February 2007 E-bulletin

FEATURE ARTICLE
Community Driven Board Governance
RELATED RESOURCES
Resources to improve the effectiveness of your Board
TIPS & TOOLS
How can Boards Act Accountably?
SPECIAL EVENTS
Volunteer Awards Dinner
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Comprehensive Changes to Employment Standards Code
The Insurance Toolkit for the Voluntar sector
New organizations added to CONTACT Community guide

FEATURE ARTICLE

Community Driven Board Governance
Excerpts from Governing for What Matters: A Model for Community-Driven Governance, by Hildy Gottlieb

Board Development Training available this February and March - call Volunteer Manitoba today, 477-5180, or visit our website: www.volunteermanitoba.ca

When boards have a better understanding of what the board is and why it exists, it is far easier to understand what the board should be doing.

Accountability for the End Results
The board is accountable for ensuring the organization is providing as much benefit as possible to the community, improving the quality of life for those who will be affected by your mission. This is at the core of why your organization exists, and at the core of the pact you have with the community that receives the benefit of your work.

Is your community receiving the very most benefit your organization could be providing? Is the community receiving not just short term benefit, but long term impact? If not, the board is accountable.

Accountability for the Means
The board cannot be accountable for ensuring the community receives benefit and impact if the board is not also accountable for ensuring the organization has the means to provide those results. The board's accountability for providing those means can be summed up in 3 major categories:

1) Values:
The board is accountable for ensuring the organization is doing its work within a clearly articulated core of shared values and philosophies - the talk you are going to walk. It is the board's job to ensure that everyone within the organization - from the board to the staff to the volunteers - understands the core values and philosophies that guide the organization's decisions and behaviors, and that they further understand the parameters of what is acceptable vs. unacceptable behaviors within those values.

Does your organization operate from a consistent code of values that guides every decision made? Are those values commonly defined and commonly understood? Does everyone within the organization know what talk they are supposed to walk? If not, the board is accountable.

2) Community Engagement:
The board is accountable for ensuring the organization is integrated into the community to whom it is accountable, and for ensuring the community is integrated into the organization. This means more than seeking a broad net of cash donors. And it means more than just touching base with "stakeholders" (a.k.a. "preaching to the choir"). Engagement means expanding that choir to build an army of friends for your mission work. The more you engage the community, the more impact you will be able to provide.

Does your organization have mechanisms in place to engage with the community to whom you are accountable? Is that engagement ongoing, connecting with the community whether or not you currently need something? Does it focus on expanding "the choir," to bring new people into your mission's fold? If not, the board is accountable.

3) Capacity
The board is accountable for ensuring the organization has the ongoing capacity to provide the benefit it is accountable for providing. This is not just financial capacity, but adequate personnel, adequate facilities, adequate outreach and administration and governance and all the other functional necessities for getting the job done. In addition, it includes ensuring risk and liability are minimized, to safeguard that capacity.

Does your organization have adequate capacity to provide the mission, in all functional areas? Does your organization do everything it can to limit liability and risk that can eat away at that capacity? If not, the board is accountable.

To learn more about improving the effectiveness and accountability of your board, visit our website to view our board development workshops.

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RELATED RESOURCES

Resources from Volunteer Manitoba's Resource Library:

Building on Strength: Improving Governance and Accountability in Canada's Voluntary Sector - A presentation of recommendations to Canada's voluntary sector, governments, corporations and citizens to improve accountability and governance.

The High Performance Board: Principles of Non-Profit Organiztions Governance - a concise, quick read for board members and executives consisting of practical principles and recommendations to achieve great governance.

The Strategic Board: The Step-By-Step Guide to High-Impact Governance - Presents a Strategic Board model of governance - a practical, easy-to-implement solution to help every board create stability and sustainability.

Non-Profit Boards That Work: The End of One-Size-Fits-All Governance - Addresses issues of role definition, key resposibilities, working culture, structure, and leadership that boards must tackle if they are to play a meaningful part in helping a non-profit achieve success.

To borrow any of these resources: 477-5180, 888-922-4545, or vmresource@mts.net

Websites:

www.boardsource.org - Resource for non-profit boards.
www.charityvillage.com - Information supersite for non-profits.
Board Cafe newsletter - Electronic newsletter for non-profit board members.
www.leadershipthatworks.com - Coaching services, leadership & board assessment tools, articles on leadership topics.

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TIPS & TOOLS

How Can Boards Act Accountably?
A section from the article: Governing for What Matters: A Model for Community-Driven Governance
http://www.help4nonprofits.com/NP_Bd_WhyBoardsExist_Art.htm

The easiest way for boards to act accountably is to create proactive plans and policies, and to monitor that those plans are being acted upon, and those policies being adhered to.

Accountability for Community Benefit:
Boards act with accountability when they make plans that answer the question “What do we want our community to be like because our organization exists?” The board then monitors to ensure that Community Impact Plan is being implemented.

Accountability for Guiding Values:
Boards act with accountability when they discuss and delve into the guiding principles by which their goals for the community should be achieved, and monitor to ensure those values are being adhered to.

Accountability to the Community:
Boards act with accountability when they create proactive plans and policies to ensure the organization is actively engaged with the community to whom it is accountable. The board then monitors to ensure those plans are being implemented and adhered to.

Accountability for Ongoing Capacity:
Boards act with accountability when they make proactive plans and policies to ensure there is capacity to provide the mission, and further, that risk and liability won’t eat away at that capacity. The board then monitors to ensure that Capacity Plan is being implemented and adhered to.

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SPECIAL EVENTS

Volunteer Manitoba's 24th Annual Volunteer Awards Dinner

Volunteer Manitoba will host the 24th Annual Volunteer Awards Dinner on Wednesday, April, April 18, 2007 during Volunteer Week from April 15 - 21, 2007 at the Convention Centre in Winnipeg.

Reception to begin at 5:30pm with a dinner and awards presentation to follow at 6:00pm. Tickets are only $40.00 per person.

For information about Volunteer Week, Dinner Ticket Order Forms, or Volunteer Award Nomination Forms, visit our website: www.volunteermanitoba.ca/awards
or contact Coralee Dolyniuk at (204) 975-8203, email: volunteer@strauss.ca.

Order your tickets today in order to attend this celebratory event.

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