2025 HuMAN Board Meeting - June 1 2:00 pm PST
Attending: Karen Zelevinsky (Board President), Phil Zuckerman (Executive Directive), Susan Kuchinskas (Secretary), Rick Thomas (co-Treasurer), Hank Pellissier (co-Treasurer, Program Director)
Meeting starts at 2:05 p.m.
Present: Hank Pellissier, Karen Zelevinsky, Susan Kuchinskas, Phil Zuckerman and Rick Thomas.
• Everyone introduces themselves
• Dan Beaton joins our Board of Directors: New board member Dan Beaton goes to Africa regularly.; he will be the “face of the franchise” in Africa and work with new student groups. He just returned from Kenya where he met University of Nairobi Freethinkers, and he’s going to Nigeria in July to meet / inspect five different projects, including three secular student groups.
• Financial Update: We have $125,000 in bank account. Last year was biggest-ever in fundraising, $244,000. $200,000 came from a single donor, who died. The $125,000 is enough for at least two years. After that, other funds must be found. We have lost multiple regular donors - we only have around 15 donors a month. Potential sources of funds in future could be GoFundMe, which is also a good source of new email addresses.
Hank has a clear budget with most of the money allocated for the next year-and-a-half.
Instead of giving grants constantly, we will only provide funding twice a year.
Below are ways we provide value beyond giving money.
The Africa Collective - ex-partners who have completed projects get a bio page. Ideally, Americans could hire them to do work. For example, someone in Chad made a song for our org and someone in Zambia made a video.
Humanist Sustainability School will display videos of successful projects we’ve done. This way, people who can’t/don’t receive a grant will have access to information and resources to help them achieve their goals.
HuMAN boosted our Grant Amounts from max $300 to max $1800 & reduced allocations to only Two Proposal-Accepting Time Slots Annually. Also we give out grants only once. When we find one reliable partner, that person can find other worthwhile partners. These people can also inspect projects; help communicate in languages besides English; and teach potential partners more about humanism. Some partners are paid for this work, and they can get a $50 reward if they bring in other groups.
Berkeley Unitarian Universalists: For the next four weeks, a local Unitarian church is passing the basket for our safe house for lesbians in Benin.
Writing grants can be difficult because many require the grants to be available to everyone regardless of creed.
Current USA Administration Might Repress Humanists & international funders? Trump may target anti-religious groups, or go after nonprofits that do international funding. Also concern about being audited since our funds in have been irregular, but Hank is confident in his bookkeeping.
We joined Secular Coalition of America - they advertise for us and amplify our social media.
Secular Student Alliance is reaching out to African student groups - we want to get kids from the states to connect with our student groups in Africa. This is another way we can be valuable without giving money. Maybe we could provide some peer-to-peer counseling, for example, for kids grappling with how to tell their parents they’re secular.
African Humanist Journal: we pay our partners in Africa to write articles for it. We also have a good connection with The Freethinker; they publish articles by our partners, paid for by us.
Phil is teaching humanism to people in prison.
Rick is connecting us to large national organizations like American Humanist Association, Teachers for Evolutionary Science, Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
2024 Board of Directors Meeting - June 2
Attending: Karen Zelevinsky (Board President), Phil Zuckerman (Executive Directive), Susan Kuchinskas (Secretary), Jesse Smith (Vice President), Rick Thomas (co-Treasurer), Hank Pellissier (co-Treasurer, Program Director), Binyamin Biber (Board Member)
Meeting Starts at 10:00 am PST
Africa Humanism
Hank updates the directors on our relationships in Africa. In 2023, four humanist leaders from four different SubSaharan nations were angry at HuMAN. Two of them were recently de-funded by HuMAN for corruption; the other two were their allies. The furious foursome tried to “cancel” Hank and HuMAN with accusations and threats on Facebook. HuMAN was accused (ridiculously) of funding only selected favorites in our attempt to establish “cartels” to “take over Africa.” Hank also caused an uproar when he publicly accused one accuser as “mentally ill.” the entire attack, Hank explains at the Board meeting, ended when our primary foe - the South African humanist, died suddenly of a stroke. Our relationships in Africa have been positive and peaceful ever since. This is aided by the presence of of Saliu Olumide Saheed, of Nigeria, who is now assisting us as Africa Director.
Update on Partnerships
In Africa, HuMAN has solid partnerships in Uganda, Nigeria, Shad, Liberia, Mozambique, Niger Republic, Ghana, Malawi,Zimbabwe and Sierra Leone. Additionally, we have partners in India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, The Philippines, UK and USA.
$2,000 Gift
Vicki Van Horn, a donor in Albuquerque, recently died and left us approximately $200,000. Hank explains that this amount is nearly impossible to spend quickly due to our maximum $300 allotment. For this reason, he asked multiple donors to not donate for 1-2 years. Several directors disagreed with this; they believe we should keep encouraging everyone to continue donating. Karen suggests we enlarge the $300 amount to accomplish larger projects. The group agrees with this, all also agrees that all donors should be encouraged to continue donating.
Activism & Fscal Sponsorship
Hank discusses the possibility of HuMAN supporting an “activist” group. The other directors don’t want to do this; they believe it is better to avoid taking sides on political issues, because it is possibly illegal and it would surely displease the donors with contrary political views. Hank also reports that HuMAN is fiscally-sponsoring three groups at this time: South Sound Street Medics (indigenous-run team in Washington State), Duck Farm Collective (LGBTQ+ Appalachian group), and Mega Mouth Rebels (Hank’s own activist group). Two of these groups promote specific political viewpoints. The HuMAN directors decide it would be best to discontinue our support of these groups, and also to not directly support an activist group, unless the projects directly mirror our own Mission, i.e., assisting humanists in need.
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HGC Board Meeting 2023
May 20, 10-11 PST
Attending: Karen Zelvinsky, Phil Zuckerman, Cameo Wood, Hank Pellissier, Jesse Smith, Werner Haag, Omar Niage, Susan Kuchinskas
Karen Zelevinsky, Board President, introduces the meeting’s agenda.
Everyone introduces themselves.
Hank presents slide show depicting HGC’s 18 partners - two in Uganda, four in Nigeria, two in Zambia, two in India, two in Nepal, and one each in Chad, South Sudan, Bangladesh, Philippines, DR Congo, and Appalachia.
Hank talks about recent struggles with some African humanists, who are angry and “cancelling” him on Facebook - they are displeased for multiple reasons, generally stemming from his decisions in funding, not funding, or de-funding candidates.
The Board decides that Hank is targeted as HGC’s “face” and strategies are suggested and approved. A Selection Team will decide, in the future, how HGC funds are allocated, this team will look at proposals and determine who to fund and not fund. This will relieve Hank of the sole responsibility.
A Director of African Humanism has already been appointed to review African grant proposals - Saliu Olumide Saheed (he is currently the Minna Safe House director).
The Selection Team will confer regularly to determine who gets funded and who does not.
Moving on, the Board discusses and approves of Hank’s idea to move funding towards Mutual Aid groups and Community Service groups. There is brief discussion of changing the nonprofit’s name.
The Board discusses possible trips together - Nepal is mentioned and there is interest.