CJI Membership Fee Change

AGM Presentation

One of the best ways for CJI to be engaged with the community and with its stakeholders is to have a strong membership, actively working to support our mission of restorative justice. One group of community stakeholders who are under-represented in our membership is our amazing list of donors – a group of people who are already committed to CJI, excited about our mission, and meet all the criteria for membership, except for having paid the membership fee. As a result, the Board and the ED propose to change the membership policy so that anyone who donates $100 or more automatically becomes a voting member

As part of the Board’s annual review of existing bylaws and policies we recognized that the Membership bylaws could benefit from some updating and revision to extend membership to a greater number of our stakeholders. As they currently stand, the bylaws pertaining to membership state that the Board can set a membership “fee”. A $25 fee has been in effect for a number of years, but we have determined that this is not serving our desire to recognize as members, those who are key supporters of our work.

Given the widespread support for CJI among community members, often in terms of very large financial donations, the Board and the ED propose to change the membership policy so that anyone who donates $100 or more automatically becomes a voting member (if they wish to exercise the right to vote). Most of our existing members already meet these criteria and will be saved the additional step of also paying the membership fee.

We therefore propose to change the membership process by removing a membership fee entirely. This would be replaced with the recognition of an already large pool of donors who have been consistently supporting CJI and its programs. An audit of the existing donor list revealed that the vast majority of CJI members support CJI with donations of over $100 annually.
In order to honour the community members whose support of CJI is demonstrated in ways that are not financial, the membership policy would include an option for persons for whom a $100 donation is not possible. This will be left to the discretion of the Executive Director such that any person who identifies with and supports the mission of CJI would not be denied membership due to financial constraints.

In making this change, the Board is not attempting to raise any barriers to members, in fact we are attempting to do the opposite – to broaden our membership. We recognize that replacing a $25 membership fee with a $100 donation could possibly create hardship for some existing members. If this is the case for you, please contact Chris Cowie (Executive Director) or Chris McEvoy (Secretary of the Board) and we will make other arrangements. We value the commitment and sacrifices of all our members and want to make sure that this change creates no barriers.

Please note: If approved these proposed changes take effect after the AGM on August 23, 2017. The current membership fee of $25 is still in effect until August 23.

This letter appears as an open letter from Bridget Davidson, CJI Board Chair.