Last night I was checking my 4th grade son’s math homework. As I was going over the wrong answers and the missed problems, I was showing him what separates an “A+” student from a “B-” student. In his case, it’s all about paying attention to detail.
Oh, the irony! Village Missions scored a “B-” (16 out of 20) in our evaluation by BBB’s Wise Giving Alliance. The results of that evaluation are posted on the Alliance’s site here. Does that mean that Village Missions is a “B-” ministry? Does that mean we’re not paying attention to detail? No way!!! Actually, I’d like to discuss the standards that were not met in excruciating detail.
Here’s the first standard we did not meet:
Standard 3. A minimum of three evenly spaced meetings per year of the full governing body with a majority in attendance, with face-to-face participation. A conference call of the full board can substitute for one of the three meetings of the governing body.
Response: The board of Village Missions has two, not three face-to-face meetings per year. We believe this is adequate for several reasons.
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Village Missions is a national organization with members from all regions of the country. Schedule coordination and travel logistics make more meetings costly and difficult.
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Village Missions is a policy-driven organization that vests authority in an Executive Director. The board’s function is to develop policy and supervise and evaluate the Executive Director.
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The board does schedule conference calls as the need arises – they are not regularly scheduled. Here is a record of board meeting dates during the last two fiscal years that the Alliance reviewed:
Date
Method
Ratio of Members in Attendance
10/7/2005
Conference Call
10/10
11/11/2005
In person
10/10
2/7/2006
Conference Call
7/10
5/5/2006
In person
10/10
11/9/2006
In person
9/10
5/11/2007
In person
8/10
As you can see, in the year ended 6/30/06 the board met four times. In the year ended 6/30/07, the board only met 2 times.
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A minimum of two meetings is the standard set by the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability, which is Village Missions preferred accrediting agency.
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The board has working committees that carry out their responsibilities outside the regularly scheduled board meetings. I think the important point here is that the board meeting is not the place where work gets done – it is the place where the work is reported and evaluated – that is how effective governance is supposed to work.
That’s standard 3 – I will cover the other standards in future posts. Right now, I have to go take a look at some math homework!
