[Lnc-business] Proposed

Sun Jul 7 13:21:48 EDT 2019

Dear Mr. Fishman & Colleagues,

I want to take a moment to say I appreciate you stepping forward with 
this new idea and hope that you will not be deterred to present many 
others. I for one welcome brainstorming and creative solutions to 
problems and look forward to what else you have to present to the board 
at the Austin meeting.

Having said that, here are my thoughts on this proposal. First and 
foremost, we are in need of a new fundraiser, this is one of the most 
foundational positions in the Party and without a solid fundraiser with 
relationships with donors project and operations flounder. I look 
forward to the findings from Mr. Larks Employment Policy committee in 
their post-employment interview with Ms. Daughtery, I would also 
encourage the ED to speak with Ms. Daughtery while she is still with the 
organization to determine in frank terms what resources we are lacking 
and what opportunities we have to get better.

Secondly, I am not completely against the idea of a paid LNC member for 
fundraising purposes, however, I believe the Vice Chair or an At-Large 
Director seat would be better suited for a full time fundraising 
position for several reasons. One, while we want our Chairperson in the 
spotlight and in the media, that would be better achieved by a third 
party or in-house press company that create and maintains contacts with 
the press. Second, the Chairperson must maintain impartiality, a paid 
position may interfere with this not only for financial conflicts, but 
political conflicts as well. Also there may be issues with generous 
donors who are voting party members who may disapprove of the job of the 
Chair at the time, where a fundraising director would be a neutral 
entity. Third, there is no guarantee that each Chair will be well suited 
for the particular position of fundraising, term over term there may be 
those who are better suited than others, however, it would be beneficial 
for the fundraising director to maintain long term relationships with 
our donors and staff.

On the other hand, the Chairperson is the face of the party and as such 
will be in a better position to charm donors and be the voice of the 
party as a paid staffer. I would like to hear from Mr. Sarwark as to 
what he believes are the potential and experienced impediments of a 
financially independent Chair when it comes to performing those 
functions and how things might be different if paid. The other issue is 
an issue of time, does a Chair, even full time paid, have enough time to 
perform his Chair duties and also, say, run a business or work in their 
career. We could save money by not paying the Chair person to be "full 
time" but instead perform certain functions, but without a single minded 
commitment to the task of fundraising would the Return on Investment be 
as much or less than a full time, higher paid, fundraising director?

I am willing to examine the idea further at the in person meeting but I 
have many questions and would like to seek more perspectives on the 
idea. I believe building a fundraising department with the tools needed 
to succeed is our highest priority this body should pursue right now.

In Liberty,

Steven Nekhaila
Region 2 Representative
Libertarian National Committee

Impotentes defendere libertatum non possunt
"Those without power cannot defend freedom"

On 2019-07-06 10:36 PM, Daniel Fishman via Lnc-business wrote:
> One of my long range goals is a permanently paid chair for the LP. It 
> was
> further down my agenda list, and I had presumed it would happen when we 
> had
> greater financial stability. When the opportunity presented itself now
> though, I decided to try it out. And that means if it works we are 
> talking
> about the same option for whomever the chair is (and we've never 
> elected a
> chair to a 4th terms as far as I'm aware).
> 
> Of course a permanently paid chair is a convention level decision, but 
> one
> that can only be made if we can indeed afford it. Getting the financial
> legs to stand on is what you brought me here for.
> 
> I'm a big believer in not being afraid to fail. In order to not fear
> failure you must have metrics that can tell you if you are failing. 
> This is
> a pretty clear cut one. Any fundraising contractor will be expect to be
> raising enough to cover their costs within a few months. And that 
> includes
> the Chair. If they can't, that's gets deemed a fail. We terminate the
> experiment, learn from our mistakes and proceed to the next attempt.
> 
> To me this seems like a good roll of the dice, with relatively minimum 
> risk
> to the LNC. Almost all of the risk is borne by the Chair. I am asking 
> to
> put the Chair on the hot seat. Should any chair be contracted as a
> fundraiser for the LNC and fail, the ramifications would reverberate 
> till
> the next convention. Should the chair succeed he benefits every future 
> LNC
> chair and future LNC by establishing the precedent that (I hope) will 
> lead
> the delegates to approving a permanently paid chair. I have essentially
> asked the chair to put his head on the chopping block.
> 
> And it should be pointed out too Mr. Chair, that when I asked you if 
> you
> would be amenable you suggested I bring the idea to the LNC first. I 
> have
> done so, but you still have not actually indicated that you would 
> indeed
> accept the contract. I'm assuming you have been seeking counsel of your
> own? Are you prepared to firmly commit to accepting a contract should 
> one
> be offered?
> 
> The chair is in a unique position to do things that will affect
> fundraising, such as media appearances, published articles. As such the
> unique position is one I think the LNC should try paying for to see if 
> it
> increases our revenue.
> 
> ---
> Daniel Fishman
> Executive Director
> The Libertarian Party
> Join Us <http://www.lp.org/join>
> 
> 
> On Sat, Jul 6, 2019 at 3:45 PM Caryn Ann Harlos via Lnc-business <
> lnc-business at hq.lp.org> wrote:
> 
>> It is already all of our jobs to fundraise.  Pay expenses? Certainly.
>> Salary?  No.
>> 
>> I volunteer - expenses only.
>> 
>> Seriously after the shitstorm last year for legitimate fundraising 
>> it’s all
>> of a sudden different because it’s Nick and with salary?  I was in 
>> danger
>> of (ridiculously) of bribing votes with t-shirts but this is okay?
>> 
>> Is Nick re-running?  Would there be no using of a salaried position to
>> influence internal politics?
>> 
>> I’ll say it right now, then every chair candidate must be given equal
>> opportunity.
>> 
>> On Sat, Jul 6, 2019 at 12:20 PM John Phillips via Lnc-business <
>> lnc-business at hq.lp.org> wrote:
>> 
>> > I think other people said that more recently than I, its been a few
>> months
>> > since I did 😂, tho I hinted at it.
>> >
>> > Well thought out as always.
>> >
>> >
>> > John Phillips
>> > Libertarian National Committee Region 6 Representative
>> > Cell 217-412-5973
>> >
>> > On Jul 6, 2019 12:59 PM, Joe Bishop-Henchman via Lnc-business <
>> > lnc-business at hq.lp.org> wrote:
>> >
>> > I guess Mr. Fishman's honeymoon period is over!
>> >
>> > I'm willing to hear out our ED and not shoot it down immediately, but
>> > for my part I will need a lot more details when we consider it. If we're
>> > hiring a contractor, I want to know precisely what tasks the contractor
>> > will be doing on at least a quarterly basis if not a monthly or weekly
>> > basis, and how (and who) will be actively monitoring progress and
>> > adjusting based on the results.
>> >
>> > I will also need to review the information addressing whether this
>> > violates the Bylaws or common past understandings of the role of the
>> > Chair or LNC members.
>> >
>> > This contractor-who-knows-us approach would be preferable, in my view,
>> > to hiring a commission fundraiser who knows little about us and
>> > therefore will be ineffective at securing major donors willing to invest
>> > long-term with us. In-person telemarketing, which is effectively what
>> > that is, can be effective for raising money quickly, but only at
>> > enormous expense (as a percent of dollar raised), great risk of
>> > misrepresentation, and at the expense of a continuing relationship.
>> >
>> > Ideally we need to construct a fundraising department, essentially from
>> > scratch now. We have two main donor audiences - major donors and small
>> > dollar donors - and each of them needs attention as to their
>> > prospecting/qualification/opening doors, asking/closing, and
>> > stewardship/cultivation. That's essentially six completely different
>> > skills (2 audiences times 3 jobs each) and we can't have one person do
>> > all of it and expect them to do better than Lauren could. We also can't
>> > hire six people, so the answer is going to be a mix of LNC members, the
>> > ED, staff, and contractors.
>> >
>> > If we're going to get to a place where we are raising millions of
>> > dollars or more each year, building a fundraising department is an
>> > essential second step. (The first step is doing exciting things donors
>> > want to support, or at least proposing to focus on those things. On that
>> > part, I'd like to invite Apollo to the next Board meeting and tell us
>> > what he has up his sleeves.) If what Mr. Fishman proposes is a step in
>> > that direction, I'm more inclined to support it. If not, not.
>> >
>> > As Mr. Phillips I think noted, if we say no to everything and propose
>> > nothing we will quickly realize in a bad way how important fundraising
>> > is.
>> >
>> > JBH
>> >
>> > ------------
>> > Joe Bishop-Henchman
>> > LNC Member (At-Large)
>> > joe.bishop-henchman at lp.org
>> > www.facebook.com/groups/189510455174837
>> >
>> > On 2019-07-05 16:50, John Phillips via Lnc-business wrote:
>> > > Then lets get hiring.
>> >
>> >
>> > --
>> 
>> *  In Liberty,*
>> 
>> *Libertarian Party and Libertarian National Committee Secretary *-
>> Caryn.Ann.
>> Harlos at LP.org <Caryn.Ann.Harlos at LP.org> or Secretary at LP.org.
>> *Chair, LP Historical Preservation Committee* - LPedia at LP.org
>> Call me at 561.523.2250 and follow my public figure page at
>> facebook.com/pinkflameofliberty/
>> 
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>> All
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