I was talking with a Scrabble friend recently about what it takes to keep the CoCo going, and he commented that it's not obvious what goes into running a nonprofit or what I actually do as Executive Director. Today, in the interest of transparency, I'm publishing a bit of a longer blog to help our community better understand what is required to run a nonprofit - and why so much effort from so many other contributors is critical if we want to keep tournaments going.

In a typical day, I field inquiries and requests from players and directors, update our website and budget, make sure our bills are paid, and then - if there is any time or energy left - think about big-picture strategic issues such as how to grow the CoCo and grow the game.

That's the short description. If you want a little more detail, here's a more in-depth list of tasks I undertook during one week recently:

• Draft and issue a visa letter to help international players come compete in the United States.

• Email the director of the next upcoming tournament with a link to the Google Sheet they will use to run pairings and provide them with a template scorecard. As needed, work with directors to brainstorm pairing formulas for their tournaments.

• Calculate the budget available for the next tournament's prize pool and notify the director.

• Respond to random inquiries from people within the Scrabble community and beyond. An example of a recent inquiry was a non-Scrabbler who has designed a new photo recognition program to scan a photo of a board and return the best play.

• Assemble and mail a mini welcome packet to every new CoCo Premium Member.

• Order CoCo thank-you cards, address labels and postage stamps to send to thank Premium Members and donors.

• Reconcile the nonprofit’s budget, including revenue and expenses from merch store sales.

• Send lists of feature requests for the CoCo's pairings software to our coder and follow up to pilot and debug new features.

• Figure out what website updates are needed and ask our webmaster to create new tournament pages, registration pages, and live coverage pages, and fix anything on the website that needs fixing.

• Write out instructions for our webmaster on how to update a new aspect of our tournament listings.

• Update the pairings software FAQ/guide so that directors know how to handle unusual pairing situations.

• Confirm the scope of insurance coverage with our nonprofit insurance carrier and handle payment of the monthly insurance premiums.

• Write blog posts on leadership, governance, elections, and related topics.

• Send out prize payments from the CoCo's PayPal account to winners of a tournament. Mail checks to players without PayPal accounts.

• Notify the webmaster as soon as a tournament has ended so he can run and post the ratings.

• Upload photos from a recent tournament to its results page.

• Refund entry fees to players who need to drop out of tournaments.

• Make sure all financial transactions are properly recorded in the CoCo's master ledger. Classify transactions by category and prepare the CoCo's tax return, interfacing with a professional accountant when needed. Update the website budget to make good on our commitment to financial transparency.

 

All of this logistical work doesn't leave time for much else. But when I can, I try to allocate time to bigger-picture strategic initiatives, such as:

• Pursuing corporate sponsorship from companies whose charitable giving missions align with the CoCo's mission. We have some potential sponsors in mind, and I have the application for one in particular; I just need to find time to write and submit it. (If you have grant-writing experience and are willing to help, please get in touch!)

• Developing resources for new players to ease the transition from casual Scrabble play to the tournament scene. We have so many exciting ideas in this category, but we currently lack the time and human resources to execute them. If you have any interest in contributing in this area, let us know!

• Building new technology tools. We challenge the status quo because we believe that the tournament experience can be ever better. We strive to improve upon what exists and create new tools to improve the player experience. We're proud to have piloted digital results submission and reusable dry-erase blank slips to make our tournaments paperless. Without us questioning what can change and daring to try new things, those innovations wouldn't have happened.

• Monetizing the CoCo's Twitch and YouTube accounts (we still haven't gotten around to doing this). Growing the CoCo Twitch account to achieve Affiliate status.

• Distributing bookmarks to local independent bookstores and Little Free Libraries around the country to help reach new players.

I share all this detail for two reasons. First, my goal as the CoCo's inaugural Executive Director was to establish the foundations needed for our nonprofit to grow beyond its initial leadership team. I very much look forward to the day when a successor runs for Executive Director in a future election cycle. This is not a role I intended nor want to serve in for an indefinite period of time; new ideas and leadership are vital to the sustainability and evolution of any organization. I hope to provide the foundational resources and succession planning tools needed for the next Executive Director to build on what I've started so they can take the CoCo in exciting new directions.

The second reason why I've detailed what I do as Executive Director is to show the many areas in which volunteers could help expand or strengthen our organization. We have far more ideas than we have the time or resources to execute, especially given that all of us here at the CoCo are volunteers and most of us do this work on top of our full-time day jobs. Our leaders, directors, and volunteers serve the CoCo and our community not to advance our own personal agendas, but because we believe in this nonprofit's mission and values. We hope our mission resonates with you, too, and we welcome your support - whether that be by playing a tournament, directing, making a donation, or volunteering your time or skills in any way that excites you.