Priv The Priv Life blog
Practical writing on running organizations and keeping your own records — evergreen, and free of tracking like everything else here.
Collecting dues without becoming the person who chases people
Dues collection fails socially long before it fails financially. The fix is to move the awkward part from a person to a published rule.
The certification nobody noticed expired
Expiring credentials are the quietest compliance risk a volunteer organization carries, because nothing happens on the day they lapse — until the one day it matters.
Minutes that survive being questioned
Minutes are not a record of what was said. They are the evidence that a decision was properly made — which means motions, seconds, counts and quorum, written while the meeting is happening.
The subscription that quietly went up
Recurring charges are designed to stop being decisions. Price increases exploit that — not by hiding, but by arriving somewhere you have already stopped looking.
Where a job loses money between the estimate and the invoice
Most unprofitable jobs were priced correctly. They lost money in the undocumented changes, the hours nobody attributed, and the estimate that was never compared to what actually happened.
The 183-day rule, and why your day count is the whole case
How state statutory-residency day counting works, which days count against you, and why the burden of proving where you were falls on you — with records.
How to run a fair election in a membership organization
Eligibility, notice, secret ballots, and counting — the four places club and volunteer-organization elections go wrong, and how to get each one right.
The paper trail your house is missing
Why maintenance schedules, service histories, and warranty records pay for themselves — and the simple structure that keeps all three current.
The membership roster is the record to get right first
Why one accurate roster beats a dozen spreadsheets, what a roster actually needs to track, and how to clean yours up without a big migration project.
What "no advertising business" actually means
A plain explanation of how ad-funded software pays for itself with your data, and what changes — concretely — when the business model is simply selling software.
Volunteer hours: why tracking them changes how an organization runs
Hours records settle standing questions, back up grant applications, and catch burnout early — if the recording is easy enough that it actually happens.