For a few months, I have been participating in ICAN’s online support group, through Yahoo. I have been trying to decide if I would like to become a member of ICAN, but the website offers very little information. Last week I posted a list of my questions but no one has responded, other than to say, that they were forwarding the list to the president of the organization.
Shouldn’t this information be readily available to all? Shouldn’t anyone else be able to answer it?
I will post my email questions and list below.
Not unsurprisingly, some women on the list give answers, such as my membership fee buys me happiness at supporting ICAN’s work. But what is that work, exactly? How do you know what you are supporting? Are you supporting self-appointed board members’ travel to what end? A mission statement is fine, but where are the annual reports, the accountability that shows how people’s money is being used to support the mission statement?
Another example of answers is “as for who gets what position, I trust the women on the board to choose who they think is best.” Imagine! The irony is that the women who are volunteering answers like this are the same women who say they never should have trusted OBs or the medical professionals because they wound up with c-sections.
Here was my email:
It looks like some good work was done. I have been reading through the ICAN website trying to learn a few things about the organization before becoming a member. But I don’t see answers to several questions:
1. To become a member you must become a member at a local level, achapter, yes?
2. How do members vote for the board members?
3. How do board members become board members if there is no membership-based nomination and procedure?
4. What are the voting rights that come with the membership?
5. In other words, what is the voice of the individual member in the organization?
6. What is the membership “buying” a member? Other than Clarion, discounts?
7. That is, if it is to do advocacy, etc, I don’t see any annual reports that show how the membership fees are being spent or
contributing to the organization’ s goals, so am I looking in the wrong place? I believe NPOs must make public these facts, right?
8. Is there a strategic plan in place? Projected plans for spending/budgets.
9. These open positions do not show on the website, where I was looking to see how one can be considered to fulfill the position. How does that happen, and what is the process for selecting the ones who fill the position?
10. If you can only join local chapter, if you move within a short time, does your membership move with you to your “new” local chapter?
Let us stay tuned to see if anyone will respond.
