Central Roles in UPF Operations

The workflow of the UPF office needs to be streamlined. Certain key figures need to be identified and established to ensure smooth working conditions for everyone.

The following is obviously an incomplete list of people who need to be in the right place, but nonetheless it's a start. The following people need to be based in Nepal long-term, as their presence and availability is crucial. Being an international project, they should form cordial peer relationships with competent foreigners who may not be able to extend their longtime on-field presence to the extent required.

Communication Coordinator
Communication Coordinator is the person who keeps tabs on all contacts, who ensures all substantial contact situations are reported and filed, who has read every incoming file and knows how to link together disjoint resources, for whom people can turn with any personnel resource related issues.

Communication Assistant
The second-in-line from the Communication Coordinator, the Communication Assistant, is the person taking care of most incoming correspondence, replying or forwarding as necessary, along with a number of other communication related errands. The assistant should be able to keep things running stable in the coordinator's absence.

Project Coordinator
Project Coordinator is the person who keeps track of all ongoing projects, cooperating with project department heads. All project proposals and ongoing projects are reported and filed with him.

Project Assistant
The second-in-line from the Project Coordinator, the Project Assistant, is the person taking care of most project coordination related errands. The assistant should be able to keep things running stable in the coordinator's absence.

Fund-raising Coordinator
Fund-raising Coordinator is the person responsible for overseeing ongoing financial programs and exploring future funding avenues. Works closely with Communication Coordinator. As with the other roles above, Fund-raising Assistant is also good to have in place.

Caretaker
Caretaker is the person to whom personnel can turn to with grievances — in confidence. Problems and conflicts are inevitable, and need to be resolved. Caretaker is a neutral party involved in conflict resolution and other interpersonal problems.

President, Vice-president, General secretary and Treasurer are obviously roles that don't need that much explaining — though we may need to revisit these, too, to be clear on who's supposed to be doing what, and when, and where.

Department heads will obviously need to be established once the projects grow more. However, with the current scale of resources and activities, I think we're running on just fine letting people who manage their own field projects just run with it as they've been doing — with added backup from a streamlined office, base of operations. We only really need to start talking about department heads when we have enough people for different fields to actually form a department!

Operation roles must be clearly defined with all of their responsibilities. Only in an atmosphere of flowing, dynamic clarity can projects like this reach their full potential — and we'd very much like to see the UPF potential come to its fullest bloom.

But we don't want big, inflated ego-heads floating around the office, okay? It's just a job that needs to be done, it's here today and gone tomorrow, and the only thing we'll accomplish with ego trips is hampering the potentials at our disposal.