This policy draft is adapted from the internal policy infrastructure applicable at One Future Collective and is made publicly accessible in the interest of our mission to build safe, just, and inclusive workplaces for all. If you are an organisation curious to know more about how to build socially just workplaces, we invite you to use and adapt these policies to make them relevant to your context. If you have used any of our policies, we request you to please credit us.
You can know more about us, our journey, how we work, and our commitment to Nurturing Radical Kindness through our internal organisational Manifesto: Sunflowers. We would also love to hear from you – if you have any feedback, questions, or comments, please feel free to use this form.
Some guidance on using this policy:
We understand that each organisation is distinctly placed, works in different contexts, and within diverse realities and organisational policies have to be resilient and responsive to these contexts. In this background, we would like to share the following guidance for your reference:
- All the segments marked in yellow and/or left blank are spaces for you to update with details which are relevant to your organisational contexts.
- The entire policy may not be applicable as it is – please treat this as an invitation to adapt parts of it to better suit your demands.
- The policies are developed in the context of the legal obligations, politics, and resources available to One Future Collective. Whenever you are developing your organisational policies, please ensure that you are conducting your own due diligence in relation to compliance and other obligations that you may have to adhere to.
- Some key identifying information and details about processes unique to our organisation are anonymised from the drafts below for reasons of privacy and confidentiality.
In case you would like to reach out to us to get to know more about a policy or are feeling a bit stuck, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us at info@onefuturecollective.org.
Our Commissioning Policy
| Date of adoption | _____________________ |
| Date of review | _____________________ |
| Policy Holder | _____________________ |
| Queries | _____________________ |
1) Purpose
We desire to work with a wide range of creators, researchers, writers, and artists outside of full-time employment with <Name of Organisation> as well. In keeping with that, we have enacted this ‘Commission Policy’ to ensure clarity of terms of engagement and processes to be followed while commissioning external parties for different kinds of work at <Name of Organisation>.
2) Applicability
The terms of the policy apply to all persons <Name of Organisation> commissions for only specific projects, and who are not employed full-time with <Name of Organisation> or interning with us. The employees at <Name of Organisation> are also responsible for upholding the terms of commissioning.
3) Definitions
- Employees: All persons employed at <Name of Organisation> on a part time or full time basis.
- External Consultants: All those commissioned or to be commissioned to work for <Name of Organisation> on specific deliverables.
- Commissioned work: Anything produced by the external consultant under terms of engagement with <Name of Organisation>.
4) Types of commissioning
- Resource: Multiformat resources including but not limited to books, manuals, podcasts, any form of illustration or artwork, videos, zines, which are either supported by or managed end-to-end by the external consultants.
- Facilitation: Facilitation of pre-prepared content by <Name of Organisation> or of original content prepared by the external consultants themselves.
- Research: Research project involvement of varying degrees and at various stages by external consultants.
- Special Projects: Consulting, innovation lab, or any other special projects where external consultants are engaged.
5) Process for selecting, onboarding, and working with an external consultant
- Identification of the project where an external consultant is required based on any of the following criteria:
- Subject matter expertise that the team doesn’t have;
- Lack of time working bandwidth within the team.
- Budgeting for the external consultant
- The budget for external consultants needs to be factored in advance into the budget for each project.
- Only in rare circumstances may an external consultant be onboarded without being accounted for in the budget, with written approval from the CEO.
- Selection of the external consultant
- We prioritise external consultants that are alumni or otherwise community members of <Name of Organisation>.
- In cases where requirements are not met by adhering to the above, we put out an open call for consultants with specific selection criteria, including but not limited to: subject matter expertise and lived experience.
- Onboarding of the external consultant
- The external consultant is only expected to complete their deliverables as per the terms of reference and doesn’t need to participate in internal governance of <Name of Organisation>. They are however expected to participate in all governance and administrative related responsibilities that accompany their role as a consultant on a project.
- The external consultant is invited to attend monthly townhalls if they like.
- The external consultant is assigned a point of contact within the team who is responsible for all communication and liaising with the external consultant.
- At the time of on-boarding, all consultants are to be sent an on-boarding email. The email will include specifics of their project, timelines they must adhere to, have a link to this policy, and a legal terms and conditions contract for formalising the working relationship and expressing an understanding of and acceptance of <Name of Organisation> policies.
- In order to generate a contract for the relevant consultant please reach out to the Reporting Manager.
6) Review, payments and work processes
- Review: The point of contact will work with the external consultant for reviews. Frequency and format of review meetings will be mutually decided. A minimum of two meetings is expected, regardless of the duration of engagement. Where needed we will bring in an external reviewer. Review necessarily includes: a written approval of the outline of the project after discussions, two rounds of iterations, and a final draft.
- Meetings: Working together may mean a few meetings but <Name of Organisation> will strive to follow a working pattern that works for the external consultant, within the scope of the nature of the project.
- Quality: It is expected that the work submitted will be without errors and will require review more on the structure than substantive, subject-related content. In case the review is over and above what a general review entails, the point of contact may have a conversation with the external consultant to decide a way forward.
- Timelines: An adherence to timelines is expected. In case of delays, advance notice of timelines, a minimum of 72 hours is expected at both ends. Furthermore, for delays, a proof of work may be requested by the point of contact or a proof of review may be requested by the external consultant.
- Payments: Payments will be made on production of the final work. Advance payments can be made possible (of not more than 40%) where needed, but are liable to be returned if the project is not completed.
- Promotion of resources: External consultants are expected to engage in promotion of resources as co-decided. Promotions can include content for posts on social media, Instagram Lives, in-person Q&A sessions, and so on.
7) Ownership of commissioned works
- All work in whatever form created by the external consultant within the scope of their employment will be owned by the company for which it is being created. This could either be <Name of Organisation> and/or an external client for whom such work is being produced. This shall, without limitation, include any in progress works that are submitted to the company and the final works.
- The external consultant will be free to share the complete work non-commercially as they like as long as it is cited and linked back to <Name of Organisation>. <Name of Organisation> is to be listed as the publisher within different formats of citation.
8) Dissemination of work
- <Name of Organisation> aims to work towards creation of open access resources. In keeping with that, all resources will be available for free on our website, as far as possible. This excludes any resources whose nature is not digital and cannot be made available on our website or resources that are specifically created for fundraising purposes and hence exist behind a paywall. The external consultant will be informed of this before onboarding.
- <Name of Organisation> will sell physical copies of its resources to raise funds for its work. These funds will belong solely to <Name of Organisation>.
- <Name of Organisation> may tie up with publishers to publish certain resources via them. In such cases, fees from the publishers will be discussed and shared with the external consultant. Royalties will be retained with <Name of Organisation> for fundraising purposes.
- <Name of Organisation> will commit to ensuring that each resource created is made ready to publish, publish/facilitated, and disseminated widely in its commitment to the external consultant. The specific details of this will be outlined separately for each project.
9) Legal terms that apply
- Tax Deducted at Source (TDS): 10% TDS will apply to all payments made for commissioned work.
- Nature of engagement: Commissioned work for specific projects does not qualify as full-time employment, and will be classified as consultancy.