Volunteer Systems: D’oh!

On the heels of my last blog post, I have an update regarding Volunteer Systems 2.0. I’m not going to rehash the previous post, so if you’re confused as to what I’m referring to and what I’m about to share, then head back to January 1st to be filled in.

Near the end, I wrote:

It was built on the wrong architecture, and it’s filled with shoddy and patchwork coding.  So in my opinion, we’re stuck between a rock and a hard place. Either ditch the whole thing and look to another solution which will cost even more money, or continue to limp along like we are now and toss money down the drain. Neither one of these decisions is palatable, but one needs to made, and soon.

Little did I know that a couple of days later, my question would be answered via a coincidental statement by GSUSA, and it wasn’t the one I was hoping for. GSUSA basically said what we already knew — that VS 2.0 is made up of many out-of-the-box IT solutions all cobbled together for a custom IT platform. They made an analogy to a car and said that parts from all sorts of different models were hammered together, and well, the car doesn’t run very well overall. Ya think? And when attempts are made to fix things like the engine, it causes problems in other areas. Hmm, where have we read something like this before?

When I heard the car analogy, my mind immediately went to this scene from a Simpsons episode where Homer builds a custom car:

Maybe we should rename VS 2.0 “The Homer.”

But, GSUSA says, we need to lower our expectations because we’re not a major IT company like Amazon and don’t have “billions” to put toward an IT platform. Last I checked, we’re not offering cloud computing to the world or running the largest online retailer plus a whole host of other services like Amazon, so a membership management platform like what we need shouldn’t cost “billions” — or even in the same neighborhood — or universe. Some think being a non-profit organization means we have a built-in excuse for poor IT. Wrong. We have spent WAY more than necessary over a period of nine years ($169 million) so that’s a load of malarkey. I used to work in the IT field, and I took our dollar figures to some former work colleagues and showed them the numbers and what we’re getting for it. They were appalled at how much we’ve spent and how poorly it works.

I’m going to take off the gloves now because I think I’ve been too kind in the past in the attempt to be diplomatic when I’ve covered this topic. The sheer incompetence that’s been on display at GSUSA over the past nine years of building this system boggles the mind. We should have NEVER built this platform using a SalesForce foundation, and I question who on earth thought this was a good idea, or perhaps, what they personally gained from the venture? Yes, I went there. It’s also been revealed to me that through the years, GSUSA executives purposely ignored advice and warnings by internal IT staff & outside vendors and demanded that upgrades and modules roll out whether they worked or not, and furthermore, said that councils can just deal with the bugs and lack of functionality. Let them eat cake.

So what can be done about this?  The money’s been spent, we’re stuck with a Homermobile, and we’re left holding the bag. Well actually, it’s the councils that are left holding the bag. They’re trapped in an extortive technology agreement that forces them to use VS 2.0 at the risk of their charters being pulled. According to the contract, councils have to use VS 2.0 “as is,” and GSUSA has no impetus to fix it, among other things. There’s no accountability either. To learn more about what the contract further entails, check out this blog post. It’s shocking. But needless to say, councils, volunteers, and parents who use this platform are the ones hurting. Not GSUSA or the National Board.

Nothing was said about how we’re going to move forward, but after hearing that basically we need to lower our expectations, shut up, and deal with it, it sounds like not much will happen other than patchwork bug fixes that break other parts. Spend, rinse, and repeat. And eventually, raise membership dues to pay for it.

There are currently two council-sponsored National Council Session proposals sitting out there that came out of this debacle. I’ve already written about one, and the other has to do with adding council CEOs to the National Board for better representation of council operations. I seriously doubt either one will make the NCS agenda because both involve Constitutional amendments, and the National Board has sole authority to determine whether proposals of this nature are placed on the agenda. And since the National Board is apparently singing “La la la!” with their fingers placed firmly in their ears, they’re not going to listen to councils’ pleadings to just do something anyway.

But regardless, NCS proposals and strongly worded letters are just words on a page. Action must be taken. I think there are two choices:  either multiple councils file a lawsuit comparable to Middle Tennessee’s or a whole host of councils band together to drop VS 2.0 and use another platform instead. Desperate times call for desperate measures. Would GSUSA really yank the charters of twenty-something councils? Sure, the VS contract is legally binding, but what did the colonists do when they were finally fed up with King George? They dumped tea into the harbor, and they did so at the risk of their own lives. And then they wrote this:

But, when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states.

I have to say that it’s really discouraging that we urge our girls to stand up, speak out, and take action for their beliefs, but yet we’re sitting around wringing our hands when we’re getting screwed. Are we hypocrites?

But in the meantime, it’s too bad nobody took up Sue Schoenheider’s joking-not-joking NCS proposal when she sent it around to CEOs for (halfway serious) consideration a while back. Some said it made a mockery of the democratic process and that the only place they’d consider it is in the trash can. I’m guessing that if it came out now, it’d get twice the number of council endorsements that the rest of them received. Could something like it be forced onto the NCS agenda? I know how. More on that later.