It may be true that I am a church governance geek, but I don’t think it affects my perception that the use of policy governance at UUCA has done just as it was hoped—it has provided vision, clarity and accountability in the work of the congregation. Here are a few key advantages.
I’ve been on the Board and I can say with absolute certainty that the boards that have been in place since we began using policy governance (just about a year and a half) are getting substantially more useful information from staff about what is going on in the life of the congregation than they have ever had before. And since this information comes to them in the form of written reports from the Executive, they have more meeting time to devote to matters other than program and staff management.
For each board meeting, the Executive (Mark) submits a “What’s Happening Now” report that briefly describes what’s going on in the organization that the board members ought to know about. It requires no action but gives board members information they might need when speaking with congregants, everything from changes in staff responsibilities (e.g., Benette’s illness-induced change to part-time status and Nick’s subsequent increase to full-time status) to the status of the Annual Budget Drive.
By way of the Board’s Governance Document, the Executive is required to report on various aspects of the congregation’s management each month. Therefore unlike any previous Board, the board members not only receive monthly financial data as they did prior to policy governance, but they also get a written document from the Executive describing the compliance of every “The Executive shall not” sentence in the Executive Limitations section of the Governance Document. Over the course of a year, the Board receives a report about every part of the Governance Document that affects the Executive.
For example, for the Board’s February 4 meeting, Mark will provide a report on Executive Limitation H which has to do with communications to the board and the congregation along with a few other miscellaneous items that can loosely be in this category. For each item, we provide evidence of our compliance or an explanation of why we are not in compliance. I assure you that no previous boards ever got a yearly report on whether we maintain an accurate membership record or whether there has been a statement of the assets and liabilities presented to the Congregation each year. It may have always been done, but if it were missed, there was no systematic way to “remember” it.
The Executive reports on every single Limitation and Ends Statement at least once a year. I’m quite certain no previous Board has ever been so well informed and then freed to do visioning and planning work rather than management. Upon receiving the report, the Board determines if what we are reporting is the direction they want the congregation to be moving. If not, they are free to change the Governance Document to get what they want.
Linda, as a governance geek myself, I agree. Our great challenge, however, remains i communicating with the congregation. We have to find a way to communicate this across the spectrum from arts, to science, to engineering. Us governance geeks are at the engineering end….
So a real challenge is how we communicate this to those who don’t think like us……
I want to thank you, Linda, for this wonderful synthesis of several of the wonders of Policy Governance! I would also like to take this
opportunity to thank our Executive, Senior staff and regular staff for their outstanding efforts in implementing this marvelous process
Very informative….thank you.
So, everyone! Who do you think would make a good Board member? We have four openings … and, as a member of the Leadership Development Committee tasked with identifying these individuals, we’d love to hear your ideas. Maybe it is you, yourself. Nothing wrong with stepping up if you’re interested. Let us know! (And, yes, sorry for the purists among you; I’ve adapted to the use of “task” as a verb. English is the rich language it is because it’s constantly evolving.)
I agree with John B above that it would be good to find a way to communicate the Policy Governance process to the congregation – or rather to instill confidence that it’s all happening as it should and/or how the congregation fits into the policy governance umbrella. But you’ve done newsletter articles, pamphlets, meetings…. all good. But probably all formats that the non-engineery/wordy people don’t take in as well. I could imagine doing some kind of cool spatial performance art explanation of it, but not exactly sure what the forum for that would be!??!!! 😉