Minutes
The People’s Consultants Board Meeting on November 8, 2023
By Bruce Clemens, 11/8/23
1. We thanked Antonio for FINALLY enabling credit card donations on our website. Antonio appreciated the recognition.
2. Antonio discussed social media campaigns' pros, cons, and costs. Antonio feels our best approach would be a GoFundMe campaign. Antonio’s firm, Helping Hands Creative, offers three levels of support. For $50 a month, they will post content that we provide on the relevant social media platform. For $75 a month, they will also respond to questions and issues raised on the social media platform. For $150 a month, they will help generate advertisements on Facebook, Google, and other platforms. We tabled any decision.
3. Steve updated us on his recent trip to Guatemala. He also spoke of the issue that donor urgency can overwhelm a firm with an institutionally sound methodology. That is, at times funding agencies force firms with a solid methodology to cut corners and act more as contractors.
4. We discussed the USAID proposal for $2,000,000 to support NGOs institutionally. Mateo is overwhelmed with the ongoing I-WASH and Rotary projects. We are willing to partially fund a person to help prepare the final USAID proposal and help build a more sustainable fund-raising process. Steve will speak with Carlos Gomez. Subsequently, we will speak with Mateo about our ideas.
5. Bruce’s motion to invest $1,900 for the design of the integrated Panimaquib and San Martin system was approved. Bruce will arrange for the transfer of $2,000 for the study.
6. We confirmed our Vision and Mission Statement as follows: The
The mission of The People’s Consultants is to provide material and intellectual support to communities, organizations, and individuals from developing countries to enable them to satisfy and protect their basic human rights, such as good health, clean water, and an education that allows them to develop their full human potential.
OUR VISION: The People’s Consultants is working to create a world in which all communities, organizations, and individuals from developing countries have the skills, knowledge, and resources to take effective action on their own behalf to meet their basic human needs.
7. We approved Bruce’s expenditure of $156 for an annual subscription for Adobe.
8.. We discussed the need to recruit new board members. One option is Matt Perl. Jose may be able to identify someone through his social networks.
9. We confirmed the next board meeting for the first Wednesday in February, February 7th.
We tabled the following items for future Board meetings:
-Discuss and vote on the role of a permanent secretary.
-Logo(s) - keep two
-Recuse Bruce from the vote on the following issue. Bruce can participate in the discussion but not vote on the motion: Motion to generate financial resources for future summits dealing with water supply, sanitation, and human rights to benefit tPC. The summits' revenue (income minus expenses) can also reimburse instructors for their expenses PARTIALLY.
-Fundraiser in DC? With Steve's Fundacion Acesco?
-Update on Google Adds - I think Jose may have volunteered to lead this: -Confirm that we agreed to provide 50% reimbursement for any Rotary members attending future Rotary conventions - Melbourne, Taipei, Calgary. We need to post such agreements on the web - maybe Antonio has an idea of how - should we include these in our by-laws or some new document for decisions?
-Decide to fund an AdP study on setting up a maintenance agreement for the new WallSprings in San Lucas and San Juan.-Nazeela, invite her to a future board meeting?
-Decide on a fundraising goal. I was counting on Cornell and SAE for a major portion. Counting that, I set my goal at $5,000 for next year.-New Business