[npoc-voice] Fw: NPOC Strategy 2012

["klaus.stoll" <klaus.stoll@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

From: Klaus Stoll 
Sent: Tuesday, August 14, 2012 10:37 PM
To: npoc-voice@xxxxxxxxx 
Subject: Fw: NPOC Strategy 2012



From: Klaus Stoll 
Sent: Monday, August 13, 2012 5:55 PM
To: npoc-voice@xxxxxxxxx 
Subject: NPOC Strategy 2012

Dear Friends

Greetings and I hope this email finds you all well. Please allow me in the 
light of recent development and the upcoming monthly NPOC call to make some 
general comments and suggestions, which I hope will help us to develop NPOC 
further.

1. Finding a direction. NPOC is not a baby any more, it has been born, it has 
won and lost it’s first battles, it’s a teenager now, and like every teenager 
it’s a little bit confused with what to do with this apparently unlimited 
potential and strength it has. We know what NPOC is: “The purpose of the 
Not-for-Profit Organizations Constituency shall be to represent, specifically, 
the operational interests of not-for-profit and non-governmental 
organizations.”, (NPOC Charter 1.2 Mission), the question is how do we fill 
this with concrete actions/lines of main activities and also what will be the 
character/the values of NPOC, where is it going? 

Let me start with the character and values. It is all well to gather a number 
of organizations into a constituency in a very democratic way with everybody 
having a voice, but however diverse a group is in order to function ad to be 
effective it needs to have a set of values and principles that defines the 
groups character and binds it together. I think we as NPOC have to work a 
little bit on this so that we know what we are standing for and also those who 
want to join us and those we are dealing with daily. The re is a Mission 
Statement in the NPOC charter, (see just below), but as a first step I suggest 
that we create a more comprehensive Mission and Vision statement for NPOC. Not 
only will this help us with presenting us to the outside world and attract 
members, it will do us good thinking a little bit about ourselves. Here is the 
Mission statement of the NPOC charter and I invite your contributions towards a 
generic NPOC Vison/Mission statement. We should not spend more than 2-3 weeks 
on this and I suggest a deadline of the first of September on this. The new 
Mission/Vision statement will be the cornerstone of a lot of the other NPOC 
activities.

NPOC Charter: 1.2 Mission

1.2.1 The purpose of the Not-for-Profit Organizations Constituency shall be to 
represent, specifically, the operational interests of not-for-profit and 
non-governmental organizations. NPOC Members rely on the Internet and DNS 
policies to serve their communities. Members shall include not-for-profit and 
non-governmental organizations with missions that include, but are not limited 
to, philanthropic, humanitarian, educational, academic and professional 
development, religious, community associations, promotion of the arts, public 
interest policy advocacy, health-related services, and social inclusion.

1.2.2 The NPOC shall engage the ICANN community on how proposed and existing 
policies and initiatives uniquely impact not-for-profit and non-governmental 
organizations and the delivery of their mission-related services. Specific 
operational concerns include: domain name registration, expansion of the DNS, 
fraud and abuse, using the DNS to provide and collect information to members 
and to serve members and communities.

1.2.3 The operational concerns described above drive how NPOC Members actively 
manage their infrastructure, create and improve internal processes and 
controls, manage risks, and respond to and respect the welfare of the 
communities they represent. The NPOC shall allow its members to affiliate, 
discuss and participate in the development of DNS policies and how they relate 
and may impact our operations, outreach programs and member service delivery

Concrete actions/lines of main activities

We might see giving input into the ICANN process and discussion as one of the 
main role of NPOC, but I think that this is not good enough, not only should be 
have a basic position from which we give our inputs, (see character and values 
above), we should not just comment on a process we should drive the process, 
and we can only do this by us first identifying what are the most important 
subject areas we need to become active in in order to serve our mission/vision 
and membership. Once we have identified the areas we need to decide which 
concrete actions we will take. I invite you to make suggestions on which areas 
you think are vital for NPOC to become active in and how concrete actions might 
look like. Again, I think in 2-3 weeks we can have this done and the input can 
be used for what we will do in Toronto and beyond.

NPOC sustaining itself

I feel there is a need for clarification on the sustainability and financial 
situation of NPOC. there might be the impression that with the Y13 budged 
published and approved by ICANN, NPOC has some organizational funds available, 
but I am afraid the reality is as always in the small print and not as pleasant 
as it might look at first sight. Yss, there are funds available, but all funds 
are besides a amount for a very limited number of NPOC people to attend ICANN 
meetings, are basically funds to cover the cost of ICANN staff and our use of 
ICANN services. Again, these are not funds at our disposal but funds that cover 
existing ICANN costs.

We can now argue as long as we like if that is fair or not, but that will not 
change our reality, and the reality is that we need to go out and secure our 
own funds in order to be operational. In order to do that we need the Concrete 
actions and lines of activities and we need to identify potential funders for 
those activities, discuss and write funding proposals and go hunting for the 
cash. We need proposals for institutional NPOC funding for funders such as 
PIR.org and we need program based funding proposals for funders such as the 
Ford foundation.

Yes, by describing the way to secure the NPOC funding I am asking a lot and it 
is a hard and long way that needs all our efforts, but as far as I see it is 
the only way and I also think it is the right way and there is one major reason 
for this. If NPOC would sustain itself mainly from ICANN funding, how could 
NPOC be independent enough from ICANN to give an honest opinion and input? NPOC 
would not be able to bite the hand that feeds it! Believe me it is better that 
way. Also, our job is to represent NGO’s, not to serve ICANN. ICANN might go 
away,but our job in Internet Governance will remain.

OK, so let’s accept realties and start joint professional fundraising based on 
our mission/vision, lines of action. We can do it.

Growing

I took on the role as membership secretary of NPOC, and I am honored to be 
appointed to this task. I can go out and get members, numbers, bums on seats, 
but I think that is not good enough. We need well informed, active members that 
see there interests represented in an effective way and that see NPOC as THE 
tool for their not for profit representation in Internet Governance. To 
attract, mobilize, educate and hold those members we need a clear 
mission/vision/lines of actions/sustainability strategy. If one is missing, 
nothing will work. It’s hard work, but the price is right because Internet 
Governance is the topic that should interest us all as not for profits must as 
our future depends on it.

In the hope that the above helps in the discussion



Yours

Klaus