On November 13, 2023, the organization published an extensive, transparent account of complaints received by the Board, the Board's findings, and actions taken in response. We are posting this as an FAQ many months after the fact to address a surge of new questions about these incidents. Please take the time to read the original communication, which answers this basic question in great detail.
Though we will not use this FAQ to rehash any information contained in the Board's original response, we can speak to what we have already done to make NaNoWriMo safer.
How We've Made NaNoWriMo Safer
- We proactively made staffing changes. No employee who sat in the chain of responsibility around the child endangerment issue remains with the organization.
- We ended our policy of all-ages spaces and overhauled our tech to support that change. We created separate spaces for Wrimos ages 13-17 vs. Wrimos who are 18+. This detailed set of FAQs we released on May 29, 2024 gives more information about these changes.
- New leadership implemented background checks for all employees. Previous NaNoWriMo employee had not been background checked.
- We paused volunteer programs in order to bring them into legal compliance. Previous volunteer programs were out of compliance with California law, which requires background checks and specialized training for volunteers with exposure to minors.
- We've contracted with ID.me for identity verification and background-checking for volunteers. Our previous group of 800+ volunteers had never been asked to provide their legal identities or personal information.
- We've created a more robust volunteer application process. Formal role descriptions and guidelines for volunteers had either not been circulated or not been refreshed since 2019.
- We are gradually reinstating volunteers. We're focused on relaunching in the right way, which means that reinstatement will happen at its own speed.