Charting Change: Board Governance Best Practices

The client

The Common Place (TCP) serves the southwest Philadelphia community of Kingsessing. Its mission provides holistic support to children and their families in SW Philadelphia through educational programs, food sovereignty, community collaboration and welcome.

The project

The Common Place requested support from Compass Pro Bono for board governance best practice strategies in finance, organizational growth, and sustainability. Compass Pro Bono matched TCP with a team of ten hand-picked business professionals who received training, support, and resources on conducting a board development project.

The Compass Pro Bono solution

The Compass Pro Bono team conducted five peer organization reviews, surveyed eight board members, and conducted fifteen interviews with board and staff members. The team also reviewed the organization’s bylaws, developed and shared a presentation on board structure and performance metrics and conducted a hands-on workshop to support a refined mission.

The team’s recommendations and deliverables included: