My consulting work with nonprofit organizations focuses mostly on board development, including facilitating the development of and agreement to board operating practices – how board members will work together as well as how they will work with the Executive Director and staff. As a service to nonprofits doing great work everywhere, I offer free, customizable templates for boards to use as starting points in developing their own operating practices.
Here you will find customizable board operating practices templates for governing boards and working boards.
- Governing board – your organization is staffed to run programs, deliver services, and administer operations; board directors hold strategic and fiduciary responsibility, and often focus on fundraising and networking.
- Working board: your organization is staffed to administer some operations but requires board members to participate in running programs, delivering services, and perhaps even administering some operations. While working board members may also focus on fundraising and networking, they often serve as subject matter experts for the organization to plan and deliver programs and services.
The materials differ most significantly in the area of Committee work, as working boards can spend 5-10-20 hours per week delivering programs and services, where governing boards may chair key committees that meet monthly or quarterly and lean on paid staff to deliver programs and services.
Instructions: These documents are templates for your board operating practices. The highlighted yellow text throughout the documents indicate areas that must be customized for your organization. However, please use these templates as only a starting point and customize any and all sections so that they best reflect how your board agrees to operate, including the appendices which contain templates your board might want to introduce as part of its operating practices. Additional guidance has been included in sidebars, which can be maintained or deleted as you choose as you customize this template.
Governing Board Operating Practices Template
Working Board Operating Practices Template
Note: In these documents, I elected to use the term Chair and Vice-Chair as the titles for the Board leaders; alternatively the titles President and Vice-President could be used. Likewise, I elected to use the term Executive Director as the title for the staff lead; alternatively the title CEO could be used.
Do you have suggestions for improving these templates? Please email me with your ideas.