Second ALAC Organizational Review

The Second ALAC Organizational Review (At-Large2) was initiated in January 2016. Implementation of improvements concluded in December 2020.

Background

Article 4.4 of the ICANN Bylaws requires periodic review of all supporting organizations and advisory committees, as well as the Nominating Committee. The bylaws state three objectives for the review:

1. to determine whether that organization, council or committee has a continuing purpose in the ICANN structure;
2. if so, whether any change in structure or operations is desirable to improve its effectiveness; and
3. whether that organization, council or committee is accountable to its constituencies, stakeholder groups, organizations and other stakeholders.

Organizational reviews are conducted by independent examiners, selected through a competitive bidding process. The independent examiner works in consultation with a working group assembled by the board, who will act as implementation shepherds once the final report of the independent examiner is submitted. The review parameters are set by the ICANN Board, and those parameters as well as other avenues of inquiry are typically included in the request for proposals (RFP) for independent examiners. Reviews can take anywhere from three to five years to complete. The full review process includes seven phases, including the implementation of recommendations from the review. Reviews must be conducted at least every five years, measuring from the date that the final report of the previous review was accepted by the ICANN Board. The At-Large Advisory Committee is one of the organizations subject to the review requirements of Article 4.4. The First ALAC Organizational Review was conducted just as the ALAC structure was fully implemented. A significant feature of the first review's implementation phase was the creation of an ALAC-appointed seat on the ICANN Board. The second review was initiated four years after the final implementation project report of At-Large1. It was one of the first to utilize ICANN's updated organizational review process, which emphasized the bottom-up, multistakeholder approach to decision-making in other areas.

Independent Examiner Selection and Findings

ICANN posted an RFP for the independent examiner to conduct the At-Large2 review in January 2016. In May 2016, the board selected ITEMS International to perform the review. ITEMS conducted face-to-face interviews at ICANN 56 and ICANN 57, and also conducted a global survey of At-Large member organizations and individuals in the fall of 2016. In December 2016, it submitted a preliminary draft of its report to the At-Large2 review working party, as well as other interested parties, for comment.

Over 100 face-to-face interviews were conducted prior to the release of the preliminary draft to the working party, and the survey received 242 responses. ITEMS analyzed the results of both survey and interview data and highlighted four principal themes within their findings:

Interviews and results of the global survey highlight the strength and often sharp differences of opinion held by individual volunteers and various stakeholder groups that make up the At-Large Community.

At-Large is revealed as a heterogeneous community with a wide range of interests and motivations for participation. However, we have identified a number of overarching issues that are of most concern to the Community, notably regarding the current structure and overall organisational effectiveness.

Interviewees and survey respondents provided many personal opinions which we present in this and subsequent sections of the Report. These relate to:

• The purpose of At-Large and how well that purpose is being met;
• Why the At-Large Community does not function as well as originally intended;
• Ways to reform At-Large processes, and;
• How to allow greater end user participation in ICANN policy making.

Preliminary Comments

The draft report identified thirteen issues that were the most frequent source of comments, disagreement, or discussion in the preliminary review. Because the majority of responses to the draft came from the work party that would implement the review recommendations, ITEMS highlighted areas of the draft report for public comment that deviated from the preliminary draft, and stated rationales for changes based on the preliminary review. Of the issues and recommendations that were most discussed in the preliminary review, some themes emerged:

• Perceptions that ALAC leadership is unchanging or stagnant - there was discussion on this topic as well as related recommendations regarding term limits on leadership positions, random selection of leadership roles, and the future of ALAC leadership;
• The challenge of engaging and retaining qualified volunteers - discussion on this theme focused on engagement, as well as mechanisms for direct participation within ALAC;
• Structural and operational changes - these included a recommendation to eliminate working groups, shifts in the membership model to individuals rather than entities, and merging of ALAC and RALO roles and responsibilities; and
• Board representation and cross-community participation.

Draft Report

After receiving early comments on the preliminary draft from the working party and others, ITEMS submitted its draft report for public comment in January 2017. The draft report contained sixteen recommendations based on the findings from the interviews, survey, and preliminary review comments:

1. At-Large members should evangelize about ALAC participation within other regional meetings and conferences around Internet governance.
2. At-Large should "be more judicious in selecting the amount of advice it seeks to offer..."
3. At-Large should adopt a proposed "Empowered Membership Model" contained within the report.
4. At-Large support staff should be more engaged in supporting members in policy work within ALAC.
5. At-Large should "redouble efforts" to engage with ICANN leadership, ISOC, and other governance organizations for joint strategic planning and cross-community outreach.
6. Random selection of board seat 15 after candidates self-nominate and the NomCom vets nominations and creates a panel of qualified candidates.
7. At-Large should "abandon existing internal working groups and discourage their creation in the future, as they are a distraction from the actual policy advice role of At-Large."
8. At-Large should engage with and utilize social media more effectively and with an eye toward gathering opinion data from Internet users.
9. At-Large should appoint a part-time community manager to facilitate recommendation 8 and work on other web outreach activities.
10. At-Large should consider adopting something like Slack (but FOSS) to replace the Skype/wiki/website/listserv quartet of communication tools.
11. At-Large should replace five-year global ATLAS meetings with annual regional At-Large meetings.
12. At-Large should "continue to place a high priority on external regional events" as part of a global outreach strategy.
13. At-Large should work with ICANN regional hubs and ISOC chapters to create a series of Internet Governance Schools, to run within At-Large regional annual meetings, which themselves will run alongside/within ICANN meetings.
14. At-Large should centralize and publicize all opportunities for At-Large travel funding support, and maintain a list of recipients in the same central locations.
15. At-Large should ensure it gets a piece of the new gTLD auction proceeds through participation in the cross-community working group regarding those proceeds.
16. At-Large should adopt consistent metrics to measure the implementation and impact of the Engaged Membership Model and foster a culture of continuous improvement of ALAC operations.