Frequently Asked Questions

                 DRAFT  Awaiting Member Association Comments  DRAFT 

Why should our Neighborhood or Home Owners Association join United Neighborhoods ?

There are many reasons why associations join UNSCC and the most popular reasons are: 1) low cost Member Services,   2) numerous Neighborhood Education Workshops / Annual Neighborhood Conference,  3) networking with other neighborhood leaders who have successfully solved common neighborhood problems so you don't spend volunteer's time "reinventing the wheel",   4) "Neighborhood Best Practices" procedure manuals and policies, and   5) working with other neighborhood leaders on multiple neighborhood association work groups to efficiently develop concensus recommendations so we can "speak with one voice " about local issues, planning and land use, public policies or procedures for local city or Santa Clara County government, elected officials and community groups to improve neighborhood  "quality of life". 

Who are United Neighborhoods members ? 

You can see our "Member Associations" web page by clicking on the left menu, but the volunteer members of UNSCC are the Officers, Directors, other active leaders and our member association regular members who are interested in UNSCC's committees, events and meeting activities and educational topics to improve our neighborhood and community's  " quality of life ". 

How can you provide the member services at the low annual membership dues and provide your other services, education workshops or your annual conference at low cost ?

We are able to provide our low cost member services and fulfill our stated mission with the full cooperation of all of our member associations since United Neighborhoods is 100% volunteer staffed and mananged. Without our member furnished leaders / member volunteers, we would either not be capable of provide many of our low cost membership services or would have to hire people to provide these services. Many of our member associations could not afford the nesessary substantially increased membership dues ( estimated to be $700-1000 or more per year ).  UNSCC had paid staff  for about 3 years but due to substantial decrease in funding since Novenber 2003, we to 100% volunteer staffed as we had been for our first 7 years.

I noticed some previously member services are no longer provided or the costs have gone up - newsletters, some workshops, scholarships / free attendence for non member associations etc  Why is this ?

The primary reason is some of our member associations are not providing the required 32 volunteer hours per year to staff our activities, member association lack of interest interest in specific activities with the unsupported activities being discontinued and a substantial decrease in UNSCC grants and contribution funding due to the slow local economy, local government budget crisis and grant foundations shifting grant funding to underfunded local social services, health and school organizations due to substantial fund reductions by local / state / federal governments and reduction in local chartiable contributions by individauls and corportations

Why can't  all of our member associations provide volunteers for the minimually required 32 hours ( 2 hours per month and 8 hours for annual conference )  per year to staff  UNSCC's activities?

There are many reasons but the most common are:  1) lack of time individual time due to the combination of valid personal / work committments and our member's individual neighborhood association activities are many times less efficient and effective due to the lack of prior expereince and expertise about a specific project or event by current leaders or members,  2) lack of understanding by new member association leaders  and members of the significant benefits for their member association if we all work effectively and efficiently together and " speak with one voice " rather than have dozens of individual member associations seperately and inefficiently work on the same neighborhood and community issues. 3) many member association leaders have too many meetings ( 24-40 meetings or more per year ) with their few active leaders often attending many inefficient individual association meetings and therefore can not or chose not to attend UNSCC's multiple neighborhood association group meetings or be involved in UNSCC committees. 4)  some active neighborhood leaders historically in the way they express their strongly held opinions have offended other neighborhood leaders resulting in less cooperation between neighborhood association leaders resulting in less effective neighborhood association group results and numerous uncoordinated expressed neighborhood opinions some of which if properly researched and calmly discussed would result in multiple associations being able to develop a multiple part multiple neighborhood recommendation that wold benefit everyone that addresses everyone's concerns since in many complex issues " one size does not fit all ".

What do you mean by " individual neighborhood association activities are many times less efficient and effective due to the lack of prior expereince and expertise about a specific project or event by current leaders or members " 

Our individual member association leaders or members who have not successfully worked on a specific complex neighborhood / community issues. activities or events previously it is estimated that 50-75% of an neighborhood project's volunteer efforts can be wasted by volunteers with no prior experence  learning to " reinventing the wheel " on projects where written procedures or the expertise of other neighborhood leaders could we utilized.

This significant amount of  required " learning / planning time " combined with the actual project time is one of the major reasons for 1) the failure or less than optimum success of many neighborhood association projects   2) volunteer leader / member burnout and   3) the inability of many associaitons to easily obtain volunteers for future projects since there are no clear volunteer time committment since most activities or issures are " open ended committements"  for  2-4 time or more the expected volunteer hours due to neighborhood associations volunteer time learning about the activity / issues, planning what needs to be done, redoing certain activities again, rather than effeciently doing the volunteer activity by  utiliziing the expertise, research files, and sucessful procedures of experienced neighborhood leaders who have spend ( 100's ) hundreds of hours previously on similar or the same issues and projects.

What do you mean member associations have too many meetings ? 

Many associations have - 12 General membership meeting, 12 Board of Director meetings, attend many other multiple neighborhood associaition group meetings ( San Jose's Strong Neighborhoods NAC and PAC, and 2 -12 Council District Neighborhood Leaders meetings year ) and dozens of City Council, Commission, Planning Department and other City  / County Department and  Local Agency, Work / Task group, proposed Development and other meetings per year.  It is not unsuual that a typical neighborhood association leader could attend 50- 120 or more meeting per year and very active leaders could attend 120- 200 or more meetings especially if their neighborhood is in a redevelopment,  infill housing, gang area or is addressing other significant neighborhood problems where they are trying to mostly address their issues / problems as a individual association rather than actively work with other neighborhood associations.

So what does United Neigbhorhoods recommend we do about reducing the number of meetings ?

The answer is different for each association based on your local challenges, management experience, ability / skills of your leaders and number of active members. Strongly consider reducing the number of  your individual neighborhood association meetings ( combine together - membership, Board and project / special meeting ), have clear tight agendas, increase your member particiation and committees to match your activity level rather than have a few leaders do all the work and burn out, reduce the amount of unfocused / off agenda discussions at your meetings and if necessary due to workload increase the length of meetings up to 2 1/2 hours rather than have more short meetings.

Why can't member associations pay higher dues to have UNSCC hire staff to provide member and administration services ?

Many of our member associations have no membership dues, low operating costs and they depend on member and local merchant contributions or grant funding.  UNSCC has subsidize our membership services costs in prior years ( dues were 8-20 % of UNSCC's budget ) but that funding is no longer available so we had to reduce costs, discontinue programs and activities especially where we did not have volunteers and raise dues and activity costs. Higher membership dues with paid staff would reduce number of volunteers.

We are interested in only your low cost members / special events group liability insurnace coverage, are not interested in attending your activities or since we are too busy with our own associations activities can not provide volunteers. Can we still join ?

No, UNSCC Board has decided that we will not be accepting any new member associations at this time who can not fulfill ALL of their membership obligations especially their 32 hours per year volunteer, Membes email group and meeting / Annual Conference participation obligations.

What about current UNSCC member associations that do not fulfill their membership obligations ?

UNSCC has member associations who's Officers / other leaders are not participating in our members only email group,  providing the required volunteers to staff our activities and are not fulfilling their membership obligations either because they 1) do not understand  2) we have not routinely revolked memberships for not participating during the period when we had a substantial budget and paid staff  or 3) they chose not participate but want the membership benefits.

UNSCC Board, on a case by case basis, will be talking to the non participating member associations Officers to determine 1) if they want to   continue their association's membership if they will in the future commit to meeting their membership obligations   2) to selectively revoke non participating members membership for not complying with the bylaws and Board policies or 3) review the existing membership categories and potentially define a new member category at higher annual dues / reduced member benefits for member associations who elect to minimally participate by not providing the required volunteers and actively participating.