Writing the sabbatical policy

Before we embarked on, or began truly planning for the sabbatical, TechCongress needed a sabbatical policy. When TechCongress became an independent organization in 2021, we’d had to develop at least 15 governance and HR policies. Creating the sabbatical policy took a back seat to others— a finance manual, employee handbook, and organizational bylaws took precedence at the time.

By early 2023, however, we started looking for models for the TechCongress policy. One peer level organization, Upturn, was a model for us, and generously shared their own policy, which had been used internally at least half-a-dozen times.

We also worked with a sabbatical consultant. One of our strategic advisors, Russ Finkelstein, put us in touch with the Rest of Our Lives, a group that awards paid sabbaticals to nonprofit professionals. We worked with their Executive Director, Josh Feldman, who reviewed our draft sabbatical policy to date.

What follows is TechCongress’s final sabbatical policy! We spent significant time and effort on it, and I’m proud of the result.

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