Articles written By Better Boards

Recruiting for Not-For-Profit Boards: Building Strong Foundations

With the landscape of not-for-profit governance constantly changing, it is crucial that boards recruit appropriately skilled and qualified directors who can help drive the organisation towards its mission and goals. Yet, boards continue to suffer from underperforming directors, ego-driven attitudes, and constant disagreements. While managing performance is an important part of maintaining a high-performing board, it is equally as important to have a clearly defined recruitment process for bringing in new directors.

Better Boards Conference 2019

Conference Downloads Speakers’ presentations from the 2019 Conference in Brisbane are available as downloads through the links below: CEOs Summit – Friday 2 August Workshops The CEO’s Role in Strategic Transformation – Dagmar Parsons Creating Deeper Corporate Partnerships to Maximise Your Social Impact – Phil Preston Working With Your Board: Strategies for Success – Chris Scott Navigating the Governance Journey: CEO’s Perspective in Developing a Board – Lynne Moran [No Slides] The Mind of the Change Maker: How to Get Better Performance from Your Leaders – George Liacos

Legal Structures for Not-for-Profit Organisations

The legal structure you choose for your organisation should meet your organisation’s needs, and allow for future development and growth of the organisation. Your organisation’s legal structure will affect its legal identity, governance structure, and reporting and compliance obligations. This webinar will cover: What (legal structures)[/non-profit-fact-sheets/legal-structures-nonprofit-organisations/] are available? The advantages and disadvantages of each legal structure. The legal obligations attached to each legal structure. How the right legal structure can help with: mergers; restructures; social enterprises; commercial activities; and risk management.

The Evolved Board

It has been said that the banking Royal Commission will be looked back on as a watershed moment for corporate governance in Australia. Today, it’s no longer feasible for boards to assume all is well in their organisation. Changing expectations of employees and communities means that an organisation’s social licence to operate is under threat, if poor conduct by employees is left unchecked. At the heart of it all, trust challenges the concept of governance and has become an important driver.

From Inc to Ltd: Making the change to Company Limited by Guarantee

Not-for-profit (NFP) organisations face more demand for structure, accountability and transparency than ever before. Not only are there more NFPs that are growing into multi-million and multi-billion dollar entities, but there are also more public and government expectations of NFPs than in the past. In line with this trend, NFPs around Australia have been transferring from incorporated association to company limited by guarantee and this trend continues to grow, especially in increasingly competitive markets.

Background Checking - Know Your People

Accurate background screening is an essential component of the employee and volunteer recruitment process. Unfortunately, the traditional process for obtaining criminal history checks has proven to be time-consuming. Too often, the delay leads to the loss of a potential new staff member or volunteer and, in some cases, a decision to overlook the checking process in favour of a speed appointment, which can lead to problems at a later time.

Digital Security Awareness for Directors

As digital technology has become more enmeshed in the day to day of our existence our own personal security and privacy in the digital space has become an increasingly important aspect of our lives that requires education, consideration and planning. As a board member, director or executive of a Not-For-Profit (NFP) organisation, our own understanding of and attitude toward online security and privacy, as well as the way we conduct our online lives will impact the security of our organisation’s information and data.

Board Evaluation Webinar

Annual board self-evaluations have long been considered a best practice, with the idea that measuring board performance leads to continuous improvement in governance. A disconnect today according to our research exists between what we want board evaluations to achieve, and what they actually do. Join Henri for this session to explore the reasons why board evaluations often fail to actually improve board performance, and discuss issues such as: Common flaws in board evaluation requirements issued by regulators Why fixing the process isn’t as simple as finding a better questionnaire How most board evaluation processes impede change Henri will provide simple strategies and tools that can help evolve your board’s evaluation process from a “check the box” exercise, to an engine for creating continuous improvement.

Strategically Assessing Your Organisation's Position, Direction & Destiny

This webinar is focused on presenting and describing a range of powerful and practical processes and tools that can used by your board, chief executive officer or senior managers/executives to strategically assess your organisation’s current and future industry position, strategic direction and proposed destiny. The processes and tools are able to be applied in a variety of strategic undertakings such as: strategic organisational transformation projects strategic review and planing projects strategic business development projects business/financial turnaround projects merger and amalgamation projects

Your Guide to More Effective Board Meetings

Most people know that meetings of any kind can be unproductive, and unfortunately board meetings are no exception. In many cases, board meetings are even more unproductive than everyday office meetings. Why? We can point to any number of reasons: personality clashes between board members, high-stress topics, and organisational or community politics can cause no end of problems. But most unproductive board meetings (and board problems in general) are actually caused by structural choices or assumptions.