General Circle (GC):

• Who: All Core Staff (as defined in the Hiring Policy) may join the General Circle when nominated and approved by the General Circle. 

• Purpose: The General Circle is the primary body responsible for the management of the Sustainable Economies Law Center, in accordance with Board Resolutions and our official internal policies. The GC delegates nearly all decision-making to the Stewardship Committee (SC), and retains authority to review, amend, and, if necessary, revoke the Stewardship Committee’s authority. In delegating authority to the SC, we still strongly encourage a robust culture of transparency, seeking input, and integrating feedback.

• When: The GC shall generally hold  one monthly meeting for two hours, though it may change this meeting frequency and length. These meetings are strongly encouraged but optional for GC members to allow staff to opt out of certain conversations if/when needed.

• GC meetings may include: 

  • i) a report from the Stewardship Committee, 

  • ii) processing discussions described in the next bullet, and 

  • iii) any other activity the GC decides would be a good use of collective time and that furthers a culture of care, inclusion, and participatory democracy. 

• The following categories of decisions must come to the GC as a discussion before the SC processes a proposal (these also require board notice and vote):

  • Hiring and firing GC members

  • Change to mission statement

  • Staff compensation and benefits

  • Asset purchase greater than $50,000

Stewardship Committee (SC):

• Purpose: To act as stewards/trustees of the organization as a whole by discussing and deciding on all issues brought before it except those explicitly reserved for the GC or delegated to other Circles. Like the GC, the SC should delegate all decisions it can to the most appropriate scale of decision-making (i.e. closest to the impact). 

• Who: A 7-person body, made up of any active GC members, which rotates every six months. 

  • A shared yet flexible responsibility: To balance the shared responsibility of co-governing with individual staff’s contextual capacity and interest, all members of the GC will be asked to serve on the SC at some point. A selected GC member may ask to be excused from SC service for a specific term and explain why. 

  • Selection Process: A slate of 7 GC members will be randomly selected (using something like this, for example). That slate will then go through a standard proposal process, where selected individuals will have the opportunity to say why they’d like to be excused if needed (e.g. going on sabbatical, running an intense policy campaign, studying for the bar, etc). Each slate should be evaluated to ensure that it generally reflects a balance of skills, roles, positionalities within the organization, and program priorities. The slate may be amended through this process. 

  • Once the first SC is approved, future SCs should be determined approx. 3-6 months prior to the start of its term to support staff in work planning. 

• SC Meetings: 

  • Open and transparent: Anyone may observe an SC meeting. Any GC member can bring a proposal to the SC, and must be present at the meeting to bring their proposal or find a proxy to bring it in their stead. Any GC member can still vote in the voting booth and register a principled objection at an SC meeting. 

  • Deadline for Submitting Proposals for Stewardship Committee Meeting

1. Generally, all proposals should be written in Asana one week before an SC meeting.

2. If revisions are made within one week of the meeting, the revisions should be bolded in the Description section.

• Roles and authority: To address any items that pertain to the organization not otherwise retained by the GC,  to consider overall mission/strategic direction of organization, and to review any administrative and organizational impact of decisions by any sub-circle. These include, but are not limited to:

  • Proposing and approving internal policy changes that affect all staff (other than on issues otherwise retained by the GC or delegated to other circles);

  • Approving and modifying organizational budgets;

  • Approving sabbaticals; and

  • Any other matter not exclusively held by the Board of Directors, General Circle, or another circle.  

• Reporting to GC:

  • The initial SC must develop and submit a reporting process to the GC for approval within one month of being formed. 

Other Circles:

When creating a new Circle, the General Circle or Stewardship Committee must approve the Circle’s purpose, initial accountabilities, and initial Circle members. Any change to a Circle’s purpose or accountabilities must be approved by the GC/SC. Once established by the General Circle or Stewardship Committee, Circles are empowered to define and distribute roles within the Circle, decide what projects to take on in furtherance of its purpose, create Sub-Circles, add new Circle members, and set other internal priorities. For example, a Circle may autonomously decide to change its name and make other decisions about internal structures, internal processes, and areas of priority, in fitting with the overall mission and strategies set by the General Circle.

Circles are required to keep the Stewardship Committee updated on major changes (including new projects, changes in priorities or strategies, creation of new roles, etc), but not to ask for permission to carry out accountabilities within that Circle's authority. Each Circle will consider project/accountability/task requests from staff outside the Circle through the External Requests task in Asana. If the Circle does not take action on the request, the request can be brought to the Stewardship Committee.

Any individual SELC staff member can bring a proposal to the Stewardship Committee to have any other Circle take on a specific project, adopt a certain priority, add a new member, reverse a specific decision, etc. If passed, a Circle must carry out the proposal. In general however, it is up to each circle to determine how best to fulfill its purpose and accountabilities.

This policy does not override any policies that specifically require all staff to participate in a decision (such as policies regarding expenditures, external policy recommendations, etc).

Update Log

• Updated on 02/23/22 to add Stewardship Committee to Governance and Circle Structure

• Updated on 01/08/2021 to modify who may join the GC. 

• Updated on 4-15-2019 to include External Request language.