Accountability

General Philosophy

NARIX’s accountability policies are informed by its values, experience in the community, and organizational capacity.

NARIX believes in taking responsibility for the impacts of the behavior of steering committee members and the organization as a whole. The steering committee will engage in repair work to pursue the restoration of injured parties and rebuilding of trust.

The steering committee recognizes that accountability is a complex process with multiple goals, and seeks to transparently identify what NARIX as an organization has the capacity to address.

NARIX recognizes that accountability comes in many forms. One aspect of accountability is supporting the healing process of people who were harmed. A second aspect of accountability is addressing the harmful behaviors of the people who cause harm. A third aspect of accountability is protecting the community from harm.

While all of these goals are critical to community health, as a volunteer-run national event and organization, NARIX must prioritize its resources to commit to working to protect community safety.

While the steering committee will work to compile resources to support individuals who were harmed and help people who cause harm address their behavior, the focus of NARIX accountability is on community safety.

External Accountability

Accountability Processes

NARIX accountability policies distinguish between types of incidents that would be appropriate to handle among the steering committee, and incidents that would be best handled by an external third party.

Situations that Require External Accountability Processes

1. Conflicts between community members or attendees and steering committee members

2. Accusations of serious abuse or sexual misconduct against steering committee members

3. Serious issues of organizational or ethical misconduct

4. Serious conflicts between steering committee members
   
   

Situations That Can Be Handled Internally

Any situation that doesn’t fall into the above categories and which the steering committee does not feel the need to escalate to an external process.

Accountability Timelines

In general, NARIX believes accountability work requires time and thoughtfulness to be done well. It will work to do what is right rather than what is quick or convenient.

Issues that are not an imminent crisis will go through the deliberative process of consideration and communication outlined below and depending on the complexity of the issue, may take up to several months to work through.

On a case by case basis, the steering committee may decide a situation requires urgent response, and in those cases, will take interim action as appropriate.

External Processes

At this time, the steering committee feels that third party accountability work is best done by professionals with experience in kink, sex positive communities, and conflict mediation.

A network of professional mediators that can be available to receive reports that fall under the categories above is being built.

The current list of mediators are:

1. Misha Bonaventura, a Bay Area based veteran sex positive community organizer and professional mediator at Clearing Conversations

2. Additional sources TBD
   
   

Organizational Level Accountability

NARIX works to be accountable for instances where its organizational behavior or decision making has failed to align with our values or policies.

The processes below outline the steps that will be taken when issues are brought to its attention.

Filing a Report

For issues that come up during events, community members can communicate their feelings or requests through the event camp counselors by approaching steering committee members directly (if they feel comfortable and safe doing so), or by filing a report through our NARIX Organization Incident Report Form.

Note that at the event, camp counselors will be able to get information to the steering committee members immediately and will be best positioned to facilitate immediate solutions. Incident report forms submitted during the event may not be seen until after the event.

What happens when a report is submitted

1. Reports submitted through the NARIX Organizational Incident Report form will go directly to the designated third party professional mediators listed above and will not be viewed directly by steering committee members.
   

2. The mediator will read through the report and assess the circumstances of the incident and the requests of the reporter. If the person reporting just wants information to be provided to the steering committee, and/or a policy change, the organization will begin work on that issue.
   
   If the person reporting would like a more in depth mediation process, NARIX will pay the fees for the mediator and the process will begin when all parties are ready.
   

3. A typical mediation process includes the following steps:

   1. The mediator will reach out to all parties to coordinate logistics for the conversations that will take place

   2. The mediator will initially meet with both parties to get a sense of their experience and perspective and prepare for the group session

   3. The mediator will guide the group through a session to discuss the issues and work towards resolution and repair.

   4. On a case by case basis, additional meetings or follow up conversations may be appropriate.
      

NARIX’ Responses

1. Reviewing and updating policies if the organization’s policies are not serving the community or having impacts in line with our values
   

2. Addressing a situation in which the steering committee failed to implement a current policy as written by seeking repair work with the individuals impacted.
   
   

Accountability for Individual Steering Committee Members

This section addresses situations involving the behavior of individual steering committee members, which could include actions taken at our events, or harm caused in the community outside our events.

NARIX acknowledges that kink is a high risk activity and that even well intentioned players make mistakes or misjudgments, but holds our steering committee members to a high standard of taking responsibility for themselves, addressing the impacts of their behavior, and working to change harmful behavior patterns.

1. Incidents arising at our events

   1. Incidents arising at our events can follow the same process options indicated above.
      

2. Incidents arising in the general community

   1. If a community member has experienced or has knowledge of harm that a NARIX steering committee member is responsible for outside of NARIX events and wishes to communicate that and seek accountability, they should report it on the NARIX Organizational Incident Report form.
      
      This will initiate a process with the mediator as outlined above.
      

3. NARIX Responses

   1. Steering committee members will not be involved in the general organizational decision making process about the accountability work involving the incident they were involved in.

   2. On a case by case basis, depending on the severity of the misconduct and the time urgency of the situation, committee members may be temporarily relieved of responsibility for specific aspects of event management, or of all of their responsibilities as a steering committee member, until the process with the external mediator can be completed and an organizational decision arrived at regarding the best path forward

Internal Accountability

NARIX believes in creating environments that align with shared community values defined here.

NARIX wants to empower attendees and community members to share information about situations, individuals, groups and/or venues that they have concerns about. If a person feels an individual, group and/or venue does not align with the values or is potentially harmful to NARIX attendees, a report can be made. As an organization that serves people across many regions, the capacity to get directly involved in local issues is limited. Please use this report form to communicate regarding issues that impact the event, involve people who may attend the event, happened at the event, or require follow up action around the event policies.

The steering committee will do its best to respect how the person who reports to us wants the matter to be handled, and will do its best to work with those who report in a way they feel most comfortable.

The steering committee’s goal with incident reporting is to promote community safety, in line with our philosophy laid out at the top of this page.

If the steering committee receives information that leads to the belief that an individual, group and/or venue doesn't align with our values or poses a threat to community safety, it plans to act on that information to either work with the reported individual to ensure the harm is addressed, remove individual/s from our events, or not work with a venue, dependent on the specifics of the situation.

Reports submitted via the google incident report form are visible to any steering committee member. If the issues raised in a report impact future events, the report may be shared with any new committee members working at that time to the extent that the information is relevant to decision making.

NARIX recognizes the complexity of these situations, and will follow every investigation wherever it leads. The steering committee will take whatever action it feels is most appropriate and relevant, based on the facts, to further its goals of promoting community safety.

NARIX will take what action we can to support people harmed at our events, and will remove people from the NARIX community if the steering committee believes they pose a threat to community safety, but is not equipped to take full responsibility for responding to criminal activity.

For attendees who are not comfortable submitting a report under these circumstances, here is a list of resources we’ve compiled to help them find support. (to be added)

Incident Report Timelines

In general, NARIX believes accountability work requires time and thoughtfulness to be done well. The steering committee will work to do what is right rather than what is quick or convenient.

Issues that are not an imminent crisis will go through the deliberative process of consideration and communication outlined below and depending on the complexity of the issue, may take up to several months to work through.

On a case by case basis, the steering committee may decide a situation requires urgent response, and in those cases, interim action will be taken as appropriate.

If a report is made in-person during the NARIX event, and the reportee wants some action or response before the event closes,  the steering committee will make every effort to address the situation during the event.

Incident Report Process

1. When the steering committee receives an incident report form through the google incident report form or a private report to a committee member or camp counselor, it will discuss the situation among the committee members.
   

2. If the reporter indicated on the form that they want or are open to discuss the issue further, the committee member responsible for coordinating incident report processes will reach out to schedule a meeting. At least two steering committee members, (or if during a NARIX event, possibly a committee member and a camp counselor) will be involved in conversations regarding incident reporting.
   

3. All reports made will result in an investigation, unless the reporter specifically requests there not be an investigation due to a threat to their safety or well being.
    

4. During the investigation process, the steering committee may choose to interview any and all parties involved in or who witnessed the incident. These interviews may require multiple interactions and follow up conversations.
    

5. The committee will decide if further action needs to be taken if it believes an individual, group, or venue doesn’t align with its values, or if it feels the situation poses a threat to community safety.
    

6. The committee will notify the people involved of its decisions with as much information as it can share, based on the committee's and reporter’s physical and legal safety needs.
   
   

If an individual, group, or venue has been disqualified from NARIX events, the committee will be open to discussions after 6 months if the disqualified individual(s) demonstrates they've gone through an accountability process, have changed their behavior, and feel they can align with NARIX values.

In the course of evaluating a previously disqualified individual’s accountability work, there will be a more rigorous vetting process than would be applied to attendees applying to our events.