It’s easy to become caught up in the day-to-day or month-to-month management of a NFP yet in that case your board of management would be neglecting critical areas of duty.

Future focus:

The board of management is in place to drive the organisation towards its goal.  It is not there to manage or micro-manage the workings of the NFP.   If your board is not operating with a future focus there is very little likelihood that you will be effective in years to come and in fact, might even be out of business.  Your board of management must take the long term strategic view.

Decide on policy:

It is the job of the board to develop the high level policies for the organisation.  Your board must decide who does what and how they do it.  They need to allocate responsibilities and monitor processes to see that the policies are being followed.  Remember, the board has the future focus so it’s logical that they should be the ones to draw up policies to help your NFP get to the goal.

Manage the CEO:

While most CEO’s dislike the idea, the board is responsible for recruiting, hiring and managing the performance of the CEO.  They are responsible to providing performance feedback, negotiating skill and knowledge development and holding the CEO accountable for personal performance.

Manage themselves:

The board of management is a living entity.  It needs to be nurtured on an ongoing basis.  The board is responsible for managing its members, recruiting and training new members and holding each other accountable on their individual performances.  It must assess the performance of the individual members and for the board as a whole.

Has your board of management tackled these four critical areas?