Conceptual Framework of the Elements of Board Effectiveness

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En provenance du cours de The State University of New York

Introduction to the Nonprofit Sector, Nonprofit Organizations, Nonprofit Leadership and Governance

94 notes

The State University of New York

Introduction to the Nonprofit Sector, Nonprofit Organizations, Nonprofit Leadership and Governance

94 notes

Cours 1 sur 4 dans Specialization Improving Leadership & Governance in Nonprofit Organizations

This course introduces you to the nonprofit sector, nonprofit organizations, and the concepts of leadership and governance. While this course has been developed with North American culture in mind, we do appreciate that in other parts of the world the nature of the nonprofit sector, nonprofit organizations, nonprofit leadership and governance may not be the same. Nevertheless, it is our hope that much of the course content will still be of value to those in other parts of the world. To learn more about this course, please watch the overview video by copying and pasting the following link into your web browser: https://goo.gl/YMg1Qd. Keywords: Nonprofit; Nonprofit Sector; Voluntary Sector; Nonprofit Organizations, Non-Governmental Organizations, Volunteer Organizations, Leadership, Management, Governance, Board, Board of Directors, Performance, Effectiveness Course 1 Overview: Week 1: Some of the questions you will explore this week are: What is the nonprofit sector and why does it exist? What are the unique characteristics of nonprofit organizations? What are the trends and emerging issues facing organizations in the nonprofit sector? Week 2: Questions to be explored this week are: What is leadership at the governance level and how is it different from management? What is good governance and why does it matter? What is a board of directors? Week 3: This week's questions: What roles do board members play in nonprofit organizations? Broadly speaking, what are boards responsible for and how do they go about their work? What are some of the issues that challenge the board's ability to go its work? Week 4: At this stage, you are asked to review the course content, submit a written assignment (known lightheartedly as a BEAR (Board Effectiveness Readiness Assessment), and take two multiple choice Readiness Assurance Tests (known similarly as RATs). One RAT will assess knowledge and reading comprehension and the other will test application of knowledge within a practical case. Week 5: We will encourage you to discuss the RATs in the discussion forums and take them again should you wish to change any of your answers based on the information exchanged.

À partir de la leçon

The Board's Role and Responsibilities

Hello and welcome to Week 3! The goal of this week is to address a number of important questions related to how boards operate: What roles do board members play in nonprofit organizations, what are boards responsible for, What is the role and responsibilities of boards of directors and What are the elements of board behavior that shape how effective a board will be. These elements form the basis of the content of the second and third courses in this series on Developing Leadership and Improving Governance in Nonprofit Organizations. They also underline the structure of our course text, Improving the Effectiveness of Boards of Directors AND the tool used to facilitate assessments of board performance in the Course 2 project. Two videos relating to these topics can be found on the week 3 course page.

Week 3 Overview17:55

Interview with Putnam Barber on Charitable Solicitations in the United States9:46

Conceptual Framework of the Elements of Board Effectiveness7:28

Professor Vic Murray summarizes the design of the board assessment1:55

Rencontrer les enseignants

Prof. Yvonne D. Harrison, PhD
Associate Professor and Director
Voluntary Sector Studies Network (VSSN)
Prof. Vic Murray, PhD
Adjunct Professor
School of Public Administration, University of Victoria

I am Yvonne Harrison here from

the Department of Public Administration and Policy at the University at Albany.

In this video, I interviewed Professor Vic Murray, a co-instructor,

in this course about the elements of board effectiveness that underlie the course,

our guidebook, and the tool that you'll be

using to assess the performance of boards through the semester project.

So let's start over here on the far right hand side,

the right hand side box,

which attempts to list all the different ways that boards can have

an impact on the effectiveness of the organization.

So they include things like this: The board's work can have

an impact on the achievement of the organization's mission,

they can certainly have an impact on the financial condition of the board,

the efficiency of the organization,

the ability of the organization to learn and innovate,

that's a very important requirement for organizations these days,

the morale and motivation of staff and

volunteers in the organization, and very importantly,

the satisfaction of external stakeholders,

and the reputation of the organization in the community.

So those are the ways that organizations

may have an impact on the success of the organization.

Now how does it do that?

We group the answer to that question under

two headings: The basic board responsibilities in the governance process,

in the middle box here,

and factors that influence that governance process,

on the far left hand box.

Let's go to the middle box.

Here, we're talking about issues that relate to,

for example, the overall clarity of the board's responsibilities.

One of the biggest problems is

boards that aren't clear about what they're supposed to do or have

a different view of that from managers and external stakeholders.

A very crucial responsibility for boards is planning

and setting very broad general policies to guide the organization,

planning for its future.

Third crucial area of board responsibility

has to do with meeting its due diligence requirements,

ensuring those for whom they are trustees that the organization is being run in

a fiscal and legally responsible manner and not

engaging in risks that are a detriment to its future.

Finally, there is the board area of responsibility dealing with its role in fund raising.

Always a very difficult and controversial sort of area.

So those are the things the board mostly has to focus on being responsible for it.

The next question is well,

in what ways does their ability to carry out

these responsibilities and what ways are they affected by the way they operate?

Factors that influence the governance process.

Here, we see issues grouped into five categories, five groups.

The first has to do with the overall formal structure

of the board and its formal operating procedures.

So all the nonprofits,

at least those that are formally organized and recognized by

states or provinces or countries that they must have certain by-laws,

they must have certain positions such as President,

Chairman of Committees, treasurers, etc.

And they usually, although not all,

have committees, and it's a question as to how well those committees work?

Are they the right ones? Are they performing well?

The next group of factors that influence performance

has to do with a very important matter of the board meetings.

Sometimes it seems as though board meetings are the only thing that boards do.

In fact they do a lot of other things that are not in meetings,

but having effective meetings is certainly very important.

Then there is the question of having the right mix of people on the board,

the composition of the board and how well the board

learns engages in training and development of itself.

Let's talk about, in the literature and less aware in the minds of many people,

is the fact that boards do develop informally their own culture,

that is to say,

taken for granted, attitudes, perceptions,

views of the world that color the way they talk and think and make decisions,

very important to be aware of that.

And when we look at what influences culture,

two of the most important aspects are

the leadership provided to the board by two crucial roles,

the CEO and so far as there is

a paid professional manager or if not one it's a small organization,

a volunteer to place that role and the chair of the board.

These are two of the most important leadership factors.

So to just review,

boards are trying to have an impact on the organization.

They have to do this by engaging a certain number of responsibilities,

certain kinds of responsibilities,

and if they don't do certain aspects of the process well,

then the whole thing could come apart.

Finally, not that we're going to be able to go into great length on this in the course,

but one must be aware that there are influences on all three of these boxes,

we call them contingency factors.

So the fact that a given organization is made

up of a certain set of individuals who are of a certain age,

certain gender, a certain experience,

certain racial or ethnic background,

having varying amounts of time,

different kinds of personalities can have quite an effect on all these issues.

There are also certain characteristics

that the organization of which the board is a part,

its size, it's age,

it's particular mission, its financial situation, its history.

All of those can also have an impact.

And finally, there are very important characteristics of

the organization's external environment.

These are allies, potential allies or regulators,

clients, the public in general.

All of whom can have certain characteristics at a given point

in time and can also have a big impact on

how these three boxes connect and come to a final impact on the organization.

We won't be able to go into all of those.

We're going to focus on the things that can be done by

boards by themselves to improve their own performance.

But our research, which you'll be hearing about,

does try to trace the way

these contingency factors influence these other aspects of board functioning.

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