Book X · Fall 2026
The paperwork, printed in full.
Not a template pack. The real paperwork of three organizations, reproduced whole and annotated in the margin, so the first bylaws you write are not the first bylaws you have ever read.
Why print them at all
A template tells you the shape. It does not tell you why.
A bylaws template takes nine seconds to download. What you cannot download is why clause four is worded that way, which line matters in year three, and what the thing looks like after a real board has been through it.
So each one is printed complete, then explained line by line. What the line does. What it costs you when it is missing. Which volume picks up the argument.
Three of them carry the book. A mission statement in three drafts, which makes its point in ninety seconds. A year-one budget you are told to check with a calculator, because most sample budgets in print do not reconcile and quietly teach founders that budgets are decorative. And one board meeting minuted twice, across facing pages.
The founding documents take an afternoon and govern for a decade. Nothing else you write will have that ratio. Book X · What It Actually Looks Like
Not in it
Any government form, and any figure that moves. Each document tells you which parts to check against your own state before you use it, so none of it quietly goes stale on you.
The contents
Every document, by name.
Grouped by chapter, with the organization each belongs to. The same three run through all ten volumes, so by the time you reach a document you know the story behind every number in it.
Chapter 1
The Documents That Make It Exist
Four documents, two of which you will file once and never read again, and one that governs more of your life than any statute.
- Articles of IncorporationSecond Chapter Reading
- Bylaws, AnnotatedSecond Chapter Reading
- Minutes of the Organizational MeetingSecond Chapter Reading
- A Mission Statement, in Three DraftsSecond Chapter Reading
Chapter 2
The Documents That Describe the Work
Five documents, and the reason to write them is not the funder. It is that you cannot hand over a programme that exists only in your judgement.
- Theory of Change, on One PageSecond Chapter Reading
- Programme MapSecond Chapter Reading
- Intake FormSecond Chapter Reading
- Outcome Measurement PlanSecond Chapter Reading
- Photograph and Story ConsentSecond Chapter Reading
Chapter 3
The Documents That Ask
Five documents, one of which is a legal requirement most small organizations satisfy badly and do not know it.
- Case for SupportNorth County Diaper Bank
- The Letter That Precedes the AskSecond Chapter Reading
- Gift AcknowledgementNorth County Diaper Bank
- Grant Proposal SkeletonSecond Chapter Reading
- Donor Privacy StatementNorth County Diaper Bank
Chapter 4
The Documents That Account
Five documents, and the second one is the only budget in this library that you can check with a calculator.
- Chart of AccountsSecond Chapter Reading
- Year One Budget, ActualSecond Chapter Reading
- Board Financial DashboardNorth County Diaper Bank
- Internal Controls, for an Organization With Five PeopleSouthside Community Kitchen
- Reserve PolicySecond Chapter Reading
Chapter 5
The Documents That Employ
Eight documents, and the shortest one in the chapter is the set of policies that replaced a fifty-one page handbook.
- Job DescriptionSecond Chapter Reading
- The PostingSecond Chapter Reading
- Interview ScorecardSecond Chapter Reading
- Offer LetterSecond Chapter Reading
- Contractor AgreementSouthside Community Kitchen
- The Nine PoliciesSouthside Community Kitchen
- Performance Conversation RecordSouthside Community Kitchen
- Volunteer Role DescriptionNorth County Diaper Bank
Chapter 6
The Documents That Govern
Seven documents, and one of them is the same meeting written down twice.
- Board Member Role DescriptionNorth County Diaper Bank
- Letter of AppointmentNorth County Diaper Bank
- Annual Board CalendarSecond Chapter Reading
- An Agenda With a Real Decision On ItSecond Chapter Reading
- The Same Meeting, Minuted Twice
- Executive Director EvaluationSecond Chapter Reading
- Emergency Succession PlanSouthside Community Kitchen
Chapter 7
The Documents That Keep You Out of Trouble
Six documents. None is interesting. One of them is a single page that would have prevented more of the failures in this library than anything else in it.
- Compliance CalendarNorth County Diaper Bank
- Document Retention ScheduleSecond Chapter Reading
- Whistleblower PolicySecond Chapter Reading
- Data InventorySecond Chapter Reading
- Intellectual Property AssignmentSouthside Community Kitchen
- The Folder
The three organizations
You will know them by the time you get here.
Second Chapter Reading
A literacy nonprofit in a small valley town, formed for about the price of a decent pair of boots. It runs through Books One, Three, Four, Five and Six, which is why its year-one budget reconciles against a story you have already read.
North County Diaper Bank
Founded by a labour and delivery nurse of eleven years, on one owned fact: federal food assistance does not cover diapers. It carries Book Two and the first half of Book Six, and most of the documents about asking.
Southside Community Kitchen
Seven years old, five paid staff, about 450 meals a week. It is the one that got things wrong first — a badly handled firing, a fifty-one page handbook nobody applied, two people misclassified — and it supplies the documents written after the fact.
Fall 2026
The paperwork.
Printed whole.
Annotated.
Book X is the appendix to the whole Library, and the volume most people open first. It publishes with the other nine.
