“Bylaws can either be dusty legalese documents with no meaningful impact on your organization, or they can be a living, breathing record of how you and your partners have chosen to work together. They can serve to create separation between your board and staff, lawyers and non-lawyers, and other stakeholders in your organization; or they can unite your organization in a shared framework. They can serve to entrench problematic power dynamics, or they can lay the groundwork for deeply democratic and values-aligned ways of being.

It’s all about how you relate to them.

This guide lays out processes and templates for how you can establish a self-governing organization deeply rooted in your values and politics, whatever those values and politics are. It walks you through important conversations about how you will make decisions, balance power between stakeholders, coordinate work, and manage your organization while also ensuring that you are within the bounds of the law and prepared for the kinds of unforeseen events that can create legal liability.”