Giving your time and expertise as a member of a charity’s board can be an amazing opportunity – to expand your horizons, to dig into a new sector, and, of course, to do good.

We’re currently looking for new board members, on each side of our organisation – a non-Executive Director for our commercial arm SocietyWorks, and Trustees on the charitable side, for mySociety.

If you feel like now might be the time to step up and do something new and exciting, please do have a look at the job ads linked above, where you’ll find a lot more detail on the kind of people we’re looking for, and copious information on what the roles involve.

A warm welcome to our new Chair of Trustees Genevieve Maitland Hudson, whose appointment was formally confirmed this week. We’re delighted to have found her!

In Gen’s own words she is “a researcher and policy advisor with fifteen years’ experience of leading and supporting organisations in the areas of social measurement, social innovation, social impact, social entrepreneurship and social investment.”

She currently works as Deputy CEO at Social Investment Business, leading on impact measurement research, data, communications, policy, business systems and business development and spearheading innovation in grant-making and social investment funds.

Gen brings a deep knowledge of and interest in democracy, as well as a collaborative and consensus building approach to decision making, and an enthusiasm and passion for impact — so a useful and needed set of skills for mySociety.

And coupled with this happy news, the inevitable need to say goodbye to our outgoing Chair. We give our heartfelt thanks to Catherine Brown, for her huge contributions to mySociety over the last three years, and wish her all the best for her next endeavours.

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Top image: Mabel Amber

With the wonderful Catherine Brown soon to stand down (doesn’t time fly?), we currently have a vacancy for a Chair of Trustees to provide leadership to our board as we stride into our 20th year as an organisation. It’s an exciting and unique possibility for the right person.

An independent board, helping to steer our direction, is a crucial part of how mySociety operates as a charity. We believe that this opportunity offers experiences quite unlike any you’re likely to find elsewhere, and will prove rewarding to the right candidate.

Might that be you, or someone we know? We’d appreciate you sharing this vacancy far and wide, with the aim of reaching beyond our own familiar networks.

As ever, we want to bring in board members from a range of diverse cultural and socio-economic backgrounds. Our tools are used by multiple, intersecting demographics, and the composition of our board of trustees who set the strategic direction of our organisation should reflect this reality.

Please do check out our job listing or peruse our recruitment pack, where you’ll discover a lot more about the kind of person we’re looking for, and instructions for how to apply.

And even if you don’t fulfil every requirement outlined in the job description, we’d still encourage you to apply – we are committed to nurturing and aiding the development of our board members.

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Image: KOBU Agency

Can you lend us your expertise?

We currently have several vacancies available on the boards of mySociety and our wholly owned subsidiary SocietyWorks — providing exciting possibilities for the right people. Might you be one of them?

An independent board, helping to steer our direction, is a crucial part of how we operate as a charity. Information from the Charity Commission on trustees’ legal responsibilities can be found here: gov.uk/guidance/charity-trustee-whats-involved. 

mySociety trustees feed into decisions about our priorities; approve and help set budgets and strategy, and represent the organisation amongst their peers and the wider communities of people and organisations within our fields.

The Treasurer brings financial expertise to the table, playing a particular part in overseeing the finances of the organisation.

Non-Executive Directors help ensure that the company is well-run, solvent, operates within the law, and makes the best possible strategic decisions.

These are voluntary roles and therefore unpaid, but reasonable expenses are of course covered. We believe that this opportunity offers experiences quite unlike any you’re likely to find elsewhere, and will prove rewarding to the right candidates.

If that sounds of interest, please check out our recruitment pack where you’ll discover lots more about the kind of people we’re looking for, and instructions for how to apply.

We’re looking for a Delivery Manager to join our new Climate programme.

Last year, we added Climate to mySociety’s existing programmes of Transparency, Democracy and Community — you can read more about our activity in this area here.

We dived in to the programme with work to support the UK’s national Climate Assembly; close on the heels of that has come our project to collect and share the Climate Action Plans of every local council across the country, a service that we’ve now launched at data.climateemergency.uk.

The Climate Action Plans site allows citizens to see what their own council is doing around carbon reduction, and simply by making the plans public and searchable, all in one place, it opens up a multitude of opportunities for councils to learn from one another.

The service is in its early stages. We already have feedback from early users that it’s useful in its current form — but there’s lots more we want to do with it, and it stands as a good signifier of the plans we have for our Climate programme over the next few years.

Now we want to expand on this use of data, and increase our outreach to key stakeholders such as climate action groups, councils, journalists and researchers to help accelerate and improve action on climate at the local level, where it is estimated that 30% of the progress towards net zero can be made.

Thanks to funding from Quadrature Climate Foundation, we’re now in the process of scoping this work and scaling up our team: if you’re interested in being part of what looks like it’s going to be some of the most rewarding and crucial work mySociety has been involved in to date, do check out our current job vacancy for a Delivery Manager.

We’ll also be looking for a Network and Outreach Coordinator soon, so sign up for our Jobs mailout right at the foot of this page if you’d like to know when that vacancy goes live.

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Image: Vadim Kaipov

It’s not often that we recruit directly into our senior management team at mySociety, so we’re excited about the opportunity to find the right person to become our Finance and Commercial Director.

Could that person be you?

This is an exciting opportunity to shape the development of an entrepreneurial not for profit group, looking to develop new business models for supporting and working with the public sector. You’ll help us develop our programmes, and deliver actionable forward facing forecasts and financial information into the hands of key staff and our boards as we seek fresh business opportunities.

As Finance and Commercial Director, you’ll have direct responsibility for financial management, commercial strategy, and reporting across the group; balancing the needs of an effective charity delivering measurable impact, and a high-performing public sector commercial business delivering innovative services profitably and effectively.

And you’ll be working directly with me to lead our finance and commercial activity across the group internally, as well as helping us shape our business and organisation externally.

This role will straddle both our charity mySociety, and our trading subsidiary SocietyWorks. As such, the right candidate is going to need the entrepreneurial experience and commercial zeal needed to support a fast growing software product business, along with an understanding of how charitable funding works and the particular challenges that come with balancing restricted and unrestricted funding, juggling multiple delivery approaches to a variety of civil society and government actors.

We recognise that whoever takes on this position is likely to have more or less experience on either the charitable or commercial side – so openness to learning on the job is going to be really important.

You can see all of the specific details on the role and responsibilities in the Finance and Commercial Director Job Description. And to get a better understanding of the qualities we’re looking for, check the Finance and Commercial Director Person Specification.

So if you are interested in applying, or know someone who is perfect for this role please get in touch or send them this post.

This is also a rare opportunity for us to increase the diversity of our senior team and we welcome applications from all suitably skilled and experienced people and particularly from candidates from Black and minority backgrounds. We’d also support applications from those seeking part-time or flexible working arrangements.

As this role is a vitally important and strategic one for us we’ve taken the unusual step of working with a recruitment consultant to help us out – we’re asking candidates to apply directly to Simon Bascombe at Harris Hill by Monday 3rd May – full details of how to apply are in the Job Description.

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Image: Micheile Henderson

For a charity like mySociety the appointment of a new Chair and Trustees is an important opportunity to bring new leadership and energy to our boards and to the organisation as a whole.

Over the next three months we are looking to appoint a clutch of new board members for UK Citizens Online Democracy (our charity board) and for mySociety Ltd (our commercial board) as well as the uniquely important appointment of a new charity board Chair.

After 15 years of service, our Chairperson, James Cronin will be stepping down at the end of the year.

James was one of the original founding group of volunteers who established mySociety. He has been a Trustee and Chair of UK Citizens Online Democracy and a Non-Executive Director of mySociety Ltd for most of their existence. James has been critical to the success of mySociety over the years and continues to be a mentor for me and the team.

Before then another of our very long-standing Trustees, Owen Blacker, will be stepping down at our AGM in July. Owen was also one of the original cohort of mySociety volunteers and has similarly served for over 15 years. We’ll miss Owen’s technical expertise, passionate defence of privacy rights and support of LGBT rights, and our board will be diminished as a result.

Strengthening our boards

So with this changing of the guard we have the opportunity to appoint new leadership and advisors to our boards and we hope you might consider applying.

A strong and diverse board is essential to ensure that our organisation is well-run, solvent, operating within the law, and making the right strategic decisions.

Three years ago we went through a similar exercise, appointing new Trustees Rachel Rank, Tony Burton and Nanjira Sambuli. We also established our commercial board with Jonathan Flowers, Tim Hunt and Anno Mitchell all being appointed. We also very recently appointed Mandy Merron as a new Trustee following a number of months in which she acted as an independent advisor to our Finance Committee.

So over the past few years we’ve already brought in new voices and opinions, improved our gender balance, and moved to fixed term appointments with a maximum of two consecutive three year terms and we’re keen to continue this progress through the next phase of our development.

Applications and appointments

For our charity board we are looking for new Trustees who can bring additional legal and policy experience. Specifically we need help in understanding the impact of any legal challenges we might face, especially in relation to data protection and Freedom of Information. We also need advice on how best to shape and influence public policy and consultations, especially where they relate to Democratic Participation, Place and Communities or International Development.

Trustees should have experience of working with the charitable or not for profit sector and must have a passion for our goals and experience of pursuing them.

You can see the full advert and application process here.

For our commercial board we would like to appoint new Non-Executive Directors with SaaS development experience and service provision to government and the public sector. We would especially welcome experience in developing and scaling software as a service products, and working on, or commissioning, service provision within Local and Central Government; especially in relation to Democratic Participation, or Place and Communities.

It would be beneficial for Directors to have experience of working with the charitable or not for profit sector, but this is not essential. They of course must have a passion for our goals and experience of pursuing them.

You can see the full advert and application process here.

We’re keen to continue to diversify the make-up of our boards and are particularly keen to see applications from women and underrepresented groups.

A unique new Chair

Appointing a new Chair is an exceptional opportunity to join a pretty amazing and committed, impactful charity. You’ll work with your fellow Trustees and the senior management of mySociety to help shape and direct our growth and development over the next few years.

We want to recruit a Chair who represents the best of what mySociety has to offer, who can help extend our ambition, hold us to account and champion our cause. They will need to be comfortable representing UKCOD and mySociety publicly and be prepared to speak on our behalf from time to time.

They will help us continue to diversify our board and team across a range of occupational and personal backgrounds, ensuring we deliver on our support of equal opportunities in ways that reflect the range of our users and work programmes.

They will be able to use their experience and connections to contribute towards helping more people to be active citizens and improving access to and participation in democratic processes around the world.

The closing date for all applications is 10.00am, Monday 13th May.

If our mission motivates you in the way it motivates our staff and volunteers, we would love to hear from you and you can find full details for how to apply here.

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Image: Xiang Hu

We’re seeking people to join the WhatDoTheyKnow team, dealing with the day-to-day administration of the site.

Over seven million people viewed our Freedom of Information website WhatDoTheyKnow last year; it now hosts almost 500,000 requests for information and has around 150,000 registered users. The site, which is managed on a day-to-day basis by volunteers, is continuing to grow.

Last year we ran a successful call for volunteers which led to a new cohort of people joining the core volunteer team, and a number of others taking on associated roles.

We have decided to make the call for volunteers an annual event, as it’s always useful to have more people involved in running and improving the service. The site’s growth isn’t the only factor: people move on, circumstances change, and there’s always a need to keep the pool of volunteers topped up.

Volunteers, like mySociety staff, work remotely from home, and can pick the days or hours that suit them best. There is no set number of hours required.

Administrator roles

Would you be interested in joining the team as an administrator? Currently that role involves:

• Considering, and acting on, requests to remove material from our site The material in question could be something big (like the accidentally released personal information of thousands of staff at a public body), something small (such as an individual’s phone number), or, to give a recent example, the address of a vice-chancellor’s official on-campus residence which the university doesn’t think should be published.
• Assisting users with using our site, providing advice on requesting information and helping resolve basic issues with their accounts.
• Managing the service by resending bounced emails, dealing with messages that public bodies have misdirected, and maintaining and extending the database of public bodies which the site relies upon.

Other roles

Due to the requirements attached to their grant funding, the efforts of mySociety’s paid staff are currently focused on developing the WhatDoTheyKnow Pro service and supporting deployments of our Alaveteli FOI software in other countries. To support the operation of WhatDoTheyKnow in the UK we’d also like to find volunteers could take on some additional roles. If your skills fit any of the descriptions below, you’d make a great addition to the team:

• Team administrator  Could you help us keep track of legal deadlines, organise (and perhaps chair or minute) our regular team meetings and ensure we follow up on outstanding items?
• Volunteer developer It would be useful if we had volunteers able to make tweaks to the site’s software to support the growth of the site and the work of the other volunteers. Tasks could include improvements to the administration interface, and making updates to the static pages on the site.  This role would provide an opportunity to get experience working with mySociety’s highly professional development team, or offer a chance for an experienced developer to help out a team working on an impactful civic project.
• Strategic fundraiser Could you help us obtain the funds we need to keep WhatDoTheyKnow.com running and ensure that the operation is sustainable as it grows? This would be an opportunity to work with volunteers, and you’d also work in tandem with mySociety staff, including the professional fundraiser we’re currently also seeking to recruit.
• Documentation specialist The volunteer team, along with mySociety’s staff and trustees, have developed a substantial number of policies governing how the site is run. These are filed in the staff Wiki, and also, where possible, made public on the site. Tending to both these aspects of our documentation would be a great help to the team, and to users.
• Public body database administrator Behind WhatDoTheyKnow is perhaps the largest database of public bodies in the UK — would you like to help maintain and improve it? There may be opportunities to support new WhatDoTheyKnow Pro features which are in development, for example by curating lists/groups of public bodies.
• Regional, or sector, specialist Would you like to join us and help improve our service in a particular geographic or sector area? Perhaps you would like to help ensure we have full coverage of public bodies in, say, Manchester, and ensure they’re well described.
• Journalistic / communications volunteers We would like to do more to promote and encourage high quality use of our site, for example though a regular blog post pointing to notable responses received each month.

Requirements

If you’d like to join us, and think you’ve got something to offer, then please do get in touch.

There are no formal requirements for our volunteer roles, although due to the way we work the ability to write clear, professional, emails is essential; and when corresponding with our users we need excellent communicators who are able to provide to support to people from a broad range of backgrounds.

A number of our current volunteers had not made significant of use of the service themselves before joining the team. You don’t need to be an avid Freedom of Information requestor, activist, campaigner or journalist to join us; but if you are, that’s great too.

While we do need people who can regularly share the workload associated with dealing with incoming user support, and takedown requests, there are also opportunities to carry out self-contained projects, or help out on an occasional basis.

What are the benefits?

While these are unpaid positions, you may enjoy the satisfaction of knowing that you are supporting a service that is of help to the UK population, often empowering users to uncover information that would otherwise remain unknown.

All at mySociety and WhatDoTheyKnow are immensely grateful for the work put in by volunteers: their contributions release mySociety staff and the rest of the team to focus on elements of the service where their skills are best used.

But there are some fringe benefits, too:

• You’ll gain experience in running a high traffic website processing a high level of user-generated content.
• You’ll work as part of the team on often complex cases involving data protection law, defamation law, and sometimes requiring tricky journalistic and moral judgments.
• You’ll take a vital role supporting a key part of the UK’s democratic and journalistic infrastructure, helping at the front line of tackling fake news, and helping inform public debate on a wide range of important matters from security and defence to benefits, health and care.

WhatDoTheyKnow volunteers have gone on to careers in the law, and experience with the team may well be useful for those considering entering journalism, or roles in information management.

Volunteers may be invited to mySociety events and meet-ups, providing a chance to take part in discussions about the future direction of the service and the organisation’s activities more generally. There have been a number of conferences held, where those running Freedom of Information sites around the world have got together to share experiences: one or more volunteers may be invited to join in, with travel expenses paid.

While our volunteer roles are unpaid there are funds available to cover travel and training costs.

Applying

Please write to us by the 23rd of April 2018, introducing yourself, letting us know about any relevant experience and skills you have, and telling us how you think you may be able to help out. If you’ve made use of our service, or FOI, do tell us about that: we’re always interested in hearing users’ stories.

Other ways to help

If volunteering to join the WhatDoTheyKnow team isn’t for you, perhaps you could:

• help categorise responses on WhatDoTheyKnow,
• spread the word about our service, or make a donation.

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Image: Clark Tibbs

Yesterday Matt explained what we hope to achieve with the Democratic Commons, our drive for shared, high-quality political Open Data.

If you read that and thought, ‘Blimey, that sounds like a lot of work’ — well, we thought so too. Hence, three new job openings.

As so often at mySociety, the skills we’re looking for aren’t exactly mainstream: on the other hand, if you do have a particular interest in the field, the chances are you’ll be a very good match.

So if you’re a bit of a geek about political boundary data…
Or if you have big ideas about how to build and maintain a large-scale distributed architecture for sourcing and updating basic political information…
Or if writing queries to extract data from Wikidata sounds like something you might do just for kicks … well, then the chances are that you’d fit in very well.

Find out more about all the vacancies here and please do pass them along to anyone who might fit the bill.

And because we know that it can be hard to make a big decision, especially before you know exactly what a workplace is like, we’ve done two things: we’ve expanded our Careers page to include more of a description of our so-called ‘company culture’, and we’ve opened up a blog post where you can ask us anything about working here.

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Image: Skyler Shepard (CC by-nc-nd/2.0)

About six million people a year visit mySociety’s Freedom of Information website WhatDoTheyKnow.com; there are well over 100,000 registered users, and over 385,000 requests have been made via the service.

Of course, it’s fantastic that WhatDoTheyKnow is so well used, but the growth and popularity of the site brings its own challenges, not least the day-to-day admin that keeps the site running.

Many aspects of the site’s operation are run by volunteers, supported by mySociety’s staff and trustees — and due to the site’s success we’re looking to expand the volunteer team.

What does volunteering involve?

The work is pretty varied, but there are some frequent and recurring tasks:

Dealing appropriately with requests to remove material from the website

This is one interesting challenge which arises fairly often. Sometimes these requests are from public bodies who’ve released information they didn’t mean to; and they can also come from individuals and companies who are named in correspondence on the site.

These decisions are not always as black and white as you might expect. Some recent examples where we had to carefully consider the balance on both sides were:

• Material which Transport for London were concerned could be used to steal a tube train. We considered: was this a genuine risk? Was our publication really increasing the risk? Was the information already available elsewhere? What was the potential value of publishing the information to tube staff and their representatives, travellers and the wider public?

• Sainsbury’s were concerned that published material didn’t reflect their corporate policy on “workfare”. That may have been the case, but we asked ourselves whether that made it inappropriate to continue to publish the information that had been released. Additionally, where did the public interest lie? What legal risks were there arising from continued publication?

Responding promptly and accordingly to accidental releases

Thankfully, the frequency with which public bodies accidentally release personal information in bulk via Freedom of Information responses is decreasing, but the WhatDoTheyKnow team still have to act promptly when this does occur.

Supporting users

We often help users on both sides of the FOI process. For requesters, we can answer questions about FOI and how to use it, and we also work with the staff of public bodies who are at the receiving end of requests.

And all the rest

There’s always more that can be done to promote the service, draw attention to interesting correspondence on the site, and lobby for improvements to our access to information laws.

The wider team at mySociety help people around the world to establish and run their own online Freedom of Information services; and new features are being added to the UK site to make it more attractive to professional users such as journalists and campaign groups. Volunteers have the opportunity to get involved in these activities, helping steer the direction of new projects, based on their frontline experience of being a site administrator.

Keeping the database of thousands of public bodies up to date is another challenge, especially given the frequency of reorganisations in the UK’s public sector.

Commitments

We work primarily by email, with regular video conferencing meetings, and occasionally meet up in person.

As a volunteer, you can decide how much time you put in, and what aspects of running the service you decide to take part in — but ideally we’re looking for people who can spare at least an hour or two, a couple of days a week.

We understand that people’s external commitments vary over time, and of course, there’s a flexible approach if a team member needs to step away for a stretch now and then.

What makes a good WhatDoTheyKnow volunteer?

There’s one characteristic that all the WhatDoTheyKnow volunteers have in common: a belief in the value of Freedom of Information, or, more widely, the expectation of transparency and accountability from the bodies which citizens fund.

As for practical skills: perhaps you’ve been involved in moderating discussions on the web, or have experience with access to information, defamation, or data protection law. Or perhaps you have, or would like to gain, experience dealing with “customers” by email.

Primarily we’re looking for people capable of making good judgements, and who can communicate clearly online.

Before joining the team, new volunteers will have to agree to follow our policies covering subjects such as security and data protection. That said, part of the role may be, if desired, taking a part in developing and refining these, and other, policies as the service grows and changes.

How to apply

If helping us run WhatDoTheyKnow sounds like the kind of thing you’d be interested in doing, then please do apply to join us.

We only have the capacity to bring on and train a few volunteers at a time, and it is important that those chosen to help administer the service are trustworthy and committed to its policies, direction and non-partisan stance. For these reasons, we are recruiting volunteers via a formal application process.

To apply please write to us before the 20th of March 2017, introducing yourself, and letting us know about any relevant interests or experience you have.

What do we offer in return?

As a volunteer, the main reward comes from the satisfaction of assisting users, making good decisions, and helping run what is fast becoming a key part of the country’s journalistic and democratic infrastructure.

Volunteers may be invited to mySociety events and meet-ups, providing a chance to take part in discussions about the future direction of the service and the organisation’s activities more generally. There have been a number of conferences held, where those running Freedom of Information sites around the world have got together to share experiences: one or more volunteers may be invited to join in, with travel expenses paid.

Other ways to help out

If volunteering to join the WhatDoTheyKnow team isn’t for you, perhaps there’s something on mySociety’s Get Involved page that is — or you could:

• help categorise responses on WhatDoTheyKnow,
• spread the word about our service, or
• make a donation.

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Image: MarkBuckawicki [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons