John Brian McCarthy – Candidate for Board of Directors 2024

Note: This is a candidate page for a Judge Foundry Election. Information on this page is provided by the candidate, and does not represent the opinions or positions of the Elections Committee or of Judge Foundry. For more information about this election, see the schedule and index for the 2024 Regional Advocate Election.

Nomination Statement

I’m running for re-election as a director because Judge Foundry needs leaders who understand non-profits, and the critical work that needs to be done to keep the organization functioning.

We have myriad excellent candidates who are great judges with good ideas, but none who match my experience with the practical parts of running a non-profit. My role as the director keeping things moving behind the scenes isn’t the most exciting, but I wouldn’t be running if I didn’t believe that the skills I bring are essential to helping Judge Foundry grow in its sophomore year.

In short, you should vote for me because I get things done.

I’ve been a judge for more than a decade. My experience as a judge has taken me around the world, introduced me to life-long friends, and made me a better person. Co-founding Judge Foundry is my way of ensuring that other judges get to experience the same bounty that I did and to give back to the community that has given me so much.

In my professional life, I’ve spent the last two decades providing strategy and marketing to non-profits. In that time, I’ve worked with dozens of membership organizations, from major international brands that are household names to labor unions representing hundreds of thousands of workers to tiny associations just getting started. In building Judge Foundry, I brought that experience to bear, getting the legal, technical and communications infrastructure in place in just a few weeks.

As a director, I hold a wide portfolio of responsibilities, including:

• I understand non-profit organizations. Judge Foundry isn’t just a judge program, it’s a legal entity, with all the obligations that come with it. I handle interactions between Judge Foundry and the IRS, including writing our application and ensuring compliance with laws governing non-profits. I worked with our parliamentarian to craft bylaws and articles of incorporation that protect our organization and ensure that we can focus on our mission, not on legal jeopardy.
• I manage Judge Foundry’s budget. This includes projecting revenue and expenses, allocating project funds, determining appropriate overhead costs, calculating merch profitability, reconciling bank and credit card records, and figuring out contingencies. Put another way, I ensure that your dues are spent carefully, transparently, and legally.
• I designed and maintain Judge Foundry’s website. I developed the merch store, wrote most of the content pages, maintain our WordPress instance, and provide most of the photos. 
• I communicate for Judge Foundry. I write many of Judge Foundry’s articles articulating our philosophy. I also compile, edit, and send our newsletter, Judge Call, which provides members and other stakeholders with a monthly update on our activities. In many ways, I’ve been the voice of Judge Foundry.
• I execute on ideas. I have a strong track record of bringing ideas to fruition. When judges want to do something, I push the board forward. My ability to follow through on ideas is evident in the work you’ve seen from Judge Foundry in our first year – I’ve had a hand in almost every successful effort, and was often the one leading the charge.

So that’s what I’ve done so far as a director. Why should you elect me for a second year?

First, because I’ll keep doing the work. The organization needs a director who can manage the boring work so we have space to fulfill other directors’ ideas. From managing our money to wrangling volunteers to ensuring legal compliance, my experience with non-profits in general and Judge Foundry in specific provide essential skills that no one else running this year brings.

And second, because I care deeply for the judge community, and I’ll do what it takes to ensure this experiment in self-governance keeps going, as effectively as I can, for as long as I’m needed.

I hope you’ll vote for the candidates whose ideas most excite you. But I urge you to put my name first on your ballot to ensure we get those ideas implemented.

Q1: Specializations / Focus Areas

Question: Board Members work on a wide variety of tasks and projects. What would your “specialty” or main focus area be as a Board Member?

My specialty is bringing ideas into reality.

As I discussed in my earlier statement, my portfolio of responsibilities is pretty broad. But it all ultimately comes down to executing on the group’s plans. While I have plenty of ideas of my own (and you’ve seen many already over the past year, with even more that are just getting started), my role on the board is to bring my expertise with non-profits, finance, marketing, and strategy to bear to accomplish our collective goals.

I manage exams for Judge Foundry. Our team has already created almost 400 unique questions, and tested hundreds of judges. But there’s still so much more we need to do, including adding more questions to the pool, broadening our accessibility options, and creating exams for scorekeepers and other operations roles.

I also concepted, negotiated and implemented the Canadian RCQ promotion. While getting flyers, postcards, window clings, and more to every store in Canada hosting a F2F RCQ wasn’t easy, I’m thrilled that we were able to find a way to put our Canadian members first with an effort to get more TOs to hire judges and to recruit more new judges in Canada. Now, I want to expand on that and figure out how to do something similar for the United States and what we can include in Canada’s kits next season.

The next board is going to be full of new directors with new ideas. And in addition to bringing my own ideas to the table, I’m going to specialize in making theirs a reality. 

Q2: Certifications

Question: Many questions related to the value of Judge Foundry membership. First, regarding certifications: How would you ensure that Judge Foundry Certifications have value in the eyes of TOs and other stakeholders?

Judge Foundry’s first quality is Quality – we stand for promoting outstanding judges as our members. That’s the key to providing value in our certifications to TOs, publishers, and players: making sure they know that a Judge Foundry Judge is someone who not only knows the rules and policy, but is someone who will create an excellent player experience for everyone at an event. And that’s true at every level, from an LGS owner trusting a new judge to run FNM to a PTO considering a newly-minted L5 to run a 20k.

We knew going in that this task wouldn’t be accomplished immediately, and that it would take time to build stakeholders’ trust, and we’ve been doing that, little by little, every month. The first maintenance deadline in March is part of our commitment to quality: for the first time in years, we’ll be able to say that every member has been continuing to stay sharp on their skills and is still performing at their designated level.

The other part of earning the trust of our partners is consistency. When we first announced Judge Foundry, people were skeptical that we’d make it through the winter, and were reluctant to sign on. People speculated about competitors, or that we’d be wiped out by publisher fiat. But almost a year later, we’re still standing, stronger than ever. By demonstrating to our partners that we’re in it for the long haul, we’re showing that there’s value in working with us to train judges in the skills TOs, publishers, and players are looking for in a judge.

Q3: Member Benefits

Question: Second, outside of certifications, how do you think Judge Foundry should best use its limited resources to benefit the members?

As Judge Foundry’s treasurer, I know better than anyone how precious our members’ dues are, and I’m a careful steward of our organization’s resources. You can watch the recording from our May board meeting where I walk through our 2024 budget to get an idea of how we allocate our members’ dues and other revenue to keep the organization functioning and to fulfill our mission.

Going into next year, we’ve got a number of education and training initiatives already teed up that just need to be launched. The conferences team is staffed up and already evaluating applications, which includes our ability to provide support in ways previous programs haven’t considered. The Community Project Grants program we approved in May will open applications soon, for members who have ideas and just need funding. And with the success of our pilot RCQ Promotion program in Canada, I’d like to reprise and expand it so we can improve judge hiring and recruitment everywhere.

At the same time, I keep a close eye on expenses and speak out against spending beyond our means, especially on things that don’t help us accomplish our core mission. By keeping us from overspending, I’m ensuring that we won’t have to increase dues or cut valuable programs.

If I’m reelected, I’ll ensure that we’re paying our bills and meeting our obligations as an organization first, and then spending on programs that can provide education and service to our members, however and wherever we can.

Q4: Legal Commitments

Question: Judge Foundry as an organization and Member Directors individually are bound by several Non-Disclosure Agreements, prohibiting disclosure of information gained as part of their duties as a Member Director, including in some cases disclosure of the existence of an NDA with a particular organization. Violating these agreements may have consequences for the individual and for the organization. As a Director, will you abide by any agreements that Judge Foundry has signed, and will you personally sign NDAs with other organizations as needed in order to pursue and maintain partnerships with other organizations?

As I have for the last year and do every day in my work with non-profits, I’ll continue to abide by my commitments to NDAs and to maintaining trust with our partners, so I can deliver for Judge Foundry’s members.

Q5: RCQ Judge Demand

Question: In the post Covid era of Magic, the amount of qualified L2 judges seems to have declined, but demand for judges at competitive REL events has grown with the advent of RCQs. Is there a solution you would pursue to prepare enough judges for Comp REL demand?

We need to do more to help Level One Judges who want to advance to Level Two do so. As project lead for Exams, I’m regularly reviewing how the L2 exams are performing – L2 Rules is about where it should be, L2 Policy pass rate is a little low. Is that a function of the exam being too hard or of needing more policy education? I think it’s both, which is why I’ve been working with Tobias Vyseri, the Exam Manager for that test, to revise some overtuned questions, and why I’ve been working to get more policy education projects rolling.

The key is that, as this question identified, we want qualified L2s. Just lowering the bar and making it easier to become an L2 doesn’t suddenly bestow the knowledge needed to run an RCQ well, and it cheapens the certification for everyone else who holds it. Instead, we need to be giving people who are motivated to move up the tools they need to do so.

It’s my hope that, now that we have Regional Advisors in place, we’ll see more L1s who want to become L2 get connected with mentors who can help them develop. We spent a lot of time over the Spring promoting people to L3 so they could mentor and certify L2s – let’s give them the chance to do that.

Q6: Judge Work Opportunities

Question: What efforts, if any, would you support in order to increase work opportunities for judges?

2025 looks to be the best year for judges since 2019. The F2F Tour will be bigger than ever, StarCityGames has doubled the number of Regional Championships and their RCQs are so popular that their kits are selling out, the Spotlight Series will bring five more major tournaments to the United States, and TOs are supporting more games at their large events, giving judges a chance to develop new skills that will also make them better Magic Judges.

With more judges opportunities next year, that means Judge Foundry needs to keep pitching TOs on the value of hiring Judge Foundry members. Good news here: TOs already are. At SCGCon DC next month, 91% of the American and Canadian judges working Magic are Judge Foundry members. Every HJ and AJ of a F2F Regional Championship since Judge Foundry was founded, has been a Judge Foundry member. NRG events provide a really neat certificate to Judge Foundry members, showing they fulfilled requirements.

We don’t have as much data for in-store events, but that’s a growth area where I want to do more. We started in Canada, with the RCQ promotion, which included a sticker TOs could post advertising that their RCQs were judged by Judge Foundry Members, instilling confidence in their customers. Now that we have RAs and ACs in place, let’s get to a place where players recognize Judge Foundry membership as a mark of quality, so they’re demanding LGSs staff our members so their RCQs are fair and their Prereleases are fun.

Q7: Judge Foundry Areas for Improvement

Question: Pick one area you strongly feel Judge Foundry needs to improve and tell us your idea for doing so. Is it feasible? Is it achievable? How will you make it happen?

I’ve talked a lot in here about improving conditions for judges who focus on the store level, because it’s been a big focus for me in the latter half of this year, but also a tough problem to solve. It’s easy for the Board of Directors to meet with the major PTOs who hire for hundreds or thousands of judge-shifts a year, but much harder to connect with thousands of LGS owners.

But just because it’s harder to interact with store-focused judges and TOs doesn’t make it less critical. Nearly every judge gets a start in the LGS, and that’s where they develop the crucial skills that they can’t study for, like calming down an upset player, running a draft by hand because the computer crashed, investigating a life total dispute, or helping a store create an inclusive environment.

I’m working on this on a number of fronts – through the RAs, through advocating for better feedback and mentoring training, through an upcoming survey to RCQ judges on compensation, through Community Project Grants and more. I don’t think this is something that can ever be truly finished, because it’s a continuous process, and one at which we always have to strive to do better. But I’m still trying to make store-focused judges a priority for Judge Foundry because they’re the heart of our membership and improving the judge experience for them is as critical as it is for judges at the Pro Tour.

Closing Statement

It’s hard to write a campaign platform encouraging people to vote for me because of my past work, without sounding self-aggrandizing. Everything Judge Foundry has done has been a team effort – from our Board of Directors to our volunteers to our members, to our partners and friends, everything Judge Foundry has achieved, it has achieved because we worked together.

I particularly want to thank and acknowledge all the work that our two board members who chose not to run for re-election have done. Without Paul and Amanda’s dedication, insight, and hard work, Judge Foundry could not have been founded.

But I also feel an obligation to our members to talk about my own accomplishments, because my work has been a vital part of keeping Judge Foundry running, and I want them to have a board of directors who can carry that on next year. I wouldn’t be running if I didn’t think that, by doing so, I can help Judge Foundry to thrive and to have an even better year ahead than the one behind us. I love judging, and I love Judge Foundry, and that’s why I want to keep serving this organization and community for another year.

Judge Foundry is something new that has never been tried before: a volunteer-based non-profit association of judges. The Judge Program that existed before Judge Academy was great in many ways, but it was more of an idea than a legal entity. With Judge Foundry, we have a non-profit organization, recognized by the government, that no one can take away from the judge community.

But with that comes the obligation to maintain that organization, and to ensure we have leaders who can do the behind-the-scenes work. There will come a time when we don’t need to recruit directors for their competence and experience with the mechanics of running a non-profit – once we can hire an executive director, things like arranging insurance, vetting accountants, and keeping the website up to date can be handled by staff instead of being a task that requires direct supervision by the board.

But we’re not there yet, and so I ask that you put my name first on your ballot, to ensure that no matter who else is elected, Judge Foundry can enact what our members envision. Vote for me so we can get things done, together.