17 December 2025

Minutes of a Regular Meeting of the Admin Board of Directors of NumFOCUS. All votes are reported in the form “(Y/N/A)” (in favor-Y, opposed-N, abstentions-A; e.g. “4-1-2” means “4 in favor, 1 opposed, and 2 abstentions”).

December 17, 2025

**Attending: **Julie Hollek, Rosie Pongracz, Andy Terrel, Mridul Seth, Sanket Verma

**Executive Director: **Rachel Kerestes

**Not attending: **

Information:

• Topics for a future meeting:
  • Fundraising
  • Meeting minutes
    • Philosophy & Legal requirements
    • What was discussed, decision points reached, resolutions voted on
  • 2026 Audit

Discussion Items:

• Updates
  • Finance and operations
    • Continuing to audit internal policies and procedures - numerous gaps identified - working on plan to address gaps
      • Signed a contract with a legal NPO specialist and doing an audit of contracting procedures
        • Developing templates for contracts
      • Working on internal strategy for tech/projects for chain of custody systems - CRM, sponsorships, purchase orders, accounting, etc.
    • Communication to projects
      • Projects are pushing back on changes in process with personnel change
      • Communicating to projects around being more diligent
        • Looking to community for spokespeople
        • Communicate things like, “we’re focused on compliance with tax laws, risk mitigations, etc.”
    • CFOO recruitment
      • Manager level interview
        • Went well
        • Asked good questions, professional, thoughtful
      • Director interview
        • Went well
        • Jim in particular thought he was a good fit
      • Using ED meeting for the final round interview for candidate
      • Will still need to put out references if the candidate advances
      • This was posted on LinkedIn
        • No applicants through the posting, but lots of head hunting firms
        • Talked to 2 other candidates before this one that didn’t work out
      • Scope of CFOO
        • To do: upload PDF of JD and link
  • Strategic planning
    • Recruitment underway
      • On track, though slow going
      • Scheduling will be tricky
        • Trying to scheduling them all in Jan
    • Survey launching 17 December
      • 10 open ended questions
      • Will be used to form the questions/topics in the whiteboard session
    • Committee kick off will likely kick off end of january
    • Whiteboard session with
      • Board
      • Staff
      • Projects
    • Trying to not use the same people in the same places
• Board business
  • Election results published on blog
  • Rachel meeting with new board members
  • Onboarding plans
  • 2026 meeting schedule
    • Financial information in advance of the meetings - that’s what drives the meetings later in the month
    • Stayed away from religious/national holiday
    • Dec 2 -> middle meeting on budget
    • Dec 16 meeting to approve budget if needed
• Scheduling
  • Jan 6 2 PM CT