Board Self-Assessment – Alliance for Board Effectiveness Looking for a good instrument for assessing your board's effectiveness? Consider this board self-assessment tool developed by The Alliance for Board Effectiveness. This content is only available to site subscribers and ABHE Members, Affiliates & Associates. Please LOG IN or SUBSCRIBE.
Conflicts of Interest Policy Samples ECFA’s Standard 6 calls for members to avoid conflicts of interest. Conflicts can be avoided most easily when the organization has a stated conflict of interest policy and annually canvasses the Board of Directors and key administrative personnel to document potential conflicts. Attached are several sample copies of conflict of interest policies and questionnaires. ECFA does not endorse any particular document. We are providing these samples to help you develop the documents appropriate for your ministry. This content is only available to site subscribers and ABHE Members, Affiliates & Associates. Please LOG IN or SUBSCRIBE.
Developmental Leadership: Becoming the Person Everyone Wants to Work For Who was your best boss? What did she/he do that stands out? The kind of boss you are (or have) matters. A lot. This content is only available to site subscribers and ABHE Members, Affiliates & Associates. Please LOG IN or SUBSCRIBE.
Education that Transforms ABHE’s collective understanding regarding the essence of our educational approach has become crystallized in terms of the following four concepts: biblical, transformational, experiential, and missional. In my previous post, I asserted that when we describe education as biblical we mean that we engage intentionally and pervasively in education that involves extensive and serious study of the text of God’s eternal Word based on our conviction that the Bible is infallible, essential, authoritative, and understandable.
Effective Collaboration: A Key Factor in Economic Sustainability In Higher Education The Covid-19 pandemic has powerfully illustrated the extraordinary connectedness of the world in ways and at levels previously considered unimaginable. Notable elements powering this connectedness have been the emergence of the internet and the range of options afforded because of this remarkable, essentially free, global communications system. Beyond that, the drop in the comparative cost per mile of international travel has radically changed the dynamics of business, missions, and trade. To be able to use a credit card at an ATM to download local currency, whether it is Hong Kong or Cape Town, is a graphic example of both extraordinary technical, policy, and economic changes unthinkable even fifty years ago. Alongside these startling developments there has been the back side of innovation. On the dark side, security has taken on implications that call for completely new forms of diligence. And, with new opportunity, demands for collaboration have escalated. This content is only available to site subscribers and ABHE Members, Affiliates & Associates. Please LOG IN or SUBSCRIBE.
Ends: Where good governance begins Board ownership In this series on good governance, I have thus far stressed the critical role governance plays in the success or failure of any college and urged that boards get serious about assessing their effectiveness. Working from the assertion that good governance requires that the board itself must own the responsibility and make provision for high functioning, we examined the essential role of written policies addressing the board’s culture, conduct, and commitments; ways to optimize board composition and continuity; and the importance of a board committee empowered to assess and improve the board’s individual and collective performance. I say again, good governance begins with board ownership.
Executive Director Succession Policy Template A change in executive leadership is inevitable for all organizations. It is a time of both risk and opportunity. It is a period in an organization’s history when the Board President must increase his/her level of engagement. It is also a time when some may seek assurance of the organization’s viability and long-term sustainability. A succession policy for the Executive Director position is a routine risk management and sustainability planning tool. The Policy ensures organizational sustainability by providing a proactive, orderly plan for executive leadership transitions. This content is only available to site subscribers and ABHE Members, Affiliates & Associates. Please LOG IN or SUBSCRIBE.
Faith-Informed Perspectives for Effective Planning Faith-anchored and informed leaders usually sense that their roles are a divine calling requiring that they discover and implement a process of planning consistent with God’s will as revealed in scripture. The significance, then, of their roles requires a process that seeks a systematic, responsible, and thorough understanding of God’s mind and will for every aspect of their leadership calling. This content is only available to site subscribers and ABHE Members, Affiliates & Associates. Please LOG IN or SUBSCRIBE.
Filtering and framing your board’s approach As we continue this extended series on good governance, we have moved from considering the why and how of board ownership of its performance to considering the importance of the board’s focus on ends rather than means. In introducing this segment, I described effective board engagement with ends as follows: They screen their agendas, prioritize their engagement, allocate their time, frame their issues, craft their policies, and limit their solutions in terms of ends rather than means. What constitutes board business anyway? Not everything is board business. Not everything deserves a board’s time or can profit from its involvement. Not even everything that might appear on a board meeting agenda. True, not a few boards have a tendency to wander off the reservation and meddle. Boards need to be reigned in from time to time. A good board chair knows when and how to do that.
Five Questions Every Christian Non-Profit Board Must Answer Are you an ‘owner-board’ or a ‘steward-board’? A great deal of time and resources are being invested these days helping non-profit boards be more effective. There are a growing number of books, seminars, webinars, training programs, online resources and assessment tools available to boards seeking to better serve the organizations they hold in trust. I am part of a consortium of experienced consultants that focus specifically on board effectiveness, and our numbers are increasing. This content is only available to site subscribers and ABHE Members, Affiliates & Associates. Please LOG IN or SUBSCRIBE.