Does good governance arise organically from active engagement?
Does the philanthropic culture of a nonprofit human service organization impact the effectiveness of its board governance? Several leaders within the Alliance for Children and Families network argue it does, and they’re planning to prove it.
Simon Bisson, Bob Jones, and Betsy R. Vander Velde, all members of the Alliance Resource Development Services (RDS) Advisory Committee, are convinced that effective board governance feeds off of capacity building directed at enhancing philanthropic culture, and vice versa.
It’s a hypothesis they agreed upon after reviewing results from a survey of Alliance members that participate in RDS, a fund development program that consists of workshops, manuals, seminars, and reports developed specifically for the child- and family-serving sector.
What follows is a condensed version of a paper the three authored along with Thomas E. Lengyel, former director of research and evaluation services for the Alliance. It details their argument and acknowledges that, for the first time, the positive relationship between philanthropic culture and good governance may soon be confirmed through research. Continue reading.
