Non for profit organization position titles

[Guest EMS President]

A local EMS squad we have been working on amending the previous ByLaws for more than a year. Created an EMS Branch - Line officers and Executive Branch - Administrative Officers. Line Officers are Captain, 1st Lieutenant and 2nd Lieutenant and handle EMS call stuff. Administrative Officers are President, VP, Secretary and Treasurer as well as Trustees. All of these positions are filled by a nominating committee and voted upon by the membership. 

We have other position that deal with public relations, education and infection control, length of service award data and accounting and a chaplain. All such positions are appointed by the President or Captain. 

We changed titles to "Coordinator" where appropriate vs. "Officer" by nature of the positions being appointed not voted upon after being nominated. The current members in the public relations and education positions have since come to argue the title of coordinator is a "demotion" 

Is there a standard for titling of positions in non-profit or any organizations for an elected vs appointed position?

THANK YOU 

[Josh Martin]

On 4/12/2024 at 5:12 PM, Guest EMS President said:

Is there a standard for titling of positions in non-profit or any organizations for an elected vs appointed position?

Not that I'm aware of. My experience is that there is a great deal of variation in this regard. Many organizations will refer to both appointed and elected positions as "officers." Other organizations will, as you suggest, attempt to distinguish between the appointed and elected positions in some manner. For what it is worth, RONR does discuss "appointed officers" in RONR (12th ed.) 47:43-56.

It may be that there is somewhat more standardization within EMS Squads specifically, as opposed to organizations more broadly, although I do not know enough about EMS Squads to know for certain. It may be beneficial to reach out to other EMS Squads and see how they handle these matters.

In any event, your organization is ultimately free to choose such titles as suits its needs.

Edited April 12, 2024 at 10:27 PM by Josh Martin

[Joshua Katz]

On 4/12/2024 at 3:12 PM, Guest EMS President said:

All of these positions are filled by a nominating committee and voted upon by the membership. 

I assume you mean nominated by the nominating committee?

On 4/12/2024 at 3:26 PM, Josh Martin said:

It may be that there is somewhat more standardization within EMS Squads specifically, as opposed to organizations more broadly, although I do not know enough about EMS Squads to know for certain. It may be beneficial to reach out to other EMS Squads and see how they handle these matters.

 

I don't know, I've been in EMS since I was 18 and I have no idea what the difference is between an education officer and an education coordinator.