You may not think of your accountants as being experts on board governance, risk management and strategic planning, however, please consider the following:
- As part of any RLB audit (and many review engagements, as well), we review and summarize the minutes of all board meetings and any relevant committee meetings. Since our firm performs audits of nearly 500 not-for-profit organizations, this gives us a lot of insight into the inner workings of boards, which practices work well and which could be more effective.
- Our firm has been presenting free seminars on risk management and governance for not-for-profit organizations in the region for five years, working in conjunction with other professional services firms which also specialize in the not-for-profit sector.
- Many of the members of our Not-for-Profit Team, and our firm more broadly, have vast experience sitting on community boards, so we have a strong perspective both from an internal and an external standpoint.
In March, RLB performed its first training session for a not-for-profit client’s board of directors. This training session covered topics such as:
- Basic responsibilities of boards and fiduciary duties
- Delegation of responsibilities to officers/management, executive committees, finance/audit committees, other regular/standing committees and ad-hoc committees
- Conflicts of interest
- Codes of conduct
- Director liability
- Specific board responsibilities for: strategy and planning, risk management and oversight, financial reporting and performance management, human resources, public relations and board recruitment, development and assessment
This training session lasted for a little over two hours, however can be completely customized to your organization’s needs, both in terms of content and length of the training session.
Please contact your RLB advisor to learn more about this new service!
