Summary

mySociety is looking to recruit new trustees to help us, as we transition from being a small digital non-profit into a mature international social enterprise.

If you are interested in helping to guide one of the earliest ‘digitally native’ charities through to its next stage of growth, this may be an opportunity of interest to you.

Our mission is to discover how technology can (or cannot) help make people more powerful. As a team and a community we are driven by a desire to build tools that help people exert a little control over the world around them – especially people who have never tried to do so, and who don’t think they would succeed if they tried.

If that is a goal that motivates you in the way it motivates our staff and volunteers, we should have a conversation.

What is a trustee?

Trustees oversee charities to ensure that they are well-run, solvent, operating within the law, and making the right strategic decisions. These are unpaid roles with an ultimate legal responsibility for the charity. To understand more about what being a trustee means legally, please see this introduction from the charities commission.

mySociety is the public brand of the registered charity UK Citizens Online Democracy: the positions we are advertising for today are trustees of that charity.

As a UKCOD trustee, you will advise on the organisation’s priorities, help with the approval of budgets and staffing, and assess legal matters. In concrete terms, that means attending meetings in London every three months, and dealing with the associated emails and documents – a commitment of about six hours per month.

History

Between 2003 and the present day, mySociety has built and grown a series of British democratic and civic websites and apps, including FixMyStreet.com, WhatDoTheyKnow.com, WriteToThem.com and TheyWorkForYou.com.

In the last two years our organisation has experienced a great deal of growth, with our staff tripling in number (to nearly 20) and our objectives becoming ever more international. This is largely due to major investments by groups like the Omidyar Network and the Open Society Foundation, as well as an increase in our commercial software and consultancy services, which generate about half our revenues.

Future Challenges

We have numerous challenges to face as we approach our 10th birthday, in late 2013.

• How do we balance the need to maintain and improve the quality of UK services, whilst working increasingly in other countries?
• How do we ensure that the people trying to build copies of the services we run in other countries succeed in adapting them to very different environments?
• How do we become a successful, substantial social enterprise that can drive quality improvement and higher ethical standards across the entire government IT sector?
• How do we do all this whilst ensuring that the high standards of talent – and niceness – of the people within our organisation do not slip?

What we’re looking for in trustees

mySociety is still small enough that it often needs very practical support from the trustees, such as opinions on legal matters. This means we need trustees equally comfortable with big questions and small ones.

We are interested in acquiring trustees from a range of different occupational backgrounds. If you have skills in any of the disciplines listed below, you could really help us.

• Marketing
• Campaigning and community organising
• International development
• Human resources
• Legal
• Governance structures
• Digital product development
• Finance
• Local Government
• Advertising
• Quality assurance

We also welcome applications from mySociety volunteers, whether past or present.

Timelines

We will be happy to meet people and arrange phonecalls for no-commitment discussions up to 21st December 2012. Please contact abi@mysociety.org if you would like to book in a conversation with someone who could tell you a bit more about the role.

If you would actually like to apply, please send a CV and covering letter, explaining why becoming a trustee is of interest, to abi@mysociety.org by 5th January 2012 latest.

We will conduct interviews on Monday and Tuesday 21st and 22nd January – we can arrange them in the evenings if that is necessary.

We will notify applicants of our appointment decisions on Monday 28th January.