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Working remote in a digital age
IT and data management are at the core of a functioning remote organization and it keeps our community connected. The topic for us includes the management of hardware & software used in the international team & oikos community, as well as specific projects (eg. new website) and the facilitation of resources provided to the community (eg. the oiKosmos). Find more detail in the IT field guide.
| What do we do in terms of data protection & who is responsible for it? |
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| Hard & software overview for the international team |
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Keeping everyone's private data safe and protected is the highest priority of oikos. In order to protect the oikos International Community we have set up a security bulletin guide explaining how to set up a password, which is secure enough and how information shall be securely stored. Furthermore, on the oikos International Website are all the information stated, which are going to be tracked, when visiting the website. The data, which is stored in the oikos International Drive will be regularly backed up on an external/extra system. The IT Manager will be primarily responsible for these task with the help of the VP for IT. oikos International sees the GDPR guidelines published by the EU as the standard for data security.
Data Protection
Data protection is an important matter for the oikos IT team. Google Workspace settings are tuned to control access to sensitive documents and services that could be potentially harmful.
We maintain a Security Bulletin that contains up-to-date information on how to maintain account security and handle file sharing inside the oikos organization, scoped by account groups. This is shared with new members.
Contact person: IT Manager
Backups
Backups are performed via Third-Party Data Processors DigitalOcean and Backblaze. Their privacy policies are applicable. All oikos Google Workspace data is secured once a day in an encrypted manner in a datacenter in Amsterdam. All shared drives, be it by the oikos International team or chapters, are secured. All private Google by members of the international team(team@oikos group) is secured.
Website data is backed up by our VM provider(DigitalOcean) via daily rolling backups. Contact person: IT Manager
Please refer to the IT Infrastructure Field Guide regarding Data Protection & Backups.
GDPR & Privacy
oikos International states on its website the stored and tracked information. oikos International sees the published GDPR Guidelines by the EU as the standard.
Contact person: VP of IT, IT Manager
Google: Office & Productivity
Miro: Online Whiteboards Canva: Design tool
Mailjet: Email campaigns
Wordpress: Website
Discord: Community Chat
Gitbook: wikis
Internal activities related to Human Relations (HR), Team Development (TD) and Organizational Development (OD) are essential for oikos International. For us, people are at the core of what we do. This is why we want to put a lot of emphasis on health, wellbeing and development. The efforts of the HR/TD/OD sub-team are driven by a desire to create opportunities that nurture our team, and also to lead by example: we wish to be the pioneers and learn from pioneers, also to inspire our chapters. This also means to reinvent ourselves and develop our organization and our way of working together, in short: organizational development. We are working passionately to find courageous ways to (re)structure our team and organization so we can more diligently and joyfully live up to our purpose. This includes, but is not limited to more decentralized, self-organized ways of working, increasing the agility of our governance structure and making space for our people to show up as whole human beings.
We wish to offer and nurture an environment and culture at work in which employees and volunteers have fun and feel at ease, comfortable and like they can voice their opinions or initiate ideas or projects. Our organisational mission of empowering students applies also to our own team. Fair compensation for our work, healthy working hours and working time, regular individual calls in order to check in on everyone’s well being, be it at work or at home, are topics we currently work on.
We put in place several spaces and habits that are designed to nurture a healthy work culture. Examples are the Feedback Fika to ask for feedback, or casual Google chat rooms, e.g. dedicated to anything we want to celebrate or to share experiences. Find the field guides here.
How we run our international organization
Our organization wouldn’t function without the support of several operational sub-teams. Together, they ensure that all legal requirements are met, all initiatives are well-communicated and, most importantly, that all people feel cared for. Here a summary about how we tend these different operational fields that help us to run oikos International:
Being a swiss association with international membership, it is important to be very clear about our legal situation and have our allies in the field.
How we address legal questions
Every now and then, we stumble upon legal questions that affect either us as a Swiss association in the context of an employer, or an international network with membership organizations. Our main approach is to gather all of our questions on the following list and, one after another, prioritized by urgency and importance, reach out to our pro bono partners to address them.
Who’s responsible for legal matters and where do we get help?
Currently, the Vice President in charge of Legal Matters (and his/her team) is responsible for the modification and general overview of the legal documents that are supporting the legal basis of our organization, and for addressing legal questions. This person doesn’t need to have specific knowledge or practice law, but rather maintain contact with the experts in the field, always looking for advice and support if needed.
Our partners in the Law Clinic and others are there to support us on a pro bono basis. They help through thoroughly reviewing legal documents and finding answers to relevant questions based on Swiss and/or International law. See legal matters field guide.
As oikos keeps evolving as a community, but also regarding our in-house initiatives, partnerships and alumni, the development needs to be accompanied by clear and vibrant communication. We want to powerfully tell our stories and create outstanding recognizability of the oikos brand. Communicating about all we are and all we do is very complex and has high potential in leveraging our efforts to move towards our vision.
Why is communication important?
In the world of today, precise communication that speaks to the receiver is crucial to remain visible and relevant in the sea of information we are constantly exposed to. Our work is people-oriented, and we want to inspire as many observers as possible to become a part of the change, demanding and driving transformation towards sustainability. Our stories have the potential to touch people.
Who do we communicate to, and what are our objectives?
As our activities aim to prepare and encourage student-change agents to take part and write their own stories, the aim of our communication is to reach students worldwide, as well as further players in our ecosystem: academia, other organizations in the field of sustainability and (potential) institutional partners, but also the general public. Objectives range from simply raising awareness on our issues and opportunities, to getting them actively involved or supporting us in what we do or just sharing our story.
How do we communicate?
On the international level, we use several channels to communicate. On social media we have a diverse audience across different channels which allows for a greater reach when aiming at the general public, but also more effectiveness when addressing a specific target group (learn more ).
The newsletter is a monthly publication with all of the news from the previous month and announcements of upcoming events and projects by oikos International, our chapters and our partners.
| Our brand identity |
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| Many voices, one song: communication of, with, about chapters and the oikos community |
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Our legal status oikos International is a , not-for-profit association based in St.Gallen, Switzerland. We therefore follow the requirements according to Swiss law, article 60. of the Swiss Civil Code (see ). We are a membership organisation, with full members (our Full Chapters) being responsible for voting and deciding over the turn of the organization. Working with a remote team, and an international community, there are several cases where we have to consider International Law as well. |
Our governance structure - navigating our complex organization
Governance - that sounds pretty abstract and difficult - but we at oikos believe that it is something that can give us orientation and help us navigate in this ever-changing world. In order to make this possible, we have 3 layers of governance with different degrees of detail and change-ability: The outlines the necessary base needed for oikos as a Swiss legal entity and doesn’t give a detailed insight into how oikos is currently working. Building up on the constitution, the organizational guideline (this document) is a more comprehensive roadmap of all organisation-related topics. The guideline serves to create an overview for everyone who wants to learn more about oikos. It contains summaries and abstracts, linking to related documents, our field guides, that offer more detail: The 3rd layer of our governance, consisting of field guides, is meant to give the most detailed documented insights into how oikos International is working at the moment. They create clarity about the status quo, and the nature of processes. They are living documents, adapting to contexts and other developments. Field guides describe specific processes and topics in detail and provide more guidance. Find out more in the. |
We have a defined oikos Brand which is primary for oikos International, while the chapters are encouraged to adopt it and use it in their own activities. Based on the oikos Brand we have created the which provide an in-depth look into how the oikos Brand is applied, and which are based on the brand for the chapters to use. xx Read more in our |
In our communication, we wish to include and represent our global community, and we see how the oikos brand is growing richer through the chapters using and leveraging it. We developed a number of tools and recommendations for the community , and are actively exchanging with the chapters through their social media channels. Reposting, forwarding, sharing are some of our main practices. We also invite chapters to proactively share their work on onsite events and on our community board on the oikosmos. |
Finding support for our initiatives & operations
As oikos International is a non-profit organization, fundraising is one of our key operational topics. We continuously offer our events and programs to our community members (mostly without a participants’ fee), therefore building up donor-grantee relationships with individuals, companies and foundations is an essential activity.
With many grants being specifically directed towards a certain event or initiative, the responsible persons for these initiatives usually also take a lead on grant applications and donor management.
The co-presidents are constantly involved in these efforts and take care that the energy directed to the topic brings the outcome we aim at. Additionally, we have one board member who focuses on new and old fundraising activities and our overall fundraising strategy. This person is stewarding our fundraising volunteers.
In 2021, we introduced the Finance & Fundraising Circle which is helping us to coordinate all we do in fundraising with all of our initiatives and for oikos as a whole. In our bi-monthly meetings, we get together to exchange with (min. 1) representative per sub-team, talking about current developments, opportunities and things we want to work on.
In a supportive role, several fundraising volunteers are focussing on topics like foundation & private donor process support (scanning & contacting potential donors), alternative fundraising (all approaches beyond the traditional foundation-approach, eg. crowdsourcing & philanthrophy) and supporting grant applications of the initiatives in the process.
In order to run an organization of such an international scope, we need and have a clearly structured practice of financial management. This is how we handle the financial resources of oikos International, budgeting, accounting and reporting.
The constitution regulates the revenues the organisation can make (no profit), the claims that members have on them (none), liabilities (none of the members, board members, employees or volunteers) and what happens to the money after the dissolution of the association. The oikos fiscal year goes from January 1st to December 31st of the same year.
In general, we count on all team members of oikos International to make financial decisions based on good judgement and ethical standards. They are also obliged to avoid potential conflict of interest (read more in the field guide). All revenues & expenses have to be recorded in the oikos International budget and the accounting of the year they occurred. We strive to set a sign by working with more sustainable finance alternatives.
Our balance sheet of explanations
| Revenues | Expenditures |
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The oikos International budget serves as a forecast tool for planning the following financial year, determining the amount needed to be fundraised and monitoring expenses and (potential) revenues throughout the year in Swiss Francs (CHF). It is approved by the Legislative Assembly prior to the year and should act as a guideline for the Legislative Assembly to determine the accuracy of the financial statements.
Learn more about the process, responsibilities and tools we use in the Finance field guide.
According to the constitution, the association's financial reports need to consist at a minimum of a cash accounting according to Swiss law, Art 957 Abs. 2 Ziff. 2 CO. In practice we keep a double-entry accounting and use the accrual basis of accounting. Learn more about the principles and process we follow.
At the end of each fiscal year the person responsible for administration and financial management prepares the financial statements based on the accounting and submits it to an external auditor. After a successful audit the auditors report, together with the financial statements, will be presented at the Legislative Assembly for approval. The financial statements should also be sent to all donors and included in all grant reports. oikos is not obliged to have their statements audited, but it is important for us to still do it to bring more transparency and build trust towards the organization.
Learn more about our accounts, and financial practices in the Finance Field Guide
Revenues consist of donations and revenues from events, initiatives and publications.
There are different forms of invoicing, depending on the kind of revenue.
Salaries,
Reimbursements for work-related expenses, and
Other expenditures to run the organization need proper invoicing & have to be approved by a second person.