What it's like to serve on the DSF Board

I am currently the Vice-President of the Django Software Foundation, and have served as a member of the DSF Board for two years. This article is intended to help give a clearer picture of what's involved in being on the DSF Board, and might help some people decide whether they wish to stand for election.

What we do Each month we - the six directors - have a board meeting, via Hangout. This lasts about an hour. We follow an agenda, and discuss questions that have arisen, have report on the state of our finances, and vote on any questions that have come up. Each month a number of the questions we vote on are about grant applications for events (conferences, Django Girls and so on) and nominations for new members. Mostly it's fairly routine business, and doesn't require much deliberation. Occasionally there are trickier questions, for example that might concern: matters where we are not sure what the best way forward is

legal questions about what the DSF is and isn't allowed to do

disagreements or contentious questions within the DSF or Django community On the whole we find that when it's a matter of judgement about something, that we come to agreement pretty quickly. At each meeting we'll each agree to take on certain administrative tasks that follow on from the discussion. During the month a number of email messages come in that need to be answered - mostly enquiries about support for events, use of the Django logo, and so on, and also several for technical help with Django that we refer elsewhere. Any one of us will answer those, if we can. Some members of the board have special duties or interests - for example the Treasurer and Secretary have official duties, while I often take up enquiries about events. Overall, it's a few hours' work each month.

What you need to be a board member The board members are officially "Directors of the Django Software Foundation", which might make it sound more glamorous and/or difficult than it really is. It's neither... If you can: spare a few hours each month

spare some personal energy for the job

take part in meetings and help make decisions

answer email

read proposals, requests, applications and other documents carefully

help write documents (whether it's composing or proof-reading)

listen to people and voices in the Django community then you probably have everything that's required to make a genuine, valuable contribution to Django by serving on the board. Obviously, to serve as the Treasurer or Secretary requires some basic suitable skills for those roles - but you don't need to be a qualified accountant or have formal training. In any case, no-one is born a DSF board member, and it's perfectly reasonable that in such a role you will learn to do new things if you don't know them already.