What Role Does Corporate Governance Play in the Operation of a Successful Nonprofit?

Video Transcript

Governance is an interesting word that lawyers use to describe what are the rules that organizations have to follow to make decisions and just do their business day to day. And so, when you’re in the non-profit arena or the social enterprise arena, those decision-making requirements are a little heightened. They have a different set of rules than in the for-profit arena. And so, I work with a lot of boards of directors or startups or managers of businesses, both non-profits, and social enterprises, on how they navigate that decision making, in order to comply with those governance rules that are required of them. It’s just the natural way that businesses run. If you’re on a board of directors or you’re an executive director or a CEO, you’ve got to go to some other people, either your shareholders or your members or someone else to get decisions made.

And that’s what governance is about, is about how the decision-making happens in organizations. And it’s everything from a mom and pop small business, all the way up to the largest corporations that we have. They’re always going to have this, how do decisions get made, and who’s responsible. And that’s what I spend a lot of time with, helping boards and everyone figures out, “How do we make decisions, and how do we do this?” Everything from hiring a new executive director, to firing somebody, to financing, to bond transactions, all across the board. All of those have decision-making components to it, governance components, that I help clients with.