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Engagement Governance

Engagement Governance: A New Framework

By Dr. Judy Freiwirth, Founder/Coordinator of the Alliance for Nonprofit Management's Governance Affinity Group

There is a growing realization within the sector that traditional governance models are inadequate to effectively respond to the challenges faced by many nonprofits and their communities. Responding to the urgent need to develop new governance models, over the last two years, the Alliance Governance Affinity Group, comprised of 85 Alliance members, has been working steadily to design new approaches. We have developed a new governance framework entitled, "Engagement Governance".

Although still a "work in progress", "Engagement Governance" is a framework that is premised on the notion that governance is a function and a process, not a structure and does not need to be solely located in the confines of the board structure. It is an approach in which governance responsibility is shared across the organizational system among the key sectors of an organization-that is, its constituents, staff, board, and other community stakeholders. It is based upon principles of participatory democracy, self-determination, and genuine partnership and on community-level decision-making as the foundation of true democracy. Although no one governance model fits all nonprofits, we believe this model is truer to the core substance of our work, which is to provide voice and vehicles for constituent empowerment and community change.

Community Impact at the Center of the System

The Alliance Governance Affinity Group’s framework differs significantly from the prevailing governance models. For example, in contrast to traditional governance models in which the primary focus is the "effectiveness of the organization", our framework situates the "desired community impact" at its core. This reprioritizes results over institution and makes desired impact the overwhelmingly most important focus of nonprofit governance. Nonprofit governance frameworks have also tended to replicate outdated, top-down, hierarchal structures and processes that foster dependency and disempowerment.

In this new framework, constituents, staff, external stakeholders, as well as the board all play a significant role in "shared governance". Although this framework calls for increased participation in governance decision-making by all key components of an organizational system, the framework also allows for a wide range of governance participation by the various components. Alliance members can read our recently published articles in The Nonprofit Quarterly, "Engagement Governance for System-Wide Decision Making"¹ and "System-Wide Governance for Community Empowerment".²

Next Steps in Framework Development

Our next steps include further design work to describe the framework in more detail, including developing the "how-to's" for nonprofits and capacity-builders to adapt this governance framework to their organizations. In addition, we will be working with several different nonprofits that are interested in adapting the framework to their organization. We are very interested in feedback from the Alliance membership and sincerely hope you will join in this discussion. New Affinity Group members are welcome! Please contact us with feedback at Judy@NonprofitSA.com.

Full text of articles available to members only
¹Freiwirth, Judy. "Engagement Governance for System-Wide Decision Making." The Nonprofit Quarterly. Summer, 2007. Vol. 14, No. 2.

²Freiwirth, Judy & Letona, Maria Elena "System-Wide Governance for Community Empowerment". The Nonprofit Quarterly. Winter, 2006, Vol. 13, No.4.