Board Fiduciary Excellence Series w/Sean Hale

In this five-week series, you will dig deep on nonprofit financial best practices, learn to avoid pitfalls, and permit you to make a strong overall contribution to the organization they serve.

Join us and invite your colleagues!

Week 1: Core roles and duties

• Legal requirements of all board members (quoting TX law)
• Legal liability
• Horror stories (Family Connections, my mom, etc.)
• D&O Insurance
• Treasurer role
• Chair’s role
• Finance Committee role (brief; more next week)
  

Week 2: Relationship with staff – getting it right; adding value

Board relationship with staff

• Accounting and finance staff
• Power dynamics and the importance of clear roles
• Executive Director

Finance Committee Role

• Adding value to the board
• Adding value to the staff
• Overperforming and underperforming
  

Week 3: Financial Reports

Why read the financial reports?

How to read the financial reports

• Balance Sheet
• Profit and Loss
• Materiality (what to worry about and what not to worry about)
• Dashboards
• Inclusion
• Engaging the full board in financial discussions
  

Week 4: Fraud prevention, audits; separation of duties

• Internal controls
• Separation of duties
• Audit
  

Week 5: Bringing it All Together

Additional Tools, benefits

• 1:1 Advisory: In addition to the in-class time, each participant will get a 25-minute 1:1 phone advisory session with Sean Hale.
  

• Light weekly homework: Between each session we’ll have a light assignment such as a brief video (like the Little Table) or article. We’ll use this to reinforce key concepts and as a conversation starter the following week.
  

• Written Resources: Each week we will provide one or more resources to attendees such as treasurer job descriptions, templates, readings and podcast recommendations to continue learning, etc. The resources will come from a combination of Sean Hale Consulting’s materials, online materials (e.g., Board Source), and the Nonprofit Austin archives.