Don’t announce (or suggest) any community initiative to members until your legal, marketing, and IT teams have signed off on it.
I’ve long lost track of community leaders forced to retract bold promises under internal pressure.
False promises immediately undermine your credibility. They make you and your organisation look incompetent. Members will be less likely to trust and support any initiative in the future.
I know someone recently who sent an email out to each department about a community initiative. No-one replied. So she went ahead with the program.
Turns out legal were (slowly) investigating the program before giving a response. Once they got a full grasp of it, they shut it down.
In my experience, these departments will eventually approve your program (often with a few minor tweaks). They often just need some time. So give them as much advance notice as you can.
You don’t want silent acquiescence here, you want a definitive ‘yes, that’s fine’.
If you haven’t gotten the definitive ‘yes’, treat it as a ‘no’.
