This page is the landing page of the Soft Transmission portal (Market space, for associations and organisations with participatory governance). It gathers a short synthesis, the explanations, and a model contract (an amendment to the statutes) presented clause by clause.

In short. This portal explores a framework so that an organisation's responsibilities (chair, vice-chair, secretary, treasurer, heads of committees) could be handed over gradually, rather than resting on one person or a small team that would leave all at once. The starting point: what matters is not rotation for its own sake, but the balance between stability and transmission. A person may stay in a role for a long time; what counts is that a culture of transmission exists, like a school of people interested in taking part in leadership groups that manage resources together.

Soft transmission

Preamble: sociology of organisations

Non-profit organisations, or organisations with limited profit purpose, face recurring governance difficulties:

sudden resignations that leave a gap,
difficulty finding people to renew the teams,
excessive dependence on one person or a very small team,
loss of memory about responsibilities when people leave.

The sociology of organisations documents these tensions between stability and renewal. The proposed agreement starts from the hypothesis that a gradual and documented transmission could turn succession into a habit rather than a crisis, while preserving stability where it is useful.

Related concepts: Governance, Non-profit organisation, Cooperative.

Who this agreement is for

The framework could suit an association, a foundation, a cooperative, a public-law entity, or a limited company with statutes of limited profit or non-profit purpose, when these entities carry a participatory intention and look for a controlled handover from one era to the next.

Overview of existing transmission models

Leadership by one person or a small team

One person, or a team of two or three, holds the direction and then steps down, often all at once. A very common model. Known risk: the simultaneous departure leaves a gap that is hard to fill.

Rotating duumvirates and triumvirates

Two or three leaders share the head, then take turns one after another rather than leaving together. Less common, but it reduces the risk of a clean break (duumvirate, triumvirate).

Rotating leadership and corporate democracy

The Brazilian Ricardo Semler (Semco) popularised a form of corporate democracy where roles circulate and where direction is designed to function without depending on a single person. His TED Talk spread this rotating leadership approach widely, and it has fed self-management cultures.

Terms that cannot be renewed indefinitely

A ban on being elected several times in a row to the same committee: terms of two or four years, repeated at most twice, then a mandatory stop, as in many national presidencies (term limits).

The "legislature elects the executive" model (Swiss reference)

A legislative body elects the executive, which then stays in place as long as it wishes unless there is serious fault, with long durations in practice. Strong stability, slow rotation (Swiss Federal Council).

The proposed model: soft transmission (Balélec reference)

The proposed model draws on a practice tested by the association Balélec, taken up here in an amplified and more structured form.

At Balélec, the logic works per event: the vice-chair becomes chair at the next edition (or the other way around), and the former lead then becomes assistant to the next lead. Rotation is not mandatory: a person may stay in the same role for a long time. The indicator is the level of rotation, but the aim is the combination of stability and transmission, not forced rotation. The whole thing works like a school of people interested in managing resources together, with attendance tokens.

What soft transmission aims at

Making succession a habit rather than a crisis.
Avoiding a single person steering while the others follow.
Building a pool of committee participants, to strengthen them over time.
Recognising that contributed time has value for everyone.

Model contract: committee operating agreement

This text is a model amendment to the statutes describing how the committee operates. It is a starting point, to be adapted to the legal form of each organisation. It is not legal advice.

Clause 1: transmission commitment

Committee members commit to aiming at the transmission of their responsibilities: identifying and training people, socialising in that direction, or subcontracting this work to third parties whose role as contributor carriers is recognised as such, internally or externally.

Clause 2: pool of participants

The organisation builds and maintains a pool of committee participants, in order to strengthen the committees over time and to prepare successions without rupture.

Clause 3: fluid participatory decision-making

Decisions are taken in a participatory and fluid way: seeking consensus and consent rather than heavy voting, with listening and regular exchanges, and lighter meetings. Decision circles and motivated people are identified upstream. No single person steers without sharing (sociocracy).

Clause 4: the three stages of involvement

Each contribution follows three stages, which can be short:

Discover. The person gets involved to understand. Indicative minimum duration of six months, measured by a number of hours and months (main indicator of this stage).
Steer. The person takes on responsibilities over a given period, measured in time, in resources at stake, and in attendance-token equivalents.
Transmit. The person hands over the steering. The indicator of this stage: was the transmission accompanied (availability, help, time spent together)? The person receiving the transmission is then themselves at stage 1 (discovery, internship).

Clause 5: recognition of contributions (four dimensions)

Recognition links four interconnected dimensions:

Resources at stake (amounts and assets managed within the responsibility).
Time contributed (hours and duration).
Attendance tokens (recognition of participation).
Quality, impact and difficulty of the contribution (results achieved, complexity and skills required).

These dimensions are weighed together. For example, fundraising is worth more per hour (prior work and skills) than tidying up after an event. However, every contribution has value: recognised values stay close to the market, without excessive gaps between low and high added value, so that everyone's time is recognised (attendance token).

Clause 6: continuous documentation (AI support)

Each person easily describes what they do; the information is stored and communicated at all levels. AI support aims to make this description simple and fluid, so that the memory of roles does not depend on a single person. The number of roles, missions and functions tracked per person stays reasonable.

Clause 7: amendments and evolutions

This agreement may evolve through amendments, following the same principles of fluid participatory decision-making (clause 3).

Planned variations

Inside this Market portal, specific marketplaces are planned:

a Swiss variation,
a French variation,
application examples, for instance the management of housing cooperatives.

Status of this document

A starting point to adapt to the legal form and context of each organisation. It is not legal advice.