What TFC Stands For
How the Tech for Campaigns team feels about community and our mission.
The below was sent to our 3K and growing community of tech/digital volunteers this morning. We’re sharing here to underscore how foundational this topic is to us as an organization and hope it is to all healthy organizations.
To the TFC Community of Volunteers:
As an organization that sits at the intersection of technology and politics, we have an amazing opportunity to challenge the status quo in both of these powerful, far-reaching spheres. That opportunity extends beyond our work on political campaigns. It’s also about challenging existing values and norms, and about setting an example with the way we run the organization and work together as a community.
Over the past few weeks, both tech and politics have been publicly embroiled in revelations of longstanding and widespread sexual discrimination. This is a topic we feel strongly about, and we want to take this opportunity to address it head on and solidify the values the TFC community is built upon.
Our volunteer community is core to the work we do. It is of the utmost importance to us that every single Tech for Campaigns volunteer feel safe, secure, and respected in this community. To that end, we have been working on a community code of conduct, and decided as a team to prioritize this project over the past few days.
We ask that you take a few minutes to review the full code of conduct — but I’ll address the fundamentals very plainly here:
What TFC stands for: Mutual respect, openness, and healthy debate. We are building an open, diverse, and inclusive community — one in which we respect one another, our abilities, our similarities and differences. Our volunteer teams come together quickly to work on a common goal in often intense circumstances, and keeping these values top of mind is absolutely critical to our success as an organization.
What TFC won’t stand for: Any volunteer or employee feeling uncomfortable, discriminated against, or harassed by anyone associated with TFC. When we say we won’t stand for it, that means there is a zero tolerance policy. We will investigate every single report of discrimination or harassment, and if we determine that an individual has engaged in inappropriate or harmful behavior, that individual will be immediately dismissed from any work they are doing and from the TFC community. To be clear, while much of the news of late has centered on sexual harassment, discrimination of any kind is not permissible.
Our open door policy: If anyone has felt or feels uncomfortable, discriminated against, or harassed, we want you to come to us. To make that easy, for now, you can email concerns@techforcampaigns.org, which will be checked only by the TFC founders and kept completely confidential.
If any of this doesn’t jive with how you feel or treat people, that’s O.K. That means this isn’t the right community for you. In that case, feel free to unsubscribe and/or email me to remove you. I’ll do so, no questions asked.
For those of you saying, “of course, discrimination of any kind is impermissible, why are they writing this?” I know it sounds obvious. But there are moments in which silence is deafening; in which saying nothing is saying something. This is one of those moments.
On a personal note, for the last 11 years I have worked at or started technology companies. I’ve never once had someone offer me an open door and unconditional support if I felt discriminated against or harassed. Today, we’re doing our part to change that dynamic — to change the status quo. We encourage those of you who are managers — whether it’s of 2, 20, or 200 people — to do the same.
What else can we do?
We won’t pretend we have all the answers. We’re a living, breathing, growing organization. If you have ideas on how we can live up to our values in any way, big or small, feel free to reach out to me or the community (community@techforcampaigns.org) team at any time. For now, you can simply respond to this email.
You got involved in TFC to make a real, tangible impact on issues that matter. That impact needn’t be limited to working on political campaigns. We’re grateful to each of you for being part of that effort, and we look forward to making change happen together.
Yours,
Jessica, Pete, and Ian
