Good Governance is Leadership Excellence

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Governance Matters

In a workshop at the Southern California Center for Nonprofit Management on June 12, 2008, 1:30 we will discuss the unique value that a board brings to an organization that no other group of volunteers can produce. Ideally, the executive director and the board chairperson will experience this workshop together to determine if adopting a comprehensive set of governance principles will help the board do its work.

In an environment where community organizations struggle to find the resources to do their work and larger national nonprofits have been in the news with misused resources there is much talk about what governance really is. The board of any organization is to add value with job outputs that are specific to the role of the board and for which the board holds itself accountable.

• Clearly articulating what the organization is to accomplish for its membership or other moral-ownership—more than what is keeping the organization busy but what will make a difference in the world because the organization does what it says it should.
• Develop accountability as an organizational characteristic initiated at the board level. Further, the board is to provide assurance that the expected results were produced and unacceptable situations and circumstances were avoided, and the cost was worth the result.
• As the board understands its trustee function, it develops a strategy of linkage to and understanding of the ownership or membership to act on its behalf.

These job outputs are the unique contribution of a board of directors that no other person or group can accomplish. It is further the board’s responsibility, once these job outputs are understood, to hold itself accountable for their work. It is through this that the board can accomplish its duty of care, duty of loyalty and duty of obedience.

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