The Future, Continued

In the statement from the MAIN board now on the WPVM home page you'll find this:

The MAIN board has ultimate authority over all aspects of our organization, including WPVM. Delegating this authority to paid staff is the standard model for organizational accountability in the nonprofit world. Volunteers, by definition, are free agents and are not subject to the same degree of accountability as paid staff. MAIN will continue to operate with a high level of openness to volunteer involvement and input, and we are excited about the future as we move into the “MAIN 2.0″ phase of our development.

The point that the statement makes about the relationship of staff to volunteers is probably appropriate for 99% of volunteer organization. After all, in most cases staff will have not only accountability but the critical skills that the work of the organization requires.

The situation at WPVM is quite unusual, though, and one of the ways it's unusual is that in its case the "volunteers" are actually the skilled staff, and the "staff" (which would be MAIN staff, since WPVM currently has none) are unskilled when it comes to station operation. Until very recently, in fact, they didn't even know the location of the station's transmitter. And that's just for starters ...