Governance
“The process by which a group of people make decisions that direct their collective efforts”
The following information has been taken from the excellent 'Governance Pages' website
The other notable feature of governance is that usually this role is delegated to a representative group “the committee”.
There must therefore be some communication between the wider group and the committee. The wider group may be strictly defined as members or they may be a more vaguely defined group often termed ‘the stakeholders’.
Governance simply describes the way you govern (or rule, or to put it more diplomatically – control and direct). In this case we’re talking about an organisation that is voluntary or with a social purpose, and generally not for profit. But there are parallels to the governance of any enterprise – even for profit ones and of course there are distant parallels with the governance of states. It can be helpful to break governance down into 4 areas
1. the committee members themselves
2. how the committee is structured
3. how the various structures link together
4. the tasks and roles that are fulfilled.
The answers in the FAQs 1 to 9 (Governance Pages website link) approximately follow this sequence (about committee members, about the structure and running of committees and finally what the role actually entails)
