[NA-Discuss] ATTENTION REQUIRED: Re: ARIN Participation at the Nonprofit Technology Conference

[Evan Leibovitch]

Danny Younger wrote:
> I look at the NCUC which is a bunch of similarly situated noncommercial organizations that each contributes membership dues to support the work of the NCUC.
Repeat after me. At-Large is not NCUC. In fact, the two _should_ be far
more different than they are, and IMO the efforts of At-Large have been
significantly obstructed by efforts to view its role through NCUC-tinted
glasses.

NCUC is, almost by definition, made of orgs that have advancement of
policy interests as core mandates. They found ICANN before ICANN found them.

Most ALSs, by contrast, are not by mission interested in policy and are
here because, by and large, ICANN wants their opinions more than they
want to give opinions. Most ALSs -- including mine -- are here because
ICANN actively courted them and would not be involved otherwise.

Put _very_ crudely, ICANN doesn't need to subsidize groups that would be
involved anyway. Existing constituencies -- including NCUC -- have
vested interests that bring them to the table. ALSs have no such
interests, no funding to advance any such interests, and thus are worthy
of subsidy.

If ICANN wishes to limit involvement to those orgs who pay to play, then
it simply won't have the public POV it wants, and will limit its voices
to special interest groups. In the debate over tasting it was clear that
NCUC is far out of touch with the public interest, so it's hardly a
credible proxy.

It is one thing to require that an ALS's existence should not depend on
ICANN handouts -- this is not under dispute. That is quite different
from asking ALSs to subsidize ICANN outreach and other activities from
their own strained budgets.

It is a mandate of my ALS to represent the views of its members. It is
not a mandate to represent or solicit the views of other groups. I am
personally offering to help ICANN in its outreach efforts; my time has
value which IMO more than matches anything ICANN could spend on my
attendance at an event to do outreach. If that's not good enough, well
too bad -- I have many other competing uses for my time, as do many
others here, that don't also require my financial subsidy.

As for whether outreach is a task for ALS volunteers or ICANN staff, to
me this is not an either-or. As existing parts of the grassroots, ALSs
will (probably) know better than ICANN staff where are the best targets
for outreach in their regions. And, since there are no current ICANN
staff doing outreach in our region, the outreach work we do as
volunteers is, at least for now, all that is being done. Until ICANN
hires someone in our region ICANN is paying ZERO for outreach, so our
proposed something is better than the status-quo nothing. Perhaps in the
future, new staff will make such efforts redundant -- but the fact is
that there have been very very few new ALS applications in our region
since the MOU signing. Rather than pointing fingers I prefer to try to
act on this with the resources available -- the efforts of NARALO
volunteers -- subsidized by ICANN -- at least for now in the temporary
absence of staff.

Maybe someone will be hired after the budget is set, and there will be a
small amount of overlap. But that's still better than sitting on our
hands and doing nothing, especially if the will of people to contribute
their most precious resource -- their valuable skill and time -- has
been offered.

Participating in ICANN does not and will not force me to devalue my time.

- Evan