The Art of Trusteeship: the Non-profit Board Member's Guide to Effective Governance

Citation

Crego, S. (2002), "The Art of Trusteeship: the Non-profit Board Member's Guide to Effective Governance", The Bottom Line, Vol. 15 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/bl.2002.17015bae.003

The Art of Trusteeship: the Non-profit Board Member's Guide to Effective Governance

Widmer, C. and Houchin, S.Jossey-BassSan Francisco, CA2000

Keywords: Directors, Management, Governance

The Art of Trusteeship: The Non-profit Board Member's Guide to Effective Governance should be required reading for anyone involved with a non-profit organization. Although the authors' stated purpose is to give non-profit board members a description of their roles and responsibilities and to help them appreciate the critical role they play within the organization, the authors act as teachers and counselors to anyone who has ever been involved in or has ever contributed to a non-profit organization. This short, well-written book includes tips, case examples, questions for assessing the effectiveness of a board, and an extensive bibliography, is one of the few to tackle all the issues facing non-profit organization board members and provides practical advice.

The authors, Candace Widmer and Susan Houchin, are experienced participants in the world of non-profit organizations. The depth of their experience is evident in their recommendation that the best approach to non-profit governance is a contingency approach. No one particular approach to governance can fit the innumerable types and sizes of non-profit organizations.

The contingency approach is applied throughout the book, but within a well-organized, three-part structure. Part one of the book consists of four chapters, delving into the board's responsibility for the mission of the organization. Part two analyzes the board's responsibility for money, and Part three looks at the board's responsibility for management. The key to the effectiveness of this book is its method of presenting each concept or each responsibility. When the authors recommend that a particular action be undertaken by the board, such as preparing a strategic plan, they begin by explaining why the organization should undertake the action, when to do it, how to do it, who should do it, and how the action should be implemented and evaluated. Too many books for non-profit board members and managers provide the details of, but not the reasons for, duties and responsibilities. By setting forth the reasons why certain acts should take place, such as the involvement of every board member in fund-raising, the authors provide justification for their advice. For those board members who may balk at following the advice, the authors offer alternatives. In the case of the responsibility for fund-raising, it is suggested that those who may not be comfortable with fund-raising can do their part by identifying potential donors or by thanking donors.

The longest chapter in the book, and perhaps the most important, is Chapter 8, "Selecting and supporting the CEO". Since the choice of CEO of the non-profit organization can be so time-consuming and frustrating, the authors provide specific information for a board faced with replacing a CEO. For example, they maintain that a committee of no less than three but no more than seven trustees is best for a search committee and that the board should consider including staff, clients and even the executive director of another agency as members of the search committee. The authors do not ignore the realities of a functioning non-profit organization. For example, in the chapter on selecting and supporting the CEO, they note that, while the outgoing CEO does not usually participate in the interviewing for a new CEO, most candidates will want to talk to the outgoing CEO. If this talk does take place, say the authors, the outgoing CEO can pass along impressions of the candidates, but no one connected to the search process should get the idea that they are picking their successor. In Chapter 5, "Overseeing the organization's finances," the authors warn that, because treasurers come and go, no treasurer should develop a unique system of record keeping and reporting. Those who will follow will need to know what has been done in the past. In Chapter 6, the authors suggest that board members should not perform the same function every year when fund-raising or they will become bored.

A few changes to the extensive list of resources and the index would make the book more useful. The long resource list should be grouped by subject, rather than by type of resource. The index could be improved, as it is sometimes overly specific (nine subentries for "Communication with the public", when all the discussion on the topic is located within one chapter on a few pages) and at other times too general (one entry for "Leadership positions", when all the positions on the board and most of the discussion in the book could be classified as information concerning leadership positions).

Every non-profit organization should have a copy of this book in their library. Every board member, manager, staff member and volunteer should read it. At less than 200 pages, it can be read easily in one sitting, yet its insightful suggestions and helpful assessment questions will be referred to frequently by those seeking to improve the effectiveness of a non-profit organization.

Susannah CregoLibrarian, Pullman and Comley, LCC, Bridgeport, CT and Newspaper Indexing Manager/Information Services Librarian, Norwalk Public Library, Norwalk, CT, USA