Читать книгу Effective Fundraising - F. Warren McFarlan - Страница 23

The governance committee plays a critical role in the selection of potential trustees, their assignments, and their ultimate rotation off the board. It is also responsible for recruiting overseers/corporators (supporters of the organization who convene once or twice a year to give advice). The existence of term limits defined by the governance committee ensures that there will be continued turnover in these boards and officer positions. This turnover is critical in allowing space for new development-oriented trustees to join the board. With regard to term limits, one or two positions on the board may be reserved for people of such unusual skill or development capability that you do not want to lose their link to the organization and, therefore, want to insulate them from the constraint of term limits. Discipline, however, has to be maintained to ensure this insulation does not get out of control. In a recently studied case of an organization with an ironclad term limit of eight years, one trustee is now in his 17th year on the board. The individual has headed two capital campaigns and a building is named for him. A guiding principle about term limits is that you need them but “don't do stupid things.” Excessive reliance on standard procedures can sometimes get you into unfortunate decisions that can harm the organization (exceptions, of course, can have their problems as well).