Board Responsibilities
The Board is the governing authority of the organization, and is responsible for directing, influencing, and monitoring the organization’s business. The Board:
- Determines the organization’s mission and purpose. It is the Board’s responsibility to create and review a statement of mission and purpose that articulates the organization’s goals, means, and primary constituents served.
- Enhances the public standing of the organization. The Board should clearly articulate the organization’s mission, accomplishments, and goals to the public and garner support from the community.
- Hires, supervises, and releases only one employee: the Executive Director. Boards must reach consensus on the chief executive’s responsibilities and undertake a careful search to find the most qualified individual for the position. The Board supports the chief executive and assesses his or her performance. The Board should ensure that the chief executive has the moral and professional support he or she needs to further the goals of the organization.
- Provides proper financial oversight. The Board must assist in developing the annual budget and ensuring that proper financial controls are in place
- Ensures adequate resources.
- One of the Board’s foremost responsibilities is to provide adequate resources for the organization to fulfill its mission. The Board works with the Executive Director and Fundraising Committees to ensure yearly fundraising goals are met.
- Ensures legal and ethical integrity and maintains accountability. The Board works with the Executive Director to ensuring adherence to legal standards and ethical norms.
- Ensures effective organizational planning – Strategic Planning and monitoring the plan’s goals.
- Recruits, selects, and orients new Board members. All Boards have a responsibility to articulate prerequisites for candidates, orient new members, and retire other Board members as appropriate.
- Assesses Board performance. A Board is responsible for periodically comprehensively evaluating its own performance.
- Gives strategic direction to and monitors the organization’s programs and services.
- The Board’s responsibility is to determine (not implement) which programs areconsistent with the organization’s mission and to monitor their effectiveness in terms of outputs and impacts.
