By Donald R. Winslow
© 2009 News Photographer magazine
LAS VEGAS, NV (June 9, 2009) – The National Press Photographers Association's board of directors made a dramatic change in the organization's governance structure on Tuesday night by voting to drastically change the long-standing structure of the board – which since 1946 has been based on regional elections from 11 geographical territories – to a more streamlined panel that will be composed of six at-large board members and three appointed directors. New elected members will each serve three-year, staggered terms; appointed directors serve for an unspecified length of time.
"This is what the organization needs," NPPA president Bob Carey said late Tuesday night after the vote. "I believe that the board has taken the right steps to take on the current situation, and they made the right decision. Now we can begin to take some very big steps. I'm excited about the future of NPPA. The regional volunteers are a vital part of this organization, they are the grass roots, and that's not going to change. But it took a forward-thinking board to take these steps tonight in order to move the organization forward."
Under the new bylaws passed by the board, the organization will be governed by an Executive Committee of national officers consisting of a president, vice president, secretary, treasurer, past-president, and a new position called the "Regional Chair Board Representative." The existing regional directors – who tonight effectively voted themselves off the board – will now become "regional chairs," volunteers who no longer have an automatic seat on NPPA's board of directors based on the old regional model. But under the new bylaws they could also rejoin the board if they run for the position as one of the six new at-large board members.
The six new at-large board members, who are required to be NPPA members to be elected, will be joined on the panel by three additional NPPA board members who will be appointed to their posts. The three appointed board members are not required to be NPPA members, so that board members who are outside of the profession of visual journalism – people who have expertise in running non-profit and education organizations – will be eligible for NPPA board service. Appointed board members serve for an unspecified length of time.
"Now we need to implement it," Carey said. As the board adjourned for the night, Carey advised them that the consummation of these new bylaws, and installing the new governance structure, now depends on what he called "an enabling proviso." In other words, when the board resumes business on Wednesday they will next have to hash out how – and when – they will make the transition to the new governance structure they just approved. Carey said he prefers that they make the move sooner rather than later.
With the vote on Tuesday the organization's board of directors accomplished what several NPPA boards before them were unable to do, in effect taking the steps necessary to downsize their own members. The changes didn't come without extensive discussion, and speakers on both sides of the measure made multiple suggestions to revise the bylaw's language section-by-section before the final ballot.
The board's decision tonight to create a new model of representation is something a series of NPPA executive directors, non-profit consultants, and veteran board members have also urged the organization to do for at least a decade. Executive director Bradley Wilson in the mid-1990s, executive director Greg Garneau circa 2003, and current executive director Jim Straight have all advised NPPA's board that the old model was just not well suited for the needs of the organization, and its members, in these times.
"The goal is to have a more agile board," NPPA vice president Sean D. Elliot said Tuesday night after the vote. "Getting down to smaller numbers wasn't the whole point; it was also that the regional mandate didn't work."
When NPPA was born in 1946, Joseph Costa and the other founders broke the country into 10 geographic regions, and each region had an elected director and secretary-treasurer. When added to the nationally elected officers, that created a governing body of nearly 30 people. An eleventh Region and director was added later. In the 1970s the regional secretary-treasurer position was changed to be an associate director (who was also a board member).
While that model may have served the organization well in that era, by today's standards – and compared today to the boards of similar non-profit educational organizations – the size and structure of NPPA's board has been cumbersome and, at times, slow to move and to react. Changes in the economy, changes in journalism, and changes in the services required by membership-driven organizations have been drastic in recent years, and streamlining NPPA's board of directors by adopting these new bylaws and a smaller governance structure will put NPPA's board more in step with current non-profit organization's board practices.
When who served on the board was based on where a board member lived, and on two year elections alternating between even-numbered and odd-numbered regions, NPPA's national secretary often had a difficult time convincing volunteers to run for office and to serve on the board. Historically, board members have also come from the working ranks of the profession, being photojournalists for newspapers or television stations, or editors, or from the academic branches of journalism schools. With the elimination of a board structure that's based on finding a volunteer from a specific geographic region who is willing to volunteer to run for office, now the six new at-large board members can be from any location, and from any aspect of visual journalism or the business world.
Except for a brief time Tuesday when the directors were in executive session (because they were dealing with proprietary information), the proceedings were broadcast live as streaming video on the Internet, and Wednesday board session will be broadcast live as well.
In other business on Tuesday, the board voted down a resolution that would have imposed a nominal entry fee on photographers who wanted to enter more than the allowed 20 photographs in NPPA's free Best Of Photojournalism annual contest, deciding instead to continue with the 20 picture limit as it is with no fees.
Watch the board of directors meeting, and other Convergence '09 events, live in streaming video
