What Exactly is a Committee on Trustees?

In preparation for our upcoming governance program, Build Your Own Board, I’ve had many conversations with school leaders across the country, and I’ve found that we don’t all have the same definition of a Committee on Trustees. Or we’re using different words to describe it. Sometimes it feels like we’re all saying the same thing in different languages.

Here are some names for a Committee on Trustees that I’ve encountered in the past few months:

• Nominating Committee
• Governance Committee
• Institutional Advancement Committee
• Board Development Committee

In addition to having many names for the Committee on Trustees, Jewish day schools across North America have different board structures. Some schools have one committee charged with completing the functions of a Committee on Trustees, and some schools split the work up into a few different committees. The 10 crucial functions of a Committee on Trustees are listed below with a quick explanation of what we at PEJE mean when we talk about board functions:

1. Profiling: Assessing your board’s needs based on your strategic plan, mission, and current board’s skill set.
2. Identifying: This doesn’t just mean throwing names out, but casting a wide net in your community and using a vetting process to call your board’s attention to appropriate potential trustees.
3. Cultivating: Deliberately engaging identified individuals in conversations about the activities and mission of the school, and discussing work they may be good for.
4. Recruiting: Asking new board members to serve the school and setting expectations for their tenure.
5. Orienting: Familiarizing board members with the school’s mission and their roles and responsibilities.
6. Involving: Engaging every board member in ambassadorship and fundraising, making sure board members serve on at least one board committee.
7. Educating: Fostering board members who can best serve the school by educating them about issues relevant to the mission of the school, and providing training in order for board members to fulfill their roles and responsibilities.
8. Evaluating: Evaluation should be done at regular intervals to allow for appropriate feedback on all trustees’ performance.
9. Rotating: Rotate members off the board regularly to allow new trustees to serve.
10. Celebrating: Finding opportunities to appreciate board members within the school and the community and encouraging them to continue their engagement in the school.

However your school divides these functions, it’s important that the work of the Committee on Trustees (as we call it here at PEJE) is being completed.

–Chelsea Whyte