ABSTRACT

This chapter looks at governance as the essential but little understood aspect of the way voluntary organisations are managed. Every voluntary organisation has a governing body-a management committee or board of trustees-which has ultimate responsibility for what the organisation does. This group of people are unpaid volunteers: they must not directly benefit from their position as members of the governing body. For many organisations which employ staff they provide the justification for their ‘voluntary’ status. They may be the people who set up the organisation, friends or associates of the founders or, in a sense, representatives of those who founded the organisation a hundred or more years before. They may be professional people recruited for their skills or experience. They may be elected because they are thought to represent the kinds of people the organisation is there to serve. If asked, they may not even know why they are on the committee! But in every case they are responsible for the organisation; and, if it is a charitable organisation, they are the trustees, whether they call themselves that or not.