Global Best Practices for CSO, NGO, and Other Nonprofit Boards

Lessons From Around the World

Penelope Cagney, Penelope Cagney

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781119423201
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Nonprofit Organizations & Charities
• Index: Business

An ideal resource for boards everywhere

There are at least 10 million Civil Society Organizations (CSO)s in the world, each of them with a board composed of individuals doing their best to govern well and wisely. There is no single model of governance to emulate, but are there universal principles and practices that can help boards everywhere perform at the highest level.

This book takes us for a trip around the world to look at what is working for boards. Its discoveries will help not only boards, but also nonprofit staff leaders seeking to assist their boards to optimal performance, and capacity-builders looking to strengthen their civil society sector.

Even if your organizational concerns extend no further than city boundaries, this book is for you. One of the greatest governance challenges today is a lack of diversity on the board. This can seriously hamper an organization's ability to realize mission and to understand and serve its community. Reading this book will provide a greater understanding of how the cultural context affects governance and will sensitize the reader to different ways of thinking about governance.

Global Best Practices For CSO, NGO and Other Nonprofit Boards presents case studies from different parts of the world that illustrate effective practice, identifies and discusses interesting and significant differences, and explores global governance trends with implications for us all.

• Tests for universal truths about roles, responsibilities and practices using criteria established by BoardSource, the premier voice on nonprofit governance
• Provides information that builds exceptional nonprofit boards
• Discusses cultural differences in governance that will help all boards to better function in increasingly diverse environments
• Offers inspiration to NGO boards in any part of civil society
• Reflects on the future of governance worldwide

If you're a capacity-builder, a board member, or an executive leader looking for guidance on governance, this is the book you'll want to have on hand.

CHAPTER 1
Overview

Penelope Cagney

This chapter provides an overview of the book—who it is for and why it is needed, who the contributors are, the context and framework for the book's content, and an outline of chapters.

WHO THIS BOOK IS FOR

Nonprofits are entrusted with some of the world's most important work, and the scope and size of this sector has expanded tremendously in the past few decades. These organizations seek to solve, often in partnership with other sectors, the biggest problems of the planet—namely, climate change, poverty, hunger and the need for clean water, resolution of war and protection of rights, and promotion of education and health. They are charged, too, with the preservation and promotion of arts and culture and other important issues relating to quality of life.

The need for responsible, informed, and well-equipped governance for nonprofit organizations is critical. This book is intended for those who seek to prepare themselves to provide it. Boards everywhere, composed of impassioned grassroots volunteers, concerned philanthropists, and accomplished community and business leaders, seek guidance on providing quality leadership to nonprofits. This book is also for capacity-building organizations that strive to equip nonprofits in the best way possible to carry out their important tasks. It is also for CEOs and executive directors intending to assist their boards with working at optimal performance levels and for those who teach in, and study, our sector.

INTRODUCTION

While there are political and societal forces tugging us in different directions today, technological innovations, such as social media, have undeniably brought us closer together. Whether we are talking about the nonprofit food bank around the corner that serves the neighborhood or a colossal nongovernmental organization (NGO) that spans continents, the need for good governance is universal. But do we all agree on what constitutes “best practice”? Little is known about how NGO governance is practiced around the world.

New wealth everywhere is encouraging nations to view their cultures and traditions as the compasses guiding the direction of their philanthropy and civil society. This has value for us all.

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There is much to be gained from setting aside preconceived ideas and looking intently for what really works for local people.

Coventry (2017), 55

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Even those of us whose interests go no further than our own borders need to examine our preconceived ideas about what is “best,” because we live in increasingly diverse societies that call for more nuanced approaches to what works. To understand, serve, and include, we need to first confront the limitations of our own cultural biases.

What we hope to accomplish here is to open the discussion about governance to the dazzling diversity of perspectives and practices around the world that can enrich our common knowledge of how our boards, wherever they are, can do their jobs well.

ABOUT THE BOOK'S TITLE

As Chapter 4's authors Alan Hough and Garth Nowland-Foreman wisely point out, best is a relative term. As shown in the case study of Oxfam Australia (see Chapter 4), what is best varies even for a single board, based on circumstances, where the organization is in its life cycle, or what the organization's current understanding of what best is.

So then why does this book's title include the term best practices? It was deliberately chosen, both so that those seeking advice on how to improve their governance could easily find the book and as a point of departure for the book's contributors' discussions about governance in their specific countries or regions.

The book's title also references CSOs (civil society organizations), NGOs, and other nonprofits. There is little agreement on the nomenclature for these kinds of organizations (see the glossary for some commonly used terms). While inexact, the title was chosen, again, to ensure that those who might possibly benefit from this book would recognize that it is intended to address their needs. We do not differentiate between CSOs, NGOs, and nonprofits throughout, as they are common terms.

ORGANIZATION OF CONTENTS

Chapter 2 through Chapter 9 cover specific geographic regions or countries, organized alphabetically. Chapter 10 looks at international civil society organizations (ICSOs) and Chapter 11 concludes with some thoughts on the future of boards.

FRAMEWORK

BoardSource has developed a knowledge base over decades through its work with many thousands of boards. It has distilled its experience into several publications. Two of them, Ten Basic Responsibilities of Nonprofit Boards and The Source: Twelve Principles of Governance That Power Exceptional Boards (see the appendix), have been used to aid our exploration of what constitutes good governance around the world. Each contributor to this book was asked to examine the applicability of the 10 roles and responsibilities and to consider the 12 principles in the light of their experience and knowledge specific to their own country or region.

APOLOGIES

I offer my sincere apologies to any countries or regions overlooked in this survey. This book is by no means encyclopedic, and presents instead a broad sampling of governance as practiced around the world. My hope is that readers will be able to draw useful insights from the material and even be inspired to adapt some of the practices described to their own boards.

I also ask the reader's indulgence with respect to my own (American) cultural biases. I have done my best to compensate for them.

CULTURE

Contributors have also been asked to identify the significant characteristics of, and trends in, their locations. Each chapter is intended to contain the elements of NGO governance specific to a particular place (i.e. current political and legal environment, historical origins). Each author has also been invited to consider the cultural dimensions of governance.

Culture is a complex business. We certainly do not want to oversimplify, create or reinforce national stereotypes, or suggest that one culture's way of doing things is better than another's. Not attempting to address culture at all, however, would seem a serious omission in a book of this type.

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Humans are deeply social animals. Our beliefs, desires, and behaviors are affected by social preferences, our relationships, and the social contexts in which we live and make decisions.

World Bank (2015), 42

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The means of thinking about culture that is outlined in Fons Trompenaars and Charles Hampden-Turner's 1997 book, Riding the Waves of Culture, is therefore offered as a conceptual framework. The research database used therein included 50,000 cases in 100 countries studied over a period of 15 years. The results were intended to help dispel the notion that there is one best way of doing things in business (Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner 1997, 2) but can also help shed light on the civil sector.

Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner developed a means to help people understand organizational management in the context of culture, which they define as the way people solve problems. Their model entails five ways in which people deal with each other (universalism vs. particularism, individualism vs. communitarianism, neutral vs. affective, specific vs. diffuse, ascription vs. achievement); their perspective on time (sequential vs. synchronic); and how they relate to the environment (internal vs. external control). We will discuss each of these in turn next.

Universalism Versus Particularism

Are rules or relationships more importa...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• CHAPTER 1: Overview
• CHAPTER 2: Africa
• CHAPTER 3: Asia
• CHAPTER 4: Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand
• CHAPTER 5: Central and Eastern Europe and Eurasia
• CHAPTER 6: Europe
• CHAPTER 7: Latin America
• CHAPTER 8: Middle East and North Africa
• CHAPTER 9: North America
• CHAPTER 10: From Reform of Governance to Transfer of Power
• CHAPTER 11: The Future
• Appendix
• Glossary
• About the Contributors
• Index
• End User License Agreement