1. Governance
The big questions
Oxfam Presentation, November 2012
Dr.Rama Naidu

2. • Why is there so much rhetoric that touts the
significance and centrality of nonprofit Boards,
but so much empirical and anecdotal evidence
that boards of trustees are only marginally
relevant?

3. • Why are there so many” how to govern”
handbooks, pamphlets, seminars and
workshops, but such widespread
disappointment with Board performance and
efforts to enhance board effectiveness?

4. • Why do nonprofit organisations go to such
great lengths to recruit the best and brightest
as trustees, But then permit these stalwarts to
languish collectively in an environment more
intellectually inert than alive, with Board
members being disengaged than engrossed

5. • Why has there been such a continuous flow of
new ideas that have changed prevailing views
about organisations and leadership, but no
substantial reconceptualization of nonprofit
governance, only more guidance and
exhortations to do better the work that
Boards are traditionally expected to do

6. Other questions
• While nonprofit managers have gravitated
towards the role of leadership, trustees have
tilted more towards the role of management. This
shift has occurred because trusteeship ,as a
concept, has stalled whilst leadership as a
concept, has accelerated. The net effect has
been that trustees function more and more like
line managers.( seems unlikely, but is true.
Boards look for trustees with specialist skills –
auditing, legal, fundraising,etc)

7. • If managers have become leaders and
leadership have enveloped core areas of
governance, then a profound question arises:
• What have been the consequences to Boards
as the most powerful levers of governing have
migrated to the portfolio of the leader ?

8. • What really happens , when constructed in this
way is that Boards are predisposed, if not
predestined, to attend to the routine, technical
work that managers-turned –leaders have
attempted to shed or limit.
• With sophisticated leaders at the helm of
nonprofits, a substantial portion of the
governance portfolio has moved to the Executive
suite. The residue remains in the Boardroom