As we grow, we are undergoing some organizational restructuring and would
like to compare notes with other museums that have a budget under $200,000
and a relatively small staff/volunteer ratio, and/or have had a Director in
place for less than 10 years....
Many of our activities are "chaired" by volunteers or trustees, who have
traditionally been accountable to the Governing Board, rather than to the
Director. This includes our giftshop, our collections, several annual
programs (A Cemetery Tour and an Apple Festival), our publications, Building
and Grounds, etc.
One benefit of this arrangement is that when volunteers take full
responsibility for an activity, they contribute higher-level skills and
initiative that lead to outstanding results.
The downside comes, of course, in accountability. I as Director, have little
control, because many of these "chairs" are also Trustees.
I understand that this is a very typical growing pain for organizations in
our stage of development.
So we are looking organizational models that allow for volunteer involvement
in upper-level decision making, while maintaining administrative control.
If you have successfully lived through this stage of organizational
development how did you do it? Were the committees ever listed in the
by-laws? Who controls the committees budgets?
Please share organizational documents (by-laws, committee mission
statements, etc.) that we might find helpful.
Thankyou!
Margaret Conover
Director
Three Village Historical Society
631-751-3730
http://ThreeVillageHistoricalSociety.org/
=========================================================
Important Subscriber Information:
The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes).
If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes).
|
