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Lessons about governance from voluntary sector

Leadership and governance: a literature review
A review of what has been written about leadership in the non-profit voluntary sector. Published by the Institute of Non-Profit Studies at Mount Royal College, Alberta.

The Non Profit Quarterly
The Non-Profit Quarterly is a U.S. subscription-based print magazine that provides information and analysis to leaders in the non-profit sector. Articles address issues related to Board governance, human resource management, and broad social policy topics. Some of the articles are available on-line from the publications web site. An e-mail newsletter is also available by subscription.

A tool for Union Executive Boards to self-evaluate

Union executive boards rarely take time to assess how they are doing as a leadership group. An increasing number of boards organize strategic planning sessions but the focus is most often the entire organization: what are the union’s strengths and weaknesses; what are the external threats; what should the union be doing; and so forth. It is not often that a union executive body will talk about itself.

In the not-for-profit community sector, Boards of Directors do spend time on self-evaluation and a number of tools have been developed to help them identify what is working and what is not.

Click the link below for an example of an evaluation tool that is borrowed from the not-for-profit sector and adapted for use by unions.

Union Executive Self Assessment instrument

Special thanks to Keith Seel, PhD, Director of the Institute for Nonprofit Studies at Mount Royal College for providing the evaluation template on which this union board evlauation tool is based.

What is a consent agenda?

Does your union executive board or committee have trouble getting through the meeting agenda? Do you find that sometimes you spend a long time discussing less important items and then have to rush through, or defer, discussion of the more complex matters facing your organization?

You may want to consider adopting a consent agenda approach to planning your meetings.

According to the Midwest Center for Nonprofit Leadership, a consent agenda is a practice that sets aside the more mundane and less controversial items on a Board agenda to approve without taking time for discussion at the meeting.

Every member of the Board has to agree to an agenda item going on the "consent agenda" before it can be approved without discussion. Even if only one member of the Board wants the item discussed, the matter must be placed on the regular agenda.

Click on the link below to download a document that explains the concept more fully. The document is a Board Resource Tool from the Midwest Centre for Nonprofit Leadership (University of Missouri, Kansas City).

Consent Agenda