Committee chairs attending Board meetings

[Jay M]

We are a not for profit organization and we have almost 40 committees. They all send reports to the board. I wonder how do the  board deal with them and pass appropriate resolutions based on their needs?  Are they suppose to attend the board meetings? Do wee need to invite them for board meetings? Thanks in advance

Thanks

Jay 

 

[Atul Kapur]

These are things that are specific to your organization and you can decide what works best for you. Are these actually committees of the board or committees of the organization? That is, which body created them and who do they report to? Committees of the organization do not report to the board unless your rules say that.

Generally, committee reports are divided into those that are for information only and those that include recommendations for action, which should be in the form of a motion. Information-only reports are filed. The board handles recommendations by considering and deciding upon the appropriate motion.

On 2/24/2023 at 3:05 PM, Jay M said:

Are they suppose to attend the board meetings? Do wee need to invite them for board meetings?

I assume that you are referring to the chairs of the committees. If they are not members of the board, then they do not have a right to attend, under RONR. The board can invite any or all of them as it desires or the organization's rules may dictate. Inviting one chair to one meeting does not mean that you have to invite all 40 or that you have to invite that one to any future meeting.

Under RONR, non-members of the board have no right to participate in the meeting but may be invited to speak (by a majority vote or general consent) or even participate in debate (by a two-thirds vote or general consent).

[Josh Martin]

On 2/24/2023 at 2:05 PM, Jay M said:

We are a not for profit organization and we have almost 40 committees.

That seems like a lot of committees.

On 2/24/2023 at 2:05 PM, Jay M said:

I wonder how do the  board deal with them and pass appropriate resolutions based on their needs?

The committees would make recommendations as needed. Generally, the committee chair would present the report and make the motions to implement the recommendations. With such a large number of committees, however, I imagine it is the case that for many committees, neither the chair (nor any members of the committee) are board members, in which event a board member would need to make the motions to implement the recommendations.

On 2/24/2023 at 2:05 PM, Jay M said:

Are they suppose to attend the board meetings? Do wee need to invite them for board meetings?

Such matters are entirely at the board's discretion. The board is free to extend an open invitation to the committee chairs (or all committee members). On the other hand, the board might choose to only have committee chairs attend on an as-needed basis.

[Richard Brown]

@Atul KapurVery good answer.  I started to answer but was having a hard time coming up with the appropriate succinct language to do the trick. I figured someone like you or Josh Martin would come along and answer it appropriately.

Edited to add:  And I see that Mr. Martin did in fact come along and post an excellent response, too!

Edited February 24, 2023 at 10:49 PM by Richard Brown
Added last paragraph

[Jay M]

I sincerely thank Atul Kapoor, Josh Martin and Richard Brown for their valuable comments.