Updated process: Please direct requests to fsp at codeforsociety.org. This inbox is monitored during business hours by team members and administrative support. Each project is assigned an FSP Program Manager who coordinates work for a set of projects in the FSP, and your manager will continue to be the one supporting your work. Shifting to using the shared inbox will support improvements in our internal triage of priority items.
Each FSP project has an FSP Program Manager (FSP PM) assigned to them that oversees CS&S services and activities for the project. In this role, the FSP PM has the relationships, context, and awareness of timelines required to support their set of projects.
The FSP PM is responsible for:
FSP project onboarding, off-boarding, and training
Tracking, delegation, and general management of FSP project requests
Coordinating activities between the FSP project and CS&S Finance and Operations
Coordination and time-keeping of FSP project strategy meetings
All requests and questions should be submitted by email to fsp at codeforsociety.org. Please include your timeline in your request, and any other information relevant to the request or its priority. Your FSP PM, or another FSP team member when necessary, will follow up within two business days to confirm receipt, and may request additional information, confirm issue resolution, or provide a timeline to resolve the issue.
Your FSP PM may delegate a request to a more specialized department, but the FSP PM will remain in the loop to ensure the request is resolved.
Our team is committed to supporting FSP projects when urgent issues arise. We consider any request requiring resolution within 5 business days or less to be urgent. In these instances, email fsp at codeforsociety.org with “URGENT” in the subject line to support our triage process, and include timeline information within the request details. We will escalate your request and respond as quickly as possible with next steps.
The table below includes examples of common requests at CS&S, and their typical timelines for processing once details are confirmed and approved.
Request type | Lead time |
Grant applications | 1 month |
New employee hire, International | 1 month |
New employee hire, USA | 10 business days |
New contract for a new contractor | 10 business days |
Outbound services agreements | 10 business days |
Payment request, any new payee or vendor | 15 business days |
Payment request, any existing payee or vendor | 10 business days |
Invoice request, CS&S to send an invoice to an external party | 7 business days |
If you have general questions about CS&S, the program, or our policies or procedures please check out our resources page on the CS&S website. We continuously post new resources to this page as we develop and iterate upon our organizational processes. If the information you’re seeking isn’t available as a resource, please let us know by contacting fsp at codeforsociety.org.
CS&S is a fully-remote organization, with core team staff distributed throughout the United States, and contributors located throughout the globe. While this is a benefit to our organization and its ability to respond to the needs of our stakeholders, we also value sustainable work boundaries for our staff. Staff are encouraged to set their own working hours, and to block off time to balance deep and focused work with fielding communications and handling requests. Our internal team practices flexible and silent Fridays. On Fridays staff are encouraged to avoid synchronous meetings, focus on deep work, and the day off when needed.
Staff are online Monday through Friday, between the hours 9am ET to 5pm PT. You can find our holiday closure dates listed on our website, as well as a link to a public google calendar.
The FSP program uses a shared email inbox in order to collaboratively manage incoming requests and avoid delays that may arise from staff absences. If an FSP PM has planned time off that will interrupt planned work with a project, the FSP PM will provide advanced notification, and details on how that work will be managed in their absence.
During any absence, whether planned or unexpected, other members of the FSP team will provide backup support to effectively triage and manage new and existing project requests. Our goal is to support a sustainable workload for each FSP team member, and to staff so that individuals are able to take time off without it impacting service to projects.
Our preferred mode of communication for work requests and questions at CS&S is email. Items requiring action related to FSP project should be submitted by email, and directed to fsp at codeforsociety.org.
We often utilize google workspace tools such as docs, sheets, and slides in collaboration with projects and for drafting purposes. Our FSP program team may add comments and tag contributors in these workflows. If you are commenting on a document and require a response, please tag your FSP PM. If the comment is urgent, please also flag this in an email to fsp at codeforsociety.org.
Slack is a wonderful tool for remote teams to connect and socialize, but it is not ideal for managing requests that require action to be taken. Urgent and standard work requests and questions should always be submitted via email. We support our team members to use slack in the ways that are sustainable for them, and as such not all team members have notification on or use the tool daily.