# Concept IV: what is the Right of Participation, and who votes at the Conference?

**In short:**
- Concept IV says each kind of world servant should have a vote in proportion to its responsibility: "At all responsible levels, we ought to maintain a traditional ‘Right of Participation,’ allowing a voting representation in reasonable proportion to the responsibility that each must discharge" (p. 574).
- So the General Service Conference isn't only delegates. Under its Charter the trustees, the directors of the service corporations and their staff also vote; and the service corporations' boards include trustees, outside volunteer experts and paid staff, all voting.
- Bill W.'s reason, written in 1962, is hard experience: when the early trustees held all the authority and the office staff all the work, the result was "grievous trouble." His deeper reason is that there should be no "second-class" servants.
- There are limits: paid staff can't become trustees, and trustees and staff shouldn't vote on reports of their own past work.

## The earlier texts first (1946–47)

Long Form Eight (1946) already allowed A.A. to employ alcoholics for special services: "Such special services may be well recompensed" (p. 564). Bill's 1946 essay explains the principle: a secretary can run an office, an editor get out a paper, without professionalizing A.A.; "Clearly the principle seems to be that we may pay well for special services — but never for straight Twelfth Step work" (P-17, Money, 1946).

His 1947 essay names, among A.A.'s freedoms, "no one set in personal authority over anyone else" (P-17, Will A.A. Ever Have a Personal Government?, 1947).

Concept IV puts these together: paid workers are legitimate, and no class of servant should be set over another without a voice.

## What Bill's Concept IV essay says (1962)

**Where it's built in.** The Conference Charter makes the trustees, the directors of A.A. World Services and the Grapevine, and their executive staffs voting members of the Conference. The General Service Board could elect only trustees as directors of the service corporations, "But a powerful tradition has grown up to the effect that this never ought to be done" (Twelve Concepts for World Service, Concept IV). In 1962 A.A. World Services had seven directors, only two of them trustees; the rest were volunteer experts and the paid general manager and his assistant. (A footnote updates this: nine directors now, four of them trustees.)

**No superiors at the ballot.** On the board's committees too, trustees, outside experts and staff sit together and vote. "When the time comes to ballot, there are no ‘superiors,’ no ‘inferiors,’ and no ‘advisers’" (Twelve Concepts for World Service, Concept IV).

**The one exception.** "Members holding paid staff positions cannot become Trustees" (Twelve Concepts for World Service, Concept IV). It would interfere with the trustees' four-year rotation, and paid trustees could become a vested interest the Conference couldn't dislodge if the board ever had to be reorganized. Staff are still invited to the board's quarterly meetings, where they can speak but not vote.

**How it was learned.** In the early years the trustees held all the authority and the money, while Bill, his assistant and her staff did the work with "practically no authority." Two trustee committees issued orders, sometimes conflicting ones; Bill's assistant, who carried most of the office load, couldn't get into a trustees' meeting. Then the publishing company's treasurer, an old friend of Bill's, tore up the staff's paychecks because they'd been issued two days early so the office workers could buy Easter bonnets. "Right then and there we began to wonder how much absolute authority over money and people any one of us drunks could handle" (Twelve Concepts for World Service, Concept IV). Bill's conclusion is that no one objects to final authority as such: "We are only against its misapplication or misuse" (Twelve Concepts for World Service, Concept IV).

**Arguments he expected, and his answers.**
- *Delegates will try to take away the trustees' and staff's Conference vote.* Bill agrees they should refrain from voting on reports of their own past performance, but says most Conference business is about the future, and their knowledge is needed. A footnote adds that delegates meet only a few days a year and can't know every problem firsthand.
- *Trustees and staff might swing a close vote.* "But why not?" He notes they had never voted as a bloc.
- *Groups might send delegates irrevocably instructed.* Then the delegates "would feel like agents and order-takers" (Twelve Concepts for World Service, Concept IV), not participants.

**The spiritual reason.** "All of us deeply desire to belong" (Twelve Concepts for World Service, Concept IV). "Just as there are no second-class AA’s, neither should there be any second-class world service workers, either" (Twelve Concepts for World Service, Concept IV). Participation, Bill says, softens the harshness of ultimate authority and helps servants accept the discipline their jobs need.

## What later sources add (dated)

- The current Service Manual (2024–2026) lists about 135 voting Conference members: 93 area delegates, who "make up at least two-thirds of the Conference body" (The A.A. Service Manual, 2024–2026, Chapter 6), 21 or 22 trustees, 6 nontrustee directors and 15 staff, each with one vote.
- P-8 (© 2017) adds that the Right of Participation "reinforces Tradition Two, that no member is placed in ‘ultimate authority’ over another" (P-8). Tradition Two itself doesn't say that; the idea is closer to Bill's 1947 essay and to Concept XII's Third Warranty.

## Read it yourself
- Long Form Eight (Appendix I, pp. 564–565), free from A.A.: https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_appendicei.pdf
- Concept IV, short form (Appendix VII, p. 574): https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_appendicevii_.pdf
- P-17, with Bill's 1946 and 1947 essays: https://www.aa.org/aa-tradition-how-it-developed
- P-8, *The Twelve Concepts for World Service Illustrated*: https://www.aa.org/twelve-concepts-illustrated
- The full essay is in *The A.A. Service Manual combined with Twelve Concepts for World Service*: https://www.aa.org/aa-service-manual (sold at https://onlineliterature.aa.org)
- Related: *Concept III* · *Concept XI* · *Concept XII*

## Sources
| Source | Where | Written / first published |
|---|---|---|
| *Alcoholics Anonymous*, Appendix I, Long Form Eight | p. 564 | 1946 |
| P-17, Money; Will A.A. Ever Have a Personal Government? (Bill W.) | — | Grapevine, 1946 and 1947 |
| *Alcoholics Anonymous*, Appendix VII, Concept IV (short form) | p. 574 | Concepts 1962; short form 1971 |
| *Twelve Concepts for World Service* (Bill W.), Concept IV, with later footnotes | in *The A.A. Service Manual*, 2024–2026 edition | 1962; footnotes later |
| *The A.A. Service Manual*, Chapter 6 | — | 2024–2026 edition |
| P-8, *The Twelve Concepts for World Service Illustrated* | — | first printed 1986; © 2017 |

*Recovery Starts is independent and not affiliated with Alcoholics Anonymous. Quotations are brief and cited; the Big Book, the Service Manual and Twelve Concepts for World Service, and P-8 are © A.A. World Services, Inc.; the P-17 articles are © AA Grapevine, Inc.*