There is an interesting discussion taking place on the Philocrates blog (Philocrates is the blog of Chris Walton, editor of the UU World) about the Purposes of the UUA. The part of the discussion that interests me most is the discussion of Policy Governance, specifically that which is based upon the Carver model. This is the model that the PNWD board is moving to, if it is not already there. The Cedars’ board is in theory a policy governance board, though it seems not to have followed that strictly, since there are a few committees that have liaisons.
Philocrates thinks that polity of the UUA is currently a bit confusing. I won’t even try to go there to figure that out. I think that’s what people like Philocrates are for. In his comment on the Philocrates post, Dan Harper takes the policy governance model discussion down to the congregational level, a level to which I can more easily relate. I’ll admit that I know little about the Carver model, but Dan says some interesting things about its effects on organizations such as ours, and I wonder if that applies to any policy governance model. Dan's comment that most intrigues me is:
“But I believe the Carver model is a poor fit for membership organizations in which membership meetings set policy, and hand that policy off to a Board and an Executive Director (ED) (where ministers often function as an ED in our churches) for implementation.
“In such membership organizations, it is the membership who set policy, not the Board, which means that you cannot follow the Carver model of having the Board set policy (which is what the UUA is trying to do here). Instead, there should be a different process for setting policy, involving the annual membership meeting ... You can do strategic plans and goal-setting in membership organizations in a way that involves the whole membership, but the Carver model does not give you an adequate process for that."
This raises a number of questions in my mind: Does our membership actually set policy? If not, why not? If the board sets policy, how does it get membership input, and more importantly, membership buy-in? Does the board have a vision? Does the congregation have a vision (my opinion is that it does not)? How can the membership find out about and have input into the board’s thinking so that it can thoughtfully consider what it is asked to vote upon at the annual congregational meeting? Can the board communicate more effectively and transparently to the congregation?
I hope that this will trigger a conversation among ourselves about how we communicate, make decisions, and govern ourselves. Please feel free to comment. Let your voice be heard.
Friday, February 6, 2009
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2 comments:
Frank, you raise some important issues here and I'm glad you did. I plan to put the issues of improved communication & transparency between the Board and the congregation on the next Board (March 10th) agenda with some specific proposals that I've even mentioned to the Trustees at prior meetings. After reinforcement at AGM last weekend for using this blog more effectively, I am persuaded that this blog can and should be used for, among other things, communicating what ideas come out of Board meetings that would benefit from congregational members' input and comments. My hope is that we can publicize the blog better so that people will come here to make comments. And the more content that is here, the more interesting it will be for people to come. Hopefully, our youth group members will also come here to make their valuable comments.
As for governance, my impression is that the Carver model seems inappropriate for larger congregations - the larger the congregation, the more complicated & cumbersome to use a model of governance where the membership sets policy and the Board implements. I do think that it is ESSENTIAL for the policy-making body to get feedback, comments, suggestions from the membership, and for policy to reflect the wishes of the membership. However, I'm afraid that expecting the entire membership to come together and make policy in any efficient and timely way becomes more problematic the larger the congregation.
At 140 members, being on the edge between the smaller "pastoral church" and the larger "program church", I'm seeing that most members seem too busy to be involved in activities that entail many meetings. Parents have so many commitments to their children's sports, academic and extra-curricular activities that they already feel stretched pretty thin.
This is why I feel that for where we are in size today (140 members), continuing to look to the Board of Trustees to set policy for today and the forseeable future makes sense. Having said that, I do believe that this cannot be done in a cocoon. Policy MUST reflect the wishes of the membership and MUST reflect and embody our collective Cedars vision. So not having a Vision Statement is a significant deficiency.
This deficiency could be remedied by the end of 2009. The Board and Rev. Jaco are beginning a plan for "Shaping Our Future" that we hope will engage our membership - anyone who is willing and able. I can't tell you much about this yet since the planning group won't be having our first meeting until April, after the stewardship gatherings are completed. We hope to gather valuable input from members during the stewardship meetings about "shaping our future" to inform how we go about this. Stay tuned for more on this.
Frank, you raise some important issues here and I'm glad you did. I plan to put the issues of improved communication & transparency between the Board and the congregation on the next Board (March 10th) agenda with some specific proposals that I've even mentioned to the Trustees at prior meetings. After reinforcement at AGM last weekend for using this blog more effectively, I am persuaded that this blog can and should be used for, among other things, communicating what ideas come out of Board meetings that would benefit from congregational members' input and comments. My hope is that we can publicize the blog better so that people will come here to make comments. And the more content that is here, the more interesting it will be for people to come. Hopefully, our youth group members will also come here to make their valuable comments.
As for governance, my impression is that the Carver model seems inappropriate for larger congregations - the larger the congregation, the more complicated & cumbersome to use a model of governance where the membership sets policy and the Board implements. I do think that it is ESSENTIAL for the policy-making body to get feedback, comments, suggestions from the membership, and for policy to reflect the wishes of the membership. However, I'm afraid that expecting the entire membership to come together and make policy in any efficient and timely way becomes more problematic the larger the congregation.
At 140 members, being on the edge between the smaller "pastoral church" and the larger "program church", I'm seeing that most members seem too busy to be involved in activities that entail many meetings. Parents have so many commitments to their children's sports, academic and extra-curricular activities that they already feel stretched pretty thin.
This is why I feel that for where we are in size today (140 members), continuing to look to the Board of Trustees to set policy for today and the forseeable future makes sense. Having said that, I do believe that this cannot be done in a cocoon. Policy MUST reflect the wishes of the membership and MUST reflect and embody our collective Cedars vision. So not having a Vision Statement is a significant deficiency.
This deficiency could be remedied by the end of 2009. The Board and Rev. Jaco are beginning a plan for "Shaping Our Future" that we hope will engage our membership - anyone who is willing and able. I can't tell you much about this yet since the planning group won't be having our first meeting until April, after the stewardship gatherings are completed. We hope to gather valuable input from members during the stewardship meetings about "shaping our future" to inform how we go about this. Stay tuned for more on this.
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