Support effective board performance.
Institutional charters, articles of incorporation, bylaws, committee charters, faculty handbooks, regulations, policies, governance guides, and other documents are vital working tools for governing boards. But like all tools, they can make tasks either easier or harder, depending on how well-fitted they are to the job. Whether institutions and foundations are old or new, they are certain to encounter challenges their founders never anticipated. In such situations, boards may find themselves hamstrung by outmoded mandates or gaps where governance documents fail to provide much-needed guidance. It’s essential to ensure that governance documents are fully current, relevant, and usable.
Recommended resources.
Updating Board Bylaws: A Guide for Colleges and Universities
2013
by Robert M. O’Neil
Why Now Is a Great Time: Preparing for Your Board’s Governance Audit
Blog Post
by Lynnette Heard, M. Ed
Questions for boards.
Click below to reveal key questions for your board to consider.
Quality
- Do we have all the governance documents we need?
- Are the governance documents we have up to date and appropriate for our current circumstances?
- What do our stakeholders think about the relevance and usability of our governance documents?
- Will our documents help us achieve or maintain accreditation?
- Do our documents define clear and appropriate accountability?
Focus
- Do our governance documents align with our strategy and business model?
- How have similar institutions or foundations updated their governance documents?
- Do our governance documents define efficient, productive processes?
- Do our procedures and policies support our goals for justice, diversity, equity, and inclusion?
Sustainability
- How hard is it to update our governance documents as things change?
- Are we protected against spurious revisions and overly reactive changes?
AGB helps you ensure relevance and utility.
During a diagnostic engagement, our experts use a proven process to understand, evaluate, and enhance your processes and documents:
Examine Documents
Benchmark against Leading Practices
Identify Improvements
Engage Stakeholders
Understand Use Cases
Make and Implement Recommendations
“AGB advisors have been instrumental to our growth and success as a foundation. We had AGB look at our materials to give us a health check to reaffirm what we achieved and what we were going to do next to build the best board that we could.”
Greg Willems
President and CEO, Kansas State University Foundation
Steward institution or foundation assets and resources as effectively as possible.
AGB Consulting provides boards and presidents with a diagnostic review of the key documents that define and guide their governance procedures. Our experts will help you determine whether your governance documents align with your current circumstances, support effective board performance, and are accessible, understandable, and usable.
Contact AGB.
To learn how AGB Consulting’s services can benefit your institution, please contact 202-776-0865 or consulting@AGB.org. Or use this contact form: