Is it a Board Committee or a Staff Committee?

Every not-for-profit organization, at one time, was run entirely by volunteers. When they gain enough support, they hire staff. At that point, things must change - too often, the Board continues working as they used to, holding frequent meetings and delegating tasks to the employee(s) at each meeting. Role confusion results.

I frequently work with not-for-profit Boards who continue to appoint members to committees that are clearly operational in nature. As an example, let's refer to a Conference Committee, often formed to help determine appropriate content and format for the organization's annual meeting and convention.

If the Board has approved a budget, and has policies in place that guide the Chief Staff Officer (CSO) on a daily basis, it is the CSO who should determine if a committee is required to help achieve a specific operational goal, and if so, who s/he wants to approach to sit on that committee. Such a committee is a staff committee, not a Board committee. The Board has already instructed the CSO to develop and deliver a service (the conference) that is responsive to stakeholder needs, and achieve budget targets. If the Board goes beyond that and says, "You must work with these particular people and implement their suggestions", they simply cannot hold the CSO accountable for the outcome.

The Board, naturally, appoints members to committees that are established to help the Board do its job - examples might be the Governance or Board Developement Committee, or the Nominating Committee. Going beyond that compromises the ability of the Board to fairly and objectively hold the CSO accountable for organizational outcomes. If the CSO needs a committee to help achieve an operational goal, it's up to them to establish that committee, and that committee is accountable to the CSO (or a staff member to whom the CSO delegates that task).