The Open Media Foundation started as a collective around 12 years ago (albeit under a different name) with no org chart, no payroll, and no policies and procedures. We had a mission statement and a goal: "to put the power of the media in the hands of the people", and anyone who was drawn to that mission was welcome to join us, share our resources, and pursue the mission in any way they wished.

We had no management, and we really didn't need it; just some core values that drove our approach. Twelve years later, we still look to those founding principles for guidance, and yet we've never shared them publicly. Rather than keeping them as an internal tool, I thought I'd share them in this month's newsletter and welcome feedback/reflection from our team and our community.

1. Self Actualization: OMF exists to help our community self-actualize. Our services, training, and tools are all here to help our clients, members, and community have the opportunity to reach their fullest potential and to shape their world into the place they want it to be.

2. Direct Communication: From how we resolve inter-office squabbles, to how we tackle social inequity, direct communication permeates everything we do at OMF. At its core, it's the simple idea that things work best when people speak directly for themselves. We don't aim to be the voice of the voiceless; we aim to eradicate voicelessness. Even our work with Government is unfiltered and unedited, aiming for direct access to your representatives.

3. Wisdom of the Crowd: We believe that diversity improves decisions. On a small scale, this means that the decisions we make as a staff ought to include those affected by our decisions. On a larger scale, we feel that societies make the best decisions when everyone is engaged. Widespread engagement and free expression is the goal. Where and how people direct that engagement and expression is up to them.

4. Free Speech:OMF aims to support all forms of free and open communication, without bias for specific views or agendas. This requires support for ALL communication, including that which makes our collective stomachs churn. The only exception is speech that directly incites violence or other forms of imminent, intentional, AND probable illegal activity (also known as the "Brandenburg Test").

5. Honoring Our Word:When a representative of OMF promises something, the organization stands behind it. Even if it was a mistake, the best way to learn from mistakes is to do everything in our power to honor our word. We expect to be held to our word by our community.

6. Relevance Requires Innovation:If we're not clear how we're doing things better or different, we're better off supporting other orgs instead of replicating efforts.

7. Fairness: We are here to ensure equal access to the resources of OMF/DOM, not to play favorites or perpetuate cycles of privilege.