Forest here. I’ve been voluntarily contributing to Giveth since December 2020 and was hired as a full time contributor in the role of Project Manager starting mid January 2021. I was leading the Communications and GIVeconomy teams for most of 2021 until I took Maternity Leave for three months end of August through end of November 2021. For the month of January 2022 I’ve informally shifted from full time to part time contribution of 20 hours per week so that I can have more family/work/life balance.
Here is my updated role proposal which reflects a part time 20 hour per week contribution. My role has shifted since returning from maternity leave. I am now focused on project verification as our economy grows and more projects join our platform seeking verification.
Another big focus for my updated role proposal is to pioneer the Gravity (conscious communication & conflict resolution) Working Group. During my maternity leave, I completed the TEC Gravity Training so I am qualified as a Graviton. I am trained in Authentic Relating and Emergent Leadership from Authentic Revolution, and I am trained in the Relational Inquiry Approach and Relational Leadership from The Connection Institute. I am a Transformational Life Coach and offer Conflict Meditation services as well as Relationship Counseling. I feel very competent, resourced and qualified to pioneer the Gravity Working Group, and hope to ultimately bring others into this working group to collaborate with me.
The idea here is that as a part of my 20 hours per week I have outlined my role responsibilities in guiding the Gravity Working Group, Stewarding Conscious Communication Spaces, and in contributing to the Project Verification Team. I would like for us to create a bounty system to compensate Conflict Mediators to hold emotional and spiritual space when their needs arise. Conflict Mediation and empathy are important skills and require a lot of energy to uphold, so I feel it is more fair to offer higher compensation bounties for this exchange rather than a $19 per hour rate. Something along the lines of $55 per hour for this work feels more appropriate. I recommend estimating the amount of time for conflict meditation requests by type, and creating appropriate bounties for them.
Glad to have you back Forest! Definitely respect downscaling your time to focus on family and balance!
I have a few concerns with your updated role proposal.
I think, based on your skills and work you’ve already been doing you are a great fit for Gravity and Project Verification. However, I don’t see a role of Conscious Communications Steward as something that would fit into our existing Org structure at this point in time. Esepcially given the nature of online work across many time zones.
I have to point out as well that you accepted the task of implementing conflict resolution framework into Giveth back in June 2021 and while you have gone and returned from Maternity Leave can you show any verifiable progress on this front?
My last point is regarding your suggested compensation - Frankly $55/hr is a bit egregious considering that this is higher than the salary of some senior developers currently working in this space.
Hey Mitch, thanks for sharing. In response to your concerns…
In July 2021 or whenever our team retreat was… was the first time that Griff suggested to me when I return from maternity leave that perhaps I could come back in a different role doing Gravity / conscious communication stuff.So I’m not sure what you mean about June framework. Maybe we first discussed documentation around then, but it was not something seriously on my plate at that point in my third trimester while I was holding the project manager role.
I’ve dug deeply into TEC’s Gravity documentation , training and connecting with Juanka. The process and suggestion is to in tandem host conscious safe spaces that do the job of up leveling the community’s communication and relational skills and pprevent conflict before it begins. While at the same time having a process for processing and resolving conflicts as they arise. It’s really important to have both components. And I believe these preventative spaces can be on the calendar and optional for people in our community to attend. If you feel called to join, it is there. And I’ll do my best to select a time that works for as much of our community as possible. Maybe we will eventually have two different time slots weekly, or even offered by me in English and someone else in another language like Spanish.
My role proposal is for $19 per hour for everything except for conflict meditation, which I have proposed that to be something like $55 per hour, which is well below the market rate for that role. I don’t feel it’s important to compare payment among roles that have nothing do with one another, but rather for valuing work in its own industry and energy exchange. In my knowledge of communication coaching and conflict meditation, I generally see this around $100-150 per hour. Probably $85 on the low end.
The recognizition of emotional energy to mediate conflicts and a desire to compensate accordingly is a tension that has arisen within TEC Gravity and something their team is also discussing. For now, as I understand it they are doing separate bounties for conflict meditation with a higher rate for the main mediator and a lower rate for the subject matter expert who comes in as needed. It might be $300 and $200 respectively, but I cannot remember and I do not know how many hours they’ve estimated each case to be. I know how long it takes me to mediate conflicts in my personal work, but I imagine these Gravity cases will take a longer time due to the outlined process and all of the requested recording for transparency.
The wage requested is just unrealistic. The role of a “Conscious Communication Steward” isn’t something we have a pressing need for at Giveth, and you’re requesting compensation that is drastically higher than the majority of our team… many of whom are filling absolutely critical roles.
The “conflict resolution documentation” issue has been open since June 2021, and has been assigned to you since you returned from maternity leave in November 2021… and tbh there hasn’t seemed to be much practical or noticeable progress on it.
I think that you add value in assisting with Project Verification and I think there is definitely potential for you to incorporate Gravity more into Giveth… particularly because you have a passion for it, and would be happy to see you step more into this role, starting by showing proof of concept.
I don’t think $55/hr is unrealistic for the specific calls that are had mediating 2 people that are having a conflict in one call. For those specific calls (which can be very stressful) I think it is a great idea, but not for the preventative conflict work or for the individual calls to follow up on mediation (maybe those are $30 an hour?)
The other comments are valid tho, it is hard to see the progress on your Gravity work as the issues in github are not updated, and it makes it hard to want to advance your role if there is little documentation of the progress.
Hey there team, thanks for your feedback. I’m hearing that you would like to see the Gravity documentation completed. I would like to finish that as well. That’s partly why I have posted my updated proposal here. Part A) Because my role is not yet approved for Gravity work, in December & January I have prioritized project verification, comms work and other one off things that have been assigned to me and felt more time sensitive than focusing on Gravity. I am feeling a desire to hold the baton on this now, especially since we are a month past launch and we have a lot of new energy joining our community. It’s a big reason for me clarifying my updated role proposal so that everyone is in alignment with my focus. Part B) I’ve been working on the Gravity documentation async in Google Docs and will be updating the GitHub issue when complete. Conclusion: I think based on the feedback received here, I will publish the documentation link to GitHub early this week and get that closed out, then update this forum post that it is done, and see if there is any additional feedback or questions, before posting to vote.
And yes what Griff commented was exactly my intention. As you will see in the role proposal link I shared, all of my administrative/process Gravity workflow and the stewardship of preventative safe spaces, and all project verification work, etc is $19 per hour x 20 hours per week. The $55 suggestion for me and/or whoever facilitates conflict meditation is specifically only for the meditation calls. Which typically would be one separate call with each of the individuals in the conflict, and then when both parties are ready and open to group meditation, one [or more if not reaching resolution in one session] calls with the two people experiencing conflict facilitated by a mediator. Based on my experience, my estimate is this would sum up to a 1-hour call with person A, a 1-hour call with person B, and then a 2-hour session with all parties together. Most likely 4-total hours per conflict. The administrative aspect of tracking transparency for these conflicts in GitHub as well as research prep work for ensuring successful facilitation would be the standard $19 per hour.