February 2025
February 11th 2025, San Francisco
Last updated
February 11th 2025, San Francisco
Last updated
Review Agenda & Vote
.
Resolve Previous Action Items
Discussion Topics
Publication of Redacted LPFM Meeting Notes
Board Secretary Redux
Volunteer General Manager role
Draft Budget 2025 for Review & Approval
Listening Parties
Secret Alley update
2025 Gala
Website terms of service update
Slack usage proposal
Setting replacement dates for computing hardware
SF City FC partnership opportunity update
Public Comment?
Anything from committees not covered?
Any other business?
Present:
Christa Hartsock, Secretary, Chair of Tech Committee
Clair McDevitt, Chair of Fundraising Committee
Irving Pham, Treasurer
Kerri O’Malley, Co-Chair, co-Chair of Marketing Committee
Ben Ward, Co-Chair
Absent:
Amanda Guest, Executive Director (Leave of Absence)
Mark Pearson, Board Member
Erika Delgado, Board Member at Large
Vote YES to adopt the proposed agenda.
Vote YES to approve the November 2024 minutes
Vote YES to approve the January 2025 minutes
Group: Divide and conquer to get past Board Minutes published on board.bff.fm (thanks, Ben!)
All: Please review your contributions to BFF.fm and ensure you are giving at an appropriate and viable level.
Christa: Take over Board Calendar event; set up new recurrence rules.
Door bot points to Forrest’s phone for time being, will be discussed at next transition working group meeting
Irving: Pull donations from GiveButter in 2024
Deferred for next meeting.
Clair: send revised secretary responsibilities to Christa - DONE
Clair: Reach out to Amanda via BFF email to resolve the mystery grant, add to agenda for next board meeting
Confirmed grant was from X for the Arts
Kerri: Reach out to Brandon to see if he has partnership policies that we could adapt, work with Mark on partnership/greylist policy
Nothing existing from Brandon. Will take second half as new action
Christa + Ben: Check in with Brandon about changing email from @bff.fm -> @volunteer@bff.fm
Christa: Send reminder and call for participation to Slack the week before next board meeting
Decided to wait to invite people explicitly until more stable
Update board terms on website, including Amanda (which requires setting board term expiration)
Ben updated existing known board terms; need to check in about Amanda’s board term end when she returns
Update website with board meeting frequency and upcoming dates.
Ben: Did this!
Remind people that #station-leadership is a resource (thanks Clair!)
Consider a general membership survey and/or town hall to reintroduce leadership. Possibly do a survey in advance of town hall to shape agenda.
Kerri to create comms plan for station leadership things
During the early stages of our LPFM application, the board held some closed session discussions about the process. Since the LPFM license is now granted, we should publish the redacted minutes:
Vote YES to approve the publishing minutes of previously redacted LPFM discussions.
Christa has decided to step down from the board, vacating the role of secretary.
Expectation of being on a committee as well as on the board is a lot: Is that a reasonable expectation?
Expectations for being on the board have changed with the transition—much more work now.
What are models of boards where board members aren’t in committees?
A difference between being on a committee and leading a committee, which is where we’ve been recently.
Christa to stay on through end of March.
Board development processes - believe that Amanda has been in conversation with board candidates. Want to wait for her return before discussing new board members.
What do we want to have set in place before Amanda returns?
Be able to say: here’s how the station is operating now, here’s what’s working. Then upon return: here’s where we see the board fitting in to support that.
Day-to-day operations / committee structure seems to be working well - goal to make it a success by end of March.
Board may be the thing in need of transition now—thinking about sustainability, etc.
Secretary: leave spot open for now, at least until Amanda comes back
Collaborate on notes during meetings. Ben & Kerri to shoulder through transition.
Intend to recruit someone.
Amanda drafted a job description for a volunteer general manager position, and we reviewed and discussed based on how things have been going past few months.
Things seem to be going well day-to-day (operations committee & day leads, programming committee, etc). Better than we had expected / hoped!
Are there things we don’t realize we’re missing? May be able to understand through a membership survey
Places where we’ve felt friction: doorbot fallback, some communication. But there has been more open communication, so net positive
Currently we do not feel that there is a void in absence of a GM
Desire expressed not to step in to change things that seem to be working and emergent. Serious concern that promoting a GM could actually undo the decentralized direction we’ve been heading in, or even undermine new committee leads and volunteers who’ve stepped up.
Collective energy is giving more people visibility, encouraging more trusted relationships.
Discussion around events coordination responsibilities:
Coordinating with Alley needs to be board accountable, but may not require being a board member specifically.
Could also be a member of a committee, which fits into existing structures.
Decision: NO to this, for now. But keep an open mind and check in again in future. Note that the transition is far from “done” and gaps may yet be exposed for which this would be appropriate.
Noted that we’d like to see any future version of this be drafted from the perspective of what we are becoming, rather than what we were before.
Not guaranteed same amount of funding that we’ve had in the past from the city (X for the Arts)
How should we think about budgeting for equipment requests?
Expenses under $1,000 don’t require board approval
Example: how do we think about replacement dates for computing hardware?
Could we budget for in-studio consumables vs replacement / infrastructural investments? These sit in different committees, so may want to budget accordingly.
Vote YES to approve the 2025 budget
What do we remember from our last discussions and how to proceed?
Think we discussed scaling them down - e.g. no videographer, smaller snack budget
What committee do they fall under and what protocol should we follow for planning them?
Currently events being planned, but not within committee structure. Previously in fundraising, but an odd fit
Events at BFF are a range of commitment - hosting and publicizing but not handling money and all money goes to bands; vs listening parties where we are hosting, facilitating, handling money and expenses.
We think Listening Parties are great! How do we bring costs down to make sustainable?
Listening parties are currently only event where we are involved financially
Free or cheaper venue?
Expect that Alley won’t be available through end of year, at least. So will continue at Stable Cafe
Work with Lead around venue, finding sponsorships, etc.
Ideally - find two underwriters to cover venue, money for the bands.
Currently for events: $150 venue fee, $50-100 for snacks, >=$100 band, $? photographer / videographer
6 events last year
Feel we can cut videography budget until we build capacity to use the footage. Also, shrink snack spend
Need to give guidance for Teddy going forward, especially with upcoming dates
Would love to partner with someone that does photography / videography in future.
Decision: $300 cost / event, 6 events, $1800 for 2025 budget. Enough to work with to keep program going, and we can revisit in future
$300 = $150 venue + $50 snacks + $100 bands
Secret Alley will be doing an immersive Halloween installation; 2025-early 2026. Mostly on third floor. Prep will likely begin in June. There will be construction, limited live music (by permit.)
Opportunity for BFF.fm community to get more involved with the Alley - as a board we should communicate this out, including potential construction disruptions for DJs.
Proposal to not have a gala this year—can’t host at the Alley (as per the above) and hosting elsewhere financially not viable. Unsustainable level of effort shouldered by limited volunteers. Not meeting fundraising goals.
Fundraising and Marketing collab raised more than $6k in rent party - think there are more sustainable ways to raise the same amount of funds.
Gala has been a great party and way to introduce new people to BFF.fm, who may not go to other types of events. Would be great to think about how to continue doing that, more effectively and with less effort
Ideas for BFF.fm birthday month fundraising: theme karaoke, popup round, bar fundraisers, show of BFF.fm bands, etc.
Would like to think about ways to get people to gather without centering around fundraising, like the Townhall
Silent auction component
For organizations that have donated to auction in past, is there a different relationship that could make sense?
Possibly reach out to for pop-up locations, likely too small for underwriting.
Could still do silent auction online if we wanted—possibly at pop-up, on-air, etc.
Explore match campaigns for larger donors
Ben gathered privacy policies of our third party services
Mark will draft by end of month
Decided:
All #form-x correspondence channels to be private to protect data of submissions, with a plan to manage.
Begin using #announcements for critical information
Zapier integration for new DJ volunteers was broken because Ben’s access was removed from the Slack channel, and Zapier’s authorization depended on a token connected to his account.
TODO: We should create a “service owner” account that can exist in these private channels and not be tied to an individual person.
TODO: Related to internal comms
Create a user group for Slack that can post to announcements
Lock down who can post to the announcements channel - try out with board and leads
Announce the announcements channel
Remind about the #station-leadership channel
Discussed as part of budget conversation
Going ahead with having BFF.fm logo on SF City FC training shirts
Opportunities for building more partnership with them.
Aligned as two volunteer-run organizations
Team is particularly interested in partnerships with LQBTQ orgs, design yearly pride jerseys
Intend to drop into #general-chatter to see if membership has ideas
Want to announce partnership of some kind, reviewing with Mark
No public comment.
Nothing to report this month.
Q from Ben: Are any of our grants going to be affected by federal government instability?
All grants supporting BFF.fm are from City of SF or State of CA sources. We don’t receive federal money and don’t anticipate any impact from the current federal government instability.
Delay discussion of executive sessions to next session
Ben: Publish previous redacted minutes.
Ben: Create a Zapier “service owner” account that can exist in these private channels and not be tied to an individual person.
Kerri: Create comms plan for station leadership things
Christa: Will update Doorbot phone to Studio Phone. Liaise with Programming Cmmt to socialize DJs knowing how to use the phone. Update .
Shirts can be pre-ordered here!
The next meeting of the BFF.fm board is scheduled for March 11th 2025. See for more information.
Irving: Check for a Loomly annual subscription (attached to )