Lumicura is in pre-launch.  Founding-school program open through August 2026. See terms →
Field notes

Writing about the work parents do for schools.

Practical pieces on commitment programs, volunteer logistics, board governance, and the operating realities of running a parent organization.

Governance
Governance · 8 min read

The volunteer board handoff problem (and how to design software around it).

Parent boards turn over annually. Treating that as a bug rather than a feature is the single biggest reason parent-org software fails after one year.

Operations
Operations · 6 min read

QR check-in for volunteer events: the smallest UX decision with the largest payoff.

How auto-credit at check-in eliminates the largest single source of disputes in any commitment program.

Commitment $↔h
Commitment programs · 11 min read

Buyouts, fundraising credits, and hour conversion: a typology.

A close look at how the parent organizations we've talked to translate between dollars, hours, and goodwill — and where the equity tradeoffs hide.

Field notes
Field notes · 5 min read

Sixteen things we heard from PTO presidents in our first month of discovery.

Notes from 22 conversations with parent-org leaders, ordered by how often the same thing came up unprompted.

Product
Product updates · 4 min read

Phase 1 module set: what's in, what's deliberately not.

Walking through the seven modules that ship at GA, and the three we've decided not to build until at least year two.

Governance §
Governance · 9 min read

RBAC for volunteer organizations: when "permissions" and "social trust" diverge.

Software permissions need to be sharper than the unwritten social agreements they replace. Here's how we think about that boundary.