This is a year of big change for Code for America’s brigade program.
As you may have heard, there was some tension between brigades and the national organization as CfA tried to deal with a more challenging funding environment, staff turnover, and a growing sense by brigade leaders that the unique challenges and opportunities of the brigades were being overwhelmed by the national organization’s priorities.
In response, Code for America began a 10-month research and co-creation process with brigade leaders to together determine the future direction of the program. While the Asheville brigade captains didn’t directly participate in that process, we are both pretty excited about what they’ve come up with.
You can find a brief summary of the process and current plans in this 10-slide deck. If you’d like to watch the full presentation and discussion in a recent webinar, you can view the recording here (password: electiontime).
One of the most important decisions to come out of the co-creation process was the creation of a National Advisory Council:
- Provisional advisory council will be open to any current or former core team member
- 9 People elected for a one year term
- Nominations and voting open to all Brigade members
- The Council will meet once a month, and have 1-2 annual in-person meetings
- 1st year will be focused around developing the governance and sustainability for the chapters and opening up the network to allow for more individual participation
If you are a participant in Code for Asheville (whether you come to every meeting or just participated in a single event), then you are invited both to nominate representatives and to participate in the voting.
The nomination process is open until September 9 here. The election itself will take place from 9/19 to 9/30. We’ll remind you again when they begin.