Mission

Erevna seeks to allow individuals of all backgrounds to create, articulate, and translate thoughts and ideas to real-world application as a means of fostering positive change in society.

The most meaningful societal changes were brought about by individuals who invested their time to deeply understand the problems and challenges faced before acting. We believe that learning and curiosity are essential parts to social impact and create the right mindset that mobilizes us to live out our own best values. Therefore, Education is at the core of Erevna. We are devoted to supporting individuals in their endeavors for social good, and we aim to cultivate and encourage a culture of free exchange of ideas and pursuit of knowledge. To implement this mission, the members and Board members of Erevna are committed to upholding the highest standards of ethical behavior and personal integrity detailed in this Code of Conduct.

Key Principles

1. We prioritize people, and uphold the principles of Respect, Responsibility, and Proactivity during all communications and interactions.
2. We act with integrity and we stand by the norm “be honest with yourself”.
3. We act with transparency, respectfully advising and criticizing others when they fail to accomplish their tasks or whenever they act improperly.
4. We are an idea meritocracy — we want the best ideas to prevail, independently where they come from in the organization.
5. We own our decisions — we take responsibility when we make mistakes in the same way we take credit when credit is due.

Our code

• Honesty and Integrity

  • We keep our word to each other and any agents outside of the organization, holding ourselves responsible for our words and actions.
  • We inform people in a timely manner of any changes. We strive for radical transparency in all communications.

• Fairness

  • We commit to treating all people and considering all ideas respectfully and fairly, giving adequate time for discussion.
  • We give credit to whom credit is due.
  • We strive to accommodate preferences for individual or teamwork, while emphasizing the importance of sharing your ideas with others.
  • We expect people to take ownership of all their decisions, including their mistakes.

• Diversity of ideas

  • We never seek to cancel or censor others just because they disagree with us or hold different beliefs than ours. A respectful conversation is the best vehicle to convince people and change their minds.
  • We cherish our diversity of ideas, beliefs and convictions and we never discriminate based on political convictions or religious beliefs.

• Partnerships, Outreach and Professionalism

  • We commit to fulfilling all agreements with our partners and collaborators. In the case that we cannot fulfill the initial agreements, we will put our best efforts forward to find another solution or delegating the task, while promptly updating them of any changes.
  • We communicate in a timely manner. We try our best to let people know ahead of time of our own schedule changes (when you will be late to or miss a meeting).
  • General Technology Etiquette
    • Zoom
      • We commit to respecting people, their ideas, and their perspectives by encouraging conversations in our internal calls.
      • We try to avoid interrupting each other and displaying distracting body language. We strive to refrain from multitasking in order to listen attentively.
      • We aim for our calls to be personable. (Crack a joke! Tell us how your day went!)
      • We encourage people to have their cameras on for a more open and human experience but we accommodate exceptions to this.
    • Google Files, misc.
      • We strive to be accountable and organized, following guidelines that the Human Resources (HR) team and/or your leader puts out regarding file security and organization.
    • Discord
      • We commit to following Discord rules and the rules set by server moderators.
    • General Slack Courtesy
      • To maintain open communication and respond to each other in a timely manner, we aim to check Slack on a regular basis.
      • We will tag people with @ if they should see a certain message but refrain from overusing it— instead save it to more urgent circumstances.
  • Job Duties/Responsibilities
    • We treat people as valuable teammates. To avoid overloading and overworking each other, we strive to structure our work sustainably, respecting each other’s strengths, interests, and time and accommodating changes if valid justifications are provided.
  • Collaboration
    • We strive to be team-players who have the best interest of the team in mind.
    • We strive to create autonomous teams where each team member’s creativity and ideas contribute to shaping our work.
    • We avoid relying on others and strive to give our own contributions to the team.
  • Wholesome and Proactive
    • Inclusive
      • We strive to proactively create a welcoming and inclusive environment where people feel safe to work together and can share ideas freely. We don’t want to just be team members, we want to build meaningful relationships with one another.
      • Much of our work is fast-paced, so we emphasize proactivity especially regarding communication.
      • We respect each other’s time. We must be communicative about our availability, time commitments, and any personal boundaries.
      • We do not tolerate discrimination or harassment of any kind (verbal, text-based, actions, implicit). If you feel uncomfortable in someone’s treatment towards you or another person’s treatment, send an anonymous report to HR.
  • Governance
    • We follow a Matrix, which we update regularly.
    • We strive to have open communication between leadership and the whole organization in our weekly internal newsletter, Slack exchanges, and our meetings. Our structure is a lattice, not a ladder.
  • Division of tasks between boards
    • We strive for the separation of powers and responsibilities across boards and teams and we prevent overreach.

• Political Beliefs

  • We shall not embrace political beliefs in the name of the organization since Erevna is apolitical and does not pick a side in the political spectrum to avoid alienating members which would compromise our mission.
  • We will not show support for a party, candidate or political movement in the name of the organization.

• Compliance with the Law

  • We partner with those who are lawful. We abide by the law in all Erevna, including all guidelines given by the IRS for 501c(3) nonprofits.

• Conflict of Interest

  • We will be upfront about any Conflict of Interests we may want to address. We will reach out and have a friendly conversation, keeping in mind that we’re all striving towards similar positive goals and thus are not competitors.

• Erevna’s Property

  • Intellectual property, especially those documented on our Google Documents, may not be used in another organization without a written agreement from a Director.

    Social Media: Erevna’s social media accounts (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Medium, etc) must be managed by only internal members. 2-3 Leads/Directors must have access to each account at all times.

    Designs: All the design products created by Erevna’s design team which include but are not limited to social media design, website design and marketing efforts should never be used outside of the organization without the permission of a Director.

• Disciplinary Actions

  • Irresponsibility in Leadership
    • We will remove people from leadership positions if they don’t live up to the expectations and their agreements as decided by a majority vote in the Board of Directors.
    • We encourage follow-up accountability between people holding leadership positions.
    • The executive board reserves the right to choose the level of punishment, from muting to a ban on any behavior that violates this code of conduct or otherwise hinders the Erevna mission.
  • All members
    • When a member receives two strikes from the CEO, COO, or a Director, their responsibilities in all roles will be terminated, potentially along with their membership inside the organization.
      • A strike is a warning explicitly stated as a “strike,” resulting from inactivity or negligence of meetings and responsibilities that compromise the progress of the organization or the work of others.