NodeBB

Donors have the power to add restrictions, change bylaws, and alter the foundational structure of the organization — but they do not hire or fire staff, direct day-to-day decisions, or manage operations. That authority belongs to the board and staff. This separation exists for a reason. Donors provide the mission and the guardrails. The organization's people execute within them. Conflating the two would make the org ungovernable — no staff can function effectively when every operational decision is subject to a donor vote. When donors want to change the rules that everyone agreed to when they joined — the foundational structure, the mission, a core restriction — that requires a supermajority of approximately 75% of votes cast. This threshold ensures that changes to the constitution of the organization reflect genuine broad consensus, not a momentary majority on a low-turnout vote. Everything outside that scope is the board's domain.

I believe that any one of us, in the right place, at the right time, can have an impact that far outstrips what seems reasonable. The people we touch carry something of us forward — into their families, their work, their arguments, the people they in turn touch. Most of that happens quietly, without credit, without anyone noticing it as impact at all. But it compounds. I am not certain this will work. I am not certain I am the right person to build it. What I am certain of is that trying matters — and that trying visibly matters, because someone watching might decide that if this is possible, something they have been sitting on might be possible too. That is not a small thing to me. I would consider it a success in itself if Authored Eternity, in success or failure, made even a few people believe that their own attempt was worth making.