOT.

3. What do you see as the greatest challenges the organization is facing strategically, and as a board member, how do you plan on approaching these challenges?

Candidate Response
Nate Smith Response	I will reiterate parts of my previous answers to this question that one of the key challenges the organization continues to face strategically is how to expand the regional hubs in a way that strengthens the local humanitarian OSM community capacity while achieving results in the tight time frame. Growth of local communities, strengthening capacity, and building useful tooling that supports this work takes significant time. Second challenge HOT is facing is the long term direction of technology development. Tech is a key role HOT does and should continue to play and the question of where HOT spends time in technology development should be further defined. The technology space and mapping tools are rapidly developing and HOT’s role should be evaluated. This will help strengthen where it invests their time and resources wisely. We must be investing more time in envisioning what's next here.
Shoaib Burq Response	One of the biggest challenges is carving out a place for HOT in the ecosystem of NGOs today. NGOs are often competing for the same money and HOT needs to ensure they standout. As a board member with experience in the technology field and my aim will be to help HOT stand apart in the application of tech for humanitarian and development work. In fact this is perhaps one of the strengths of the current board, namely highly experienced leadership in mapping technology.
Kuo-Yu slayer Chuang Response	Operational perspective is financial things and should be extended to fundraising topics. It also related to our strategic planning on community engagement, outreach & partnership, and the delivery of results and impact. The reaason why I keep mentioning trategic partnership is, For example, AI is not a threat but a good tool that allow us to focus on our strength. If AI can do the building mapping perfectly, then our advantage is to engage local community to map the data that is hard to be automatic generated by machine. To identify our strength and make it impact further, that differentiation will feedback to our fundraising, as well as to the financial topics we are working on now.

4. In order for HOT to sustain a growing and active membership, what changes should be considered to avoid volunteer burnout and maintain an active community beyond paid staff?

Candidate Response
Nate Smith Response	This is a great question because an active community needs to continue in order for HOT to be a successful organization. HOT and the communities we work in relies on its volunteers and so how we treat volunteers and maintain an active community is critical. I think one area that could be explored more – more defined roles of what and how to volunteer. Volunteering doesn’t have to be vague and some roles for how to be involved should have a clear time commitment.
Shoaib Burq Response	Volunteer burnout is a real issue amongst members of non-profit organisations. Knowing how to measure burnout or disenagement is important. One thing that can go a long way is for the board to be active community members too, since they also wear that hat. As board members we should be allowing for greater opportunities for members to connect and communicate with the board. This is easier said than done as the board itself may be over stretched. In addition the board is trying to have deeper engagement with community by encouraging community presentations. We also need to understand the community expectations and where needed ensure there isn't a miss-match between expectations and what HOT is able to give back. For example there may be implicit expectations of employment which if unmet without clear feedback could lead to despondence. Ensuring clear communication can prevent some of these feelings. We should also be shouting out about the amazing work volunteers do and possibly even thinking about thanking them formally via some form of a recognition process (e.g. award).
Kuo-Yu slayer Chuang Response	Tough question and might be no absolutely right answer to it. Volunteer participate because of the passionate and the fulfillment of achivement, to help others, to see the data we collect impact the society in a good way, to make more friends with similar belief, and so on. To automate the daily routines and minimize the efforts that can allow our volunteers to focus on what they love to do, could be one of the things we can do to avoid burnout. Also, to have consensus on the value to our grand objectives and goal, that will encourage our volunteer to keep walking with us on this journey as well.

5. What changes should be considered to HOTs governance model to keep up with a growing global community while providing impact at the local level?

Candidate Response
Nate Smith Response	The organization is vastly different than it was 10 years ago and thus we need to evaluate this further. Two things on the table that I would look to evaluate more: 1) advisory members on the Board to bring specific expertise or insights. This would be a way to help give oversight to the direction and strategic insight into improved local impact. 2) Redefining what it means to be a member vs volunteer. Identity is a big part of being recognized as a volunteer and we restrict membership through a nomination process that may miss out on enabling healthy community growth that helps sustain the organization.
Shoaib Burq Response	Ensuring that growth of membership is commiserate with the duties, or engagement that are expected with being a member are important. Currently we don't have anything in the governance model that allows for members that want to go beyond the minimal involvement by voting in board elections every year to be recognised. We have many avenues for volunteering via working groups and committees, open source contributions and volunteering during mapping. Non-member volunteers that are contributing to the work of HOT may want to be encouraged to join the membership both as a form of recognition and also as a way to diversify the community. How this might be reviewed and written into the by-laws still need significant work.
Kuo-Yu slayer Chuang Response	Current regional hub is important and is a good way to localize and decentralize our growing organization. Communication and knowledge portal will be the next coming up topic to be considered. How the activities and the stories from local community, can be seen/heard/known by the global and other regional hubs? Can those become our legacy? Can we turn this into best practices and linked to our organization objectives? Will our strength and accountability presented via those local actibities? I think it will be one of the major tasks for the board to think about, and together to work with team to come up with some framework, guideline, and maybe even tools in response to the questions mentioned above.