Dear Members of the Board of Girl Develop It:

In light of recent events, it has become clear to the community in and around Girl Develop It (GDI) that it is imperative for us to bring to you our specific concerns around the leadership and direction of the GDI organization. This letter outlines those concerns, the impact of those concerns and outcomes we would like to see to address those concerns.

Below is a list of those concerns and specific examples of the impact each of them has had on the organization.

Lack of trust in the moral and ethical character of GDIHQ Leadership.

As we are sure the Board will agree, creating trust is a key component to building a healthy community. Over the past few years, the community has observed a slow decline of the trust between GDIHQ and Chapter Leaders. This is due to several sudden policy shifts, along with the failure to address several issues around race and inclusivity at both the Chapter and HQ level. This loss of trust has caused Chapter Leaders to resign, chapters to shut down and difficulty in keeping/recruiting new Leaders. Here are some specific examples:

Lack of transparency.

Throughout the past few years, there has been an issue with decision transparency between Girl Develop It Headquarters (GDIHQ) and Chapter Leaders. There have been numerous occasions where there is an announcement of organizational decisions, with little guidance or context for the Chapter Leaders to follow. The result of this has been poor alignment with Chapter Leaders, which has directly impacted and disjointed the programming to our members.

Policies that adversely impacted the community.

There have been several policy changes that have directly and negatively impacted marginalized communities within Girl Develop It. Examples include: childcare, venue/location, scholarship limits and oversight, transportation, hardware, and the inability to expense food & beverage from chapter funds.

We urge the Board to commit and take immediate action on the following outcomes:

Replace and diversify the current GDIHQ leadership with people who have experience running a high-growth, diverse, national non-profit organization. As previously outlined, GDIHQ leadership has shown their inability to evolve with the needs of our growing organization, our members, and our local communities. The Board needs to decide whether or not the current leadership is helping meet and provide guidance for the overall health of the organization.

Provide greater transparency and increased communication between GDIHQ and Chapter Leaders. We’d like to see strategic and broad transparency into the decision-making process so that Chapter Leaders can have clear expectations of policy changes. This also includes providing at least quarterly financial statements, timely (24 hours or less) answers to questions in the GDIHQ Slack, timely (24 hours or less) response to service tickets, regular reporting (monthly or every other week) on organizational priorities and how those priorities are delegated across the HQ team as well as open honesty about GDIHQ’s capabilities.

Create policies, programs and guidance specifically to support women in marginalized communities. An explicit guide for a path to success for students that includes people with different goals (this includes insight from people who already succeed in marginalized communities who have had to work outside the box to achieve their goals). Specifically, we would like to see a direct and intentional shift in our program model to create events that directly serve marginalized communities (and a playbook of what that means and how to do it); DEI resources and direct training for all Chapter Leaders; and overhauls of policies that directly limit communities of color (childcare, scholarships, chapter fund accessibility, venue policy, transportation).

As one of the largest “women in tech” communities, your vision is to empower women to feel confident in their abilities. You now have a choice: you can show your community (and the world) how leadership can empower women through actions and demonstrate what it looks like when true leadership embraces all of its community. Or you can ignore your community and continue down a path to an untrustworthy and uncertain future.

Your community is standing by and is ready to work with you on your progress.

Sincerely,

Current and Former Chapter Leaders, Organizers, Instructors, and Volunteers of GDI

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