How to start a Humanist organization Membership guides 1/4 Contents and foreword GARY MCLELLAND • Goals and scope (p. 3) • Naming and branding (p. 8) IHEU Chief Executive Look for consensus on your aims One organization, many names Short and long term goals Tips for the name Humanism is growing faster than ever, everywhere. How wide is your horizon? About the branding Strategic plan outlines Logo guidelines Well-established humanist organizations are growing and broadening their work, while new communities rise up in every Examples from our Member Organizations • Foundation (p. 11) part of the world. • Constitution and bylaws (p. 5) Tell a story We conceived this guide primarily for new and developing Your values, your identity Target your audience humanist organizations. In a spirit of solidarity and Bylaws Registration international cooperation, we asked all our existing Member Organizations to provide their advice and examples of real-life Examples from our Member Organizations • Online/social media presence (p. 13) experiences for the new generation of humanist organizations. • Internal Rules (p. 7) Your new business card It is with their help that we created this guide in six chapters, Basic tips for media reputation Roles which is only the first of a 4-part resource to help Humanist About Facebook organizations at all levels. Elections Our Member Organizations online General Assemblies The IHEU publishes this guide with the hope that it will further Membership fees the ongoing development of Humanism worldwide. The A graphical example of a possible structure growth and development of organized humanism may seem unstoppable, but it does depend on the daily efforts of each of us to go on. London, 31 August 2017 Click on most logos and thumbnails to open links Goals and scope to documents and websites Look for consensus on your aims Let’s say for instance that one of • In the third year - create a your main purposes is to introduce campaign, the aim of which Before even thinking about the humanist ceremonies in your is to gain legal recognition of name of your organization and country. In that case a possible list humanist ceremonies in your its constitution, you should think of goals could be: country. carefully about your purposes. The purposes of the organization will • By the end of the first year - train This way of conceiving your determine its goals and its range 10 humanist celebrants; purposes, and the goals needed to of activities. The more clearly you • By the same date - create a achieve your purposes, not only will can state your purposes the more website to promote and manage help you drafting a strategic plan easily everything else will follow. humanist ceremonies; (see the paragraph below), but it will • By the end of the second year - also allow you to find a good balance Hopefully you will have a group celebrate at least 30 ceremonies; between idealism and realism. of founding members. At this Short and long term goals stage you should try to obtain consensus on your purposes Once you have decided your main among the founding members of long-term purposes, fix some your organization. intermediate goals. Of course, in the future, there will Think of it like a sports game: probably be debate about how your purpose is to win the game, you will achieve your goals. But so you have to score the goals at this stage everyone has to be along the way! “on the same page” concerning the purposes of the organization, Some will be shorter-term goals, because what you want defines like getting the organization who you are, especially in the started, while others will be The incredible growth of members of the Norwegian Humanist Association in case of a brand new humanist longer-term. organization. between 1956 and 2017 - click on the image for more information 3 • On a national scale, working in your case, for plenty of factors - forbes.com/sites/ for humanism in your country, for example because maybe in your davelavinsky/2013/10/18/ no matter where your country people is not familiar with strategic-plan-template-what-to- headquarters are; the term “Humanism”, or because include • On an international scale, of the government hostility, etc. coordinating the work of Examples from our MOs different national organizations That said, to write a good strategic on a same humanist subject. plan you can use some standard Click on the images to download conceptual tools that have proven examples of strategic plan, one Strategic plan outlines to be valid for all situations. from the American Humanist For example, a powerful tool to Association, the other from the Writing a good strategic plan understand your organization’s Humanistisch Verbond: is the key for every successful potentiality and criticalities is the How wide is your horizon? organization in all fields. Indeed, so-called SWOT analysis. it allows you to better understand While defining your purposes, the specificity of your situation you need to think about fixing the and, consequently, how you could scope of your organization, that best adapt to it in order to reach is, how wide your operating range your goals and purposes. will be. This is not about how many active members your organization Think about it: to achieve the can count at the moment, nor how same exact goal, two organizations many resources you have at your around the world can be forced disposal, but rather how wide the to adopt two radically different extent of your action will be. strategies, given that every country has a different history, its own For example, you can work - from particularities, its unique social, SWOT helps you to identify in the smallest to the largest scope: cultural, and political tradition. a graphically useful way your That is why you have to carefully organization’s internal strengths • On an urban scale, organizing ponder what approach to use. and weaknesses, as well as its local events and humanist external opportunities and threats. campaigns in your city; Be aware then that adopting the • On a regional scale, doing the same strategies used by other Follow the link for more info on same in your region, county, or bigger, consolidated organizations SWOT and on how to write a good state in case of federal states; worldwide may prove to be wrong strategic plan: 4 Constitution and bylaws Your values, your identity A definitive point of reference for In future your organization may Humanist values is the Amsterdam consider to join the IHEU as a All Humanist organizations share Declaration. This is the official Member Organization - we will a common set of Humanist values. defining statement of world show you how to do it in the second However, every organization is Humanism. First made in 1952 in section of the guide. unique because of the cultural and Amsterdam during the first World political context, the individuals Humanist Congress and updated For now, you may want to involved, and the situation in on the 50th anniversary in 2002, consider that in joining the IHEU, which you find yourself. the Amsterdam Declaration organizations agree that their describes what Humanism is and own objects (purposes) must be Your constitution should what humanists stand for. You can compatible with the objects of the reflect both the universality of find multiple translations of the IHEU, which are (Bylaws 2): the humanist values and the Amsterdam Declaration here: to promote Humanism throughout A constitution can be defined as a list circumstances which are unique to iheu.org/humanism/the- your organization. amsterdam-declaration/ the world, to develop Humanism as of basic principles and laws of a social a life stance, to represent organized group that determine the powers and Humanism in international bodies, to duties of the members and guarantee defend human rights and the rights certain rights to the people in it. The Amsterdam of humanists, to develop organized Humanism in every part of the world You can draw on the examples on Declaration and to build a strong and effective next page to inform your constitution. global organization. the offi cial defi ning statement Indicate in your constitution the of World Humanism A local or national organization values that you want to promote and would not have the exact same defend. These values will define the objects as this, but as an IHEU identity of your organization and in Member Organization your objects the future will always be there when should not contradict the objects of you have to take hard strategic and the IHEU. executive decisions. 5 • your values and principles will stand above your internal rules, as a more general guide, which will need to be amended less often; • usually a constitutional change will require democratic input from the members, whereas an elected board or executive committee may be empowered to make changes to your internal rules when the situation requires. Bylaws Examples from our Members Once you have listed your basic On most websites of IHEU Member principles and values, you will Organisations you can easily find need to define the internal examples of constitutions and rules of your organization. This bylaws - to see the list of our MOs may include the roles within websites follow the link below: the organization, the rules for elections, the frequency of general http://iheu.org/membership/our- meetings, the procedure to members/ become a member, and so on. Clicking on the images aside you At this stage, you can decide to can download instead examples either include the internal rules of different constitutional in your constitution or to write documents from 4 IHEU Member a separate document named Organizations: “Bylaws”, “Internal rules”, “Statute”, or similar.