Administrative Co-Founder Role Overview
Why is this labeled as a co-founder rather than as a coordinator or assistant? That’s a great question, and I am glad you are asking it.
This posting is written by me, Conrad Hall, the founder of Family Shed. Other postings are written with the help of other people and even a little bit of help from A.I. doing some drafting. This posting is for a tiny, very special, select group of people who will work with me on a daily basis. So I think it deserves some extra attention.
I need help. It’s that simple. Now, this posting gets into the detail about all the help that is needed, but let me start with a 20,000-foot view.
Family Shed has been successfully running since 2024. Now we are ready to start growing to encompass the geographic area covered by 32CBG. Here are a few of the programs intended to help us do that:
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- Canadian Identity Podcast
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- Restore Legion Stewardship Project
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- GrandPals Inter-Generational Storytelling
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- Monthly workshops on personal development
Do you see why it is that I need help? There is no way that I can run all of this by myself, and there is no way I can run a program covering the entire Golden Horseshoe alone. So, let’s look at the Family Shed Program.
Family Shed
Do you want to help a not-for-profit serving veterans and the community to stay organised and efficient?
Family Shed’s vision is a world connected by healthy relationships that are motivated by personal responsibility and supported by community accountability. Does building that look like success to you?
Now let’s be fair, Family Shed is a safe space for soldiers and veterans. That means some civilians are going to be offended by our attitudes and our speech. Family Shed is a place where each person, military or civilian, can share their knowledge and skills while build healthy relationships. Part of the job is helping veterans learn how vulgar language and crass attitudes can often get in the way of building the success they desire.
Think of this posting as a test. You are well served to read the entire posting. Family Shed is well served by having things deliberately buried in here that you are expected to notice.
To keep Family Shed moving inexorably toward our regional expansion goals, I require a dedicated, hyper-organized, intelligent Administrative Co-Founder to serve as my right hand. (In fact, I am thinking three or four are needed.) You will also act as a capable, structured buffer between the founder and the rest of the organization.
What It Means to Volunteer with Family Shed
No Passive Attitudes: You might do a civilian job simply because you need to pay the bills. That attitude is unacceptable in a volunteer and insane in anyone who aspires to be a co-founder.
You are joining Family Shed because you care about helping people make connections and feel effective. You want people to have a sense of Belonging and a Purpose.
Accountability is Absolute: You can be fired. Think twice before you speak. Think three times before you take action. And yes, you are expected to speak and to act. Just have your head on straight before you do either.
This is why I am looking for people with a lifetime of experience. You understand the need to take action, to present solutions when problems arise, and how to function without having someone hold your hand.
No Learning Opportunity: This is no situation for you to be learning how to be an Administrator. The ideal candidate has years of high-level administrative, operational, or management experience and is semi-retired or retired. Your role is to make things happen and be prepared to teach others how to do what you do as we scale.
What You’ll Be Doing as a Co-Founder
The work is hybrid. You can do a lot of it from home, but there are live events and you will need to visit the founder’s office regularly. The founder works from home and is a little touchy about people being in “his space.” So part of the task is helping him make the necessary adjustment to have you visit.
Operational Accountability: Keep the founder and all other coordinator teams strictly on track with project timelines, master calendars, task lists, and deadlines.
Theory of Change & Evaluation: Having some understanding of Theory of Change and how to organise a program evaluation process is essential. Extra training can be arranged, but you must have a basic understanding otherwise you will be completely overwhelmed.
Compliance Evaluation: Own the collection, management, filing, and distribution of all evaluation paperwork, grant tracking logs, and organizational compliance documents required by our framework. Oh, and you’ll be helping develop a lot of this along the way.
Document Architecture: Maintain an easy to understand and secure file structure across the Family Shed Shared Drive. Ensure all policies, records, and toolkits are catalogued and accessible to authorized personnel. (We use Google Workspace to manage this so you need to understand how to use it.)
Building the Infrastructure: Family Shed is starting in Toronto and rapidly growing to cover the geographic area of 32CBG (Oshawa to Barrie/Borden, and around the Golden Horseshoe to the Niagara Peninsula). You will build, organize, and manage the administrative systems required to support this massive regional footprint. (Which is why we’re building a team, yes?)
Policy Writing: Write the master Administrative and Data Governance policy for Family Shed, detailing file retention schedules, information compliance, and strict document control standards. Plus everything else we have yet to consider.
The Unfiltered Family Shed Reality Check
Let’s lay the cards on the table. If you want a comfortable, hands-off volunteer gig where you get a participation trophy just for checking your email, you are invited to exit stage right, now.
The Founder: Many describe me as demanding. Some even call me exigent. What I am is a combat veteran, a carpenter, and a polymath; an odd combination.
What people describe as demanding is me expecting people to take responsibility for themselves. If we have an appointment at 1100 hrs, then I expect you to show at 1055 hrs. Everyone who wonders why that is finds me demanding.
When people find me exigent, it is because they rarely say what they mean. When you tell me you know how to do something, then I expect you to have the knowledge to do it. Too often people say they know what they’re doing and then go away to try to learn how to do it. That is insulting to me and to yourself. Just admit that you lack the knowledge.
To be a good fit, you must have the professional confidence and sharp intellect to stand toe-to-toe with my intense energy and keep the operational machinery running.
Our Audience: Family Shed serves soldiers and veterans first. This means you will be interacting with individuals who are frequently unpolished, intensely opinionated, and often intolerant. They have zero room in their worldview for correction or instruction from outsiders. You must bring empathy, thick skin, and absolute respect for their boundaries. You must also say what you mean and mean what you say.
Veterans are notorious for avoiding joining anything once they leave the military. Now combine that with everyone’s desire to be as resilient, tough, and reliable as a soldier. So if we can build Family Shed into a program that veterans want to join, we are also building a program that will attract everyone else. The result: A large surrogate family that gives its members Purpose, Belonging, and Fun.
The Philosophy: Everything we do is a behaviour. All behaviour is chosen. Our Purpose is to be better today than we were yesterday. This gives us Belonging, a sense of being connected, and the pride of being effective. We take 100% responsibility for ourselves and the choices we make.
The sources for what we practice are Choice Theory, Psycho-Cybernetics, The Success Principles, and a long list of other self-help books. What makes it all work ain’t the books. It’s taking action on what we read.
Qualifications & Requirements to fit with Family Shed
Intelligence & Executive Capability: Proven history of managing complex organizational systems, projecting operational timelines, and confidently guiding a team.
The Buffer Mindset: The natural ability to confidently manage team inquiries, enforce standard processes, and protect the founder’s time without causing unnecessary friction. (Sometimes saying No is the most respectful thing you can do.)
Communication Mastery: Fluency in English (written and oral) is non-negotiable. Your proofreading, editing, and professional correspondence must set the standard for the entire organization. This means understanding the difference between things such as less and fewer, and further and farther. It also means understanding the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Tech Savvy: Proficiency in Google Workspace (Drive, Docs, Sheets, Gmail) and MS Office is mandatory. You must know how to build templates and optimize cloud architectures (i.e. sort G Drive files into an easily accessible order).
Long-Term Commitment: You are building the administrative blueprint for Family Shed. We expect you to stick for the long term to help us expand across Ontario and eventually all of Canada. Your success correlates directly to building this into a paid position.
Commitment & What You’ll Gain with Family Shed
Time: The schedule is flexible but anchored to deadlines and goals. To be blunt, you are likely to put in a lot hours before funds are in place to pay you.
The Payoff: Make no mistake, you are volunteering, but this is a work environment. The explicit goal is for this position to build into a paid position. You need to prove your worth as a volunteer before being considered qualified to fill a position when funding becomes available. What will make that funding possible is your success as the Administrative Co-Founder in helping build an organised, successful organization.
Perks: Annual volunteer recognition, funds to cover transit, and meals at every live event. When unable to pay a volunteer, you should at least make sure they are fed.
Education: Family Shed has links to an array of learning opportunities. Many of them are free. Since we expect you to be better today than you were yesterday, it only makes sense that we give you opportunities to learn how to do that.
How to Apply to join Family Shed
We have no care or concern for your resume, and you can keep your cover letter. Family Shed is built on healthy relationships, personal responsibility, and community accountability. Think of this more like becoming a co-founder.
You are joining Family Shed because you like the idea of people feeling connected and being effective. You have a passion for helping people fulfill their need for Belonging and discovering their Purpose. Your task is to take the administrative workload off the founder and help Family Shed grow into a large surrogate family.
To apply, you must complete our interest form and then sit down for an honest, face-to-face conversation with Rev. Conrad Hall. Let’s see if we fit.
