Stop me if you've heard this already, but OSTA has taken a giant leap into the future. After doing a lot of research and some good, serious discussions, OSTA now has an executive director. Congratulations go out to Ms. Rochelle Love Elder. This will allow us to move in many directions that were previously unavailable to us. She was previously the vice president and submitted an excellent proposal to support the idea of an executive director.
After a unanimous decision by the board, Rochelle accepted the position and chose to step down from her role as vice president. Board member Nancy Ward was nominated for that position and unanimously approved. Nancy taking over that position helps strengthen the advocacy for floating homes as she is a floating home resident herself and very knowledgeable on the subject.
The goal of the executive director will be to work in several areas:
· First, the knowledge gap that occurs when many of our volunteers must leave, and that talent leaves with them.
· Revenue stagnation. We need someone focused on fundraising, especially with inflation and costs steadily rising and eating into our savings.
· It's also important to have a single point of accountability for managing the business requirements. We never want to put our nonprofit status at risk.
· Board burnout. Board members are currently forced to handle “day-to-day” chores instead of focusing on long-term strategy, direct outreach, and governance.
Rochelle has already begun and made significant headway in the past 30 days. We are already seeing many positive improvements and an increase in revenue. Some of the things that have been resolved include banging out the dents in the membership entry system, resolving some website coding problems that shut down the site, and making sure our money in the bank is working as hard as it can.
So once again, congratulations, Rochelle. Keep checking in as we report on the progress. We at OSTA will keep you up to date.
