What’s so good about governance?
Unsurprisingly when I saw this post would go live on April 3rd – Good Friday I couldn’t resist using a title with Good in it.
However, also unsurprisingly I’ve written about both compliance and governance many times. Two years ago when we were doing a Trustees’ A-Z series the G post was also G is for Good Governance.
Governance is a tricky word I’ve decided.
I’ve found that people’s eyes glaze over when I use it as it boring business stuff. Or they presume I mean they have to be compliant with the law, or that xxx will be judging them and finding them wanting because they’ve not managed to achieve some standard or goals they feel they should.
Occasionally I find that people feel that whatever they are doing *is* good governance, because they’re doing it and think it is good.
Or they are overwhelmed after discovering a list of policies they don’t have, and sets of guidelines which are so far from the existing structures and procedures they see around them.
For some of us this does not seem sufficiently religious. I remember an outburst in Meeting for Sufferings, when Friends felt that Britain Yearly Meeting was becoming ‘just a well-run charity’. ‘I don’t want to be part of a well-run charity, I want to be part of a religious group, a church,’ said a weighty Friend. The point is that we need to be an ordinary well-run organisation, with good structures and sensible practices, which we then make extraordinary by transcending, not discarding them.
How to govern well
So, maybe you are wondering what good governance is for you and your organisation. Or you’ve found guidance you feel is sensible. The Charity Commission has advice for trustees – there is a governance framework, videos, checklists, a finance toolkit and more. Sign up for their blog posts too.
- What is your priority?
- Where should you start?
When MBS starts with a new client we always start with the finances – how is money being handled? Because that money is made up of donations and you need to be able to show you’ve done what the people giving that money expected.
Next we check up on people, are employees and employers set up as required by law?
Then we start questioning:
- What’s important and doable?
- What’s worrying trustees?
- Where are there complaints?
- Is anything about to collapse?
Write down your own answers to those questions. Search the blog for articles using a key word from each answer. Don’t feel you need to reinvent the wheel – ask for help and support. We have lots of signposts for both, and of course you can talk to us.
You should have a clear set of goals or statements laid out to measure against. For a charity that will be the charitable purpose, but may also include other corporate statements or documents such as a governing document, any Memorandum of Understandings or minutes which have been adopted as corporate guidance.
Wendrie Heywood
MBS Founder
The MBS blog has a decade’s worth of inspiration, advice and musings from our team.
Why not search through our categories and tags to see what we have to say on the topic you’ve chosen?
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