Hello, MNFurs! This is your elections committee with an announcement to make. As you may or may not know, MNFurs is a volunteer-based 501c3 not-for-profit organization. What that means is that we not only have volunteers but also a board of directors to help things run smoothly within the group, and we will be starting the election process for three seats on the board of directors. A term on the board is two-years, starting in April 2026.
Effective a few days ago, we’re accepting nominations for the Directors through November 25th 2025 at 11:59pm CST.
As a reminder, The full timeline is available here; https://www.mnfurs.org/MNFurs_News/mnfurs/elections-2025-2026-timeline/.
To Submit a Candidate
To submit a nomination, email your nomination to [email protected]. You may nominate either yourself or another community member you feel would be a perfect fit for the board. Nominations must be submitted by November 25th at 11:59PM CST. Nominated individuals must have 20 hours or more of volunteer time to be eligible to be a candidate for the board. Need to get more hours in time? Contact us!
Please include their name, and their contact email (if known). If nominating yourself, include this information as well and that its a self nomination.
If you are self nominating, you can expedite this process by using the “Nominate yourself” button on the volunteer portal. You should get a confirmation email after (manually generated, so give it some time). You can do this or email your self-nomination.
While we hope we do not need to change anything, the election committee reserves the right (within reason) to change or add dates/time/location of events as needed for conflict resolution (overlap with events, conventions, weather, etc etc).
FAQ
How do I get voting hours?
By helping out Minnesota Furs perform their nonprofit role. This can include volunteering to run or help out events like picnics or an Oval meet, throwing an event that is recognized by MNFurs as an MNFurs activity, volunteering or staffing for Furry Migration, volunteering for midwinter frolic, and helping out the election committee! These hours must be submitted to Minnesota Furs before being accepted and must be submitted before December 17th, 2025. Any volunteer hours happening after that date will be applied to the next year’s election cycle.
To submit hours, please use your existing volunteer.mnfurs.org account. If you don’t have one, login with your mnfurs.org account on the login screen.
Can I nominate myself?
Yes you can! It is pretty much expected that people will nominate themselves.
What are my duties if I am elected to be a board member?
You need to be able to perform these actions and duties:
- Perform the fiduciary duty of board of director
- Duty of Care
- Duty of Loyalty
- Duty of Good Faith
- Duty of Prudence
- Duty of Disclosure
- A good definition can be found here https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/fiduciary_duty
- Attend board meetings – attendance of board meetings by board staff is required by bylaws of Minnesota Furs. Times are set by a consensus of the board.
- Attend the Board Retreat held in February 2026, in the cities.
- Keep in good standing with the community. This includes 20 hours of volunteer hours outside of direct board duties. Expect to put in a significant amount of hours beyond that – the average board member for a non profit puts in at least 200-600 hours of volunteer work per year.
- Know the bylaws of Minnesota Furs: Conflict of Interest and other operational documents for some of these documents please visit https://www.mnfurs.org/about/mnfurs-operational-documents/ Minnesota Furs Operation documents.
- Are representatives and ambassadors of our organization..
- Your job is not to run events and conventions like MidWinterFrolic, Furry Migration, but to be the oversight to make sure they are meeting their duties from our status as a non profit.
- Ideally have have Leadership and Management Skills.
Edit changelog will be here:
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