[Ccil-user] The CCIL Crisis

[Donald Berger]

In response to some of the questions raised below, please allow me to add
some more information for your collective benefit:

First, the severity of the crisis - after the mass resignation from the
board of directors last week, there seemed imminent danger of CCIL being
disbanded due to too few board member remaining - currently, we have only 4
board members, one of whom is resigning 1 June, and another who will likely
resign as soon as the danger is passed, who has a rather severe personal
crisis to deal with - of the remaining 2 Board members, one is also dealing
with a spouse in rather poor health, so we cannot rely on that board member
to carry an excessive burden of our operations. Our bylaws state that we
must have a minimum of 3 board members, but are fuzzy on what happens if
there are less than that. Additionally, we have guidelines from the IRS on
501 (c) (3) non-profit corporations regulations; and we may be endangering
our status by having fewer than 3 board members. Therefore, at least a
minimum board should be reconstituted, if even on a temporary basis. For
long term success, to avoid the types of problems which led us to this
point, the board has to be effectively trained - especially for those board
members who do not have non-profit board experience in their past. While
this last point is not urgent for the crisis at hand, it would be a terrible
shame to avert the crisis, without correcting the problems that led to it
occurring.

Financially, CCIL has been experiencing a drain for several years on the
organizations savings - the cost of maintaining our free ISP services,
telephone, technical and hardware services is greater than the donations we
receive - we have cash remaining of $13k approx., and while that would pay
the phone costs alone for almost a year, we do have other costs - hardware
costs, insurance, technical support costs for emergency services, etc. While
we might pull off an increase in donations with an urgent appeal, that
method will not work indefinitely - people eventually get tired of getting
beg-a-thon letters, especially when we have a history of service that is
substantially less reliable than most pay ISPs. So we need to find a way to
increase funds to the organization reliably - and the previous path chosen
was to increase our social services programs, to enable us to garner grant
money to supplement our donations.

Unfortunately, Free ISP service is not something that grant makers have been
willing to fund, it is still considered a luxury (your comment about the
poor not having computers is accurate to a degree - although we had started
a program to refurbish computers for low-income people and fellow
non-profits). More traditional direct social services programs rely on a
degree of reliability and availability that CCIL as a volunteer organization
has been unable to meet - both from the board standpoint, and the volunteer
standpoint - therefore, I devised a series of programs to show the need in
Chester County for technical support services for non-profits, and our
ability to partially meet that need with our volunteer resources, as a basis
for asking for more money so we can fund full time support people (who would
also be able to raise CCIL's overall standards of reliability and service
levels). To date, we have met with limited success - but far greater success
in this area, than we have had in getting funding for our core free ISP
services. It was the board's decision to take this approach, which caused a
great level of dissention in our volunteer corps; since the professional
social services 'mindset' is much more disciplined and, for lack of better
terms, aloof and cold, than CCIL's previous community based orientation.
People who volunteered for a community organization were finding our
organization was becoming more like a professional social services
organization - and that's not what they had wanted to volunteer for.

A 'scaled down approach' to CCIL, which would essentially eliminate dialup
services (which account for most of our operating budget) and rely on web
based services only is another possibility to relieve the financial drain -
but would eliminate our single biggest program in doing so, and decidedly
change the nature of CCIL as an organization as much as the previous social
services course of action would.

As far as existing 'management and key staff' and 'stakeholders', there are
very few individuals remaining - as I mentioned, we currently have only 1
solid board member remaining, the Pres. resigns effective 1 June, and my
resignation is effective 1 May. We have a handful of technical volunteers
who have renewed their interest in CCIL, but the core is only 5 or 6 people;
and our support volunteers (help desk, admin, etc) are also a small group.
CCIL currently serves almost 1600 people and 40 non-profit organizations -
there's an awful lot of work to do, but very limited time and hands to do
it. The discussion amongst people in this forum will (hopefully) help CCIL
to find new leaders to step forward and continue (and improve) CCIL's
service to the community, if possible.

Which leads me to the nature of the discussion which I feel needs to take
place here - what is CCIL to you, the users? What should CCIL be doing - who
is going to step forward to do it, and how?

I believe that our remaining board members are going to gather for a meeting
tomorrow, Monday 29 April, to elect some new interim board members - I do
not know that this meeting is intended as an open forum meeting to discuss
CCIL's needs in moving forward, but I would like to ask the board to
consider opening the invitation to members of this forum to sit and discuss
how CCIL can recover and move forward from this point.

Should the board decide to follow this suggestion, a post of the time and
location of this meeting should be made as soon as possible to members of
this list.

I hope the information above is helpful.

Warm Regards,
Donald Berger

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ccil-user-admin@lists.ccil.org
> [mailto:ccil-user-admin@lists.ccil.org]On Behalf Of Emil J. Volcheck
> Sent: Sunday, April 28, 2002 9:34 PM
> To: CCIL listserv
> Subject: [Ccil-user] The CCIL Crisis
>
>
> The recent posting by Director Don Berger presents a special
> challenge, if the crisis is as dire as portrayed.  It appears that
> there is essentially no time available to take any action to avoid
> his options to dispose of CCIL.
>
> Further, the posting to the CCIL users list is directed, I
> suspect, primarily towards those folks who are users of the so-
> called "free ISP" portion of CCIL.  They may not be in any very
> good position to evaluate the other services referred to - or to
> suggest appropriate disposition or a path forward.
>
> But, assuming that CCIL is not at the point of shutting down any
> moment, some actions appear feasible.  The proposals to staff and
> train a new board of directors, and to beef up and train many more
> volunteers are not particularly appropriate if one is on the brink
> of disaster.
>
> The most obvious thing to be done is for the remaining
> "management" and key volunteers to take stock of the extent of
> existing revenue and existing services being offerred.  Then, they
> must assess what can be continued WITHOUT pushing CCIL over the
> edge.
>
> Only if some semblance of stability can be achieved will there be
> the time to work on things that will require time - to do and do
> well.
>
> While keeping whatever resulting base going, the next step is to
> run a process to define EXACTLY what it is that the stakeholders
> in CCIL want it to be AND to become.  I have no awareness of
> exactly whom these stakeholders may be - those who "hired" Don
> Berger?  Or are there others (possibly including representative
> users of whatever services CCIL is offering).  But, whomever they
> are, it seems that it should be up to them to decide, at least,
> the near term future for CCIL.
>
> If they feel that enough time has been bought by operating only
> the presently sustainable services, then they may opt to go down
> the route of staffing a new board - training it and charging it to
> recommend and implement the new course.  And/or recruiting (many?)
> more new volunteers to tackle the services.  Only the stakeholders
> are in any position to decide on the right course of action, once
> a minimal stability has been achieved.
>
> Given that most of the participants in this CCIL listserv are
> probably unfamiliar with what has been going on with expanding
> services by CCIL, they may not be able evaluate the statements in
> Berger's messages; such as:
>
> "CCIL as a "free ISP" was doomed to bankruptcy in short order."
> No reason or rationale was offerred to substantiate it; so it is
> not easy to understand where those who had this feeling were
> coming from.
>
> But, it seems worth looking at why CCIL - offering a "free"
> service was able to attract only a miniscule fraction of the
> Chester County internet users - with a noted nine years to do.
> Clearly, tho the service was "free", it was not attractive enough
> to compete with un-free providers.  Why was that?  Free is
> supposed to be the great American (and Chester Countian) dream -
> but it could not stand up to "pay"!  I can offer some thoughts,
> but those who have been at the actual working level should have
> some better feel on the why.  That is pretty key information to
> decide if the "free ISP" has a long (or any) future for the new
> CCIL.  How would CCIL handle being really successful as a "free
> ISP" - with 10,000 or more users?
>
> Note that I have used the form "free" instead of free, since CCIL
> really was never operated as unfettered free.  It was hoped that
> users would actually contribute, even if they did not pay.  I
> remember that I received my first solicitation for contributions
> within the first two weeks of getting my initial CCIL account.  It
> was never clear if contributions were expected to cover a bit,
> some, most or nearly all the costs - contributions were just
> solicited.
>
> Further, CCIL was supposed to be available to anyone living or
> working in Chester County - not just the needy.  In fact, only
> those who were not truly needy could use CCIL, since you had to be
> unneedy enough to own and use a computer!
>
> However, the other services referred to in Berger's messages seem
> to focus on helping more needy or otherwise disadvantaged folks -
> and not "any one who lives or works in Chester County".
>
> It would seem that the original CCIL and the growing CCIL did not
> have the same objectives, rationale or intended clientele.  That
> inconsistency is not discussed in Berger's messages.  It obviously
> should be going forward.  Perhaps the "free ISP" of the future is
> NOT for anyone who lives or works in CC, but only the needy who do
> so?  Users of this listserv may not be in a position to offer
> broad input on such a question.
>
> I realize that I have not offerred much in the way of solutions,
> but unless it can be made clear that CCIL can sustain itself in
> some form for a reasonable time period then rapid dissolution
> before the hole gets too deep is the only option.  Any other
> option(s) will take time and effort to bring about.
>
> And, should CCIL have to cut back markedly, I suspect that it will
> never regain even its present status.
>
>
>
>
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