Recap: Nonprofit Governance & Risk Management Seminar
We hosted our third not-for-profit seminar of 2019, “Nonprofit Governance & Risk Management,” on November 6th. It was a compelling topic to close the year! Our speaker was attorney Nicola Fuentes Toubia, whose work is dedicated to legal and tax issues facing nonprofits.
In her discussion, Toubia provided tips on better governance best practices and offered insight on various areas where organizations are susceptible to risk.
Toubia made a point that even though organizations are not all the same size and structure, it’s common for board members to be unaware of their responsibilities. They can always improve on what they can do better to serve the organization and its members. Expanding on her point, she presented a list of responsibilities to consider, including reviewing fundamental operating financial plans, adopting and monitoring corporate conduct policies and more.
When the topic shifted to risk management, Toubia identified potential risks and how to handle them in these areas:
- Financial
- Volunteer/Employee
- Data
- Reputational
- Insurance
Overall, she encouraged board members step up to the plate and take responsibility and hold themselves accountable, acting in the best interest of the organization and putting its needs first. She emphasized they should be engaging rather than micromanaging in their duty of care, duty of loyalty and duty of obedience.
Throughout the presentation, attendees were not shy to ask questions and spur further discussions, and by the end of the hour, Toubia assigned attendees homework to think about risk management and discover areas their organizations can improve and pre-emptively mitigate those risks.
For more information and to see how we serve this industry, our not-for-profit team is ready to co-create and co-develop solutions with your organization: www.pkftexas.com/NotForProfit.
