The RACER Principles of volunteer self-organization by Benjamin Wachs

RACER_v1.txt

*The RACER Principles* — how Burning Man as a volunteer org has been successful in self-organizing and self-perpetuating.

The gist:  Everything about Burning Man emanates from the volunteer experience.

Benjamin Wachs, Philosopher-in-Residence at BMOrg, identified these 5 characteristics

1. Relevance: volunteers are important, and they are recognized as important.
2. Agency / Autonomy: you get to decide WHAT AND HOW to volunteer (in accordance w/ your values).
    1. some stuff is obviously regulated, e.g. standard accounting practices (but you can do it in a tutu!)
3. Competence: do things to your capacities. Not expected to do things as you’re told to do them or to limit yourself to what you were told to do.  Aristotle: happiness = pursuing a meaningful goal to your capacities.
4. Relatedness: Volunteers build and use social capital.  Because of Relevance and Competence, social capital is built around affinity groups. 
5. Engagement: You don’t have to put up with stuff that’s dull and has no meaning for you.

“RACER”

BM when done right, our volunteers experience all of these qualities!  We spread these around.  Everyone is supposed to have these qualities.

Leaders spread the RACER qualities!

this tells us that successful leaders can be numerous!

“how do we make our bureaucracy at BMOrg Burning Man compliant”

Anti-patterns:
* Trust networks first, RACER qualities second.  When this occurs, you have ceilings that do-ers find hard to break.
* The Shining (too much of anything = bad… some really effective people who are out of balance need to be asked to leave, temporarily, for their own good and for the good of the community.)
* People like Joyti who exploit people’s natural desire to protect victims.

This system REQUIRES TRUST.