Governing non profit organizations

1
Governing non profit organizations

• Board of governors and trustees of an
  organization are responsible for monitoring
  quality and to see as if the organization fulfils
  its mission?.

2
What if trustees start managing rather than to
govern?

• Can cause several types of damages to the
  organization.
• Loss of perspective
• Loss of talent.

3
Why do boards administer rather than govern?

• Special interests of trustees.
• Action oriented rather than to delegate
• Tendency to manage internal transition or crisis.
• External crisis.

4
Policy and its levels

• trustees can have very good reasons to be
  involved in policy matters. Since they can not
  and should not make all policy decisions.
• Boars should decide which level deserve what
  level of consideration.

5
Board policy level

• Board of trustees should concentrate its talent
  and energies on policy levels that have the most
  impact on the organizations future and let the
  rest of the issues go.
• Remember the board role is to govern and to keep
  the organization on straight course over the long
  term.

6
Administrative model of policy levels

• Major policies (values ,direction,principles)
• Secondary policies ( clientele, systems )
• Functional policies (planning ,finance etc)
• Minor policies (day to day practices)
• S.O.Ps (process, method)
• Rules (guide for daily conduct)
• 
  

7
Four development phases of a policy

• Define policy objectives.
• Formulate the policy statement
• Implement the policy.
• Evaluate the policy.

8
Scope of board

• Scope of board action is greatest when the
• knowledge is least complete and scope of board
• action is least when the knowledge is great.
  
• mostly managers provide managerial
  information's
• to the board and not governance information's
• causing board involvement in administrative
• matters.
• board must be elastic ,able to stretch and
  adapt as
• circumstances warrant.
• board and trustee who are alert to the general
  level
• of policy and its phase will be better able to
  determine whether, why and to what extent a
• particular matter merits their attention.

9
Easy way to get feed back

• Give some time to revive after each meeting.
• Arrange annual meeting or try to self evaluate
  trough un written un spoken rules of the game
• Seek comments from ceo or senior key internal and
  external constituencies.

10
How boards can develop its own systems of
measurement and control?

• Based on studies of hundreds of non profit
  organizations in 25 years just 4 questions can
  help in system development
• .
• Are the organization goals consistent with its
  financial resources?
• Is the organization practicing intergenerational
  equity?
• Are the sources and uses of funds appropriately
  matched?
• Is the organization sustainable?

11
How to address four questions?

• Board if itself address the 4 questions will
  be time consuming and not as easy .
• Subcommittees provide the best forum to
  address and to determined relevant measures
• .
• These committees
  may be
• Planning committee
• Compensation committee
• Auditing committee
• Regulatory committee
• all committees should be supported by
  appropriate staff people.
• All members of the committees can co
  ordinate to know about each others work but not
  overlapping to a greater extent.

12
Thanks

• PREPARED BY
• MANZOOR YOUSAF