Writing Leakproof Policies

Board members, tired of repetitive requests for approval or permission, often say, “We should write some policies.” This impulse is correct: Policies can spare the board much tedium and help ensure consistent handling of like situations. But in practice, efforts to write policies often frustrate and disappoint. It’s a lot of work and does not always stop the flow of management questions coming to the board.

Fortunately, a board can create “Leakproof” policies. The key is to reverse one of the assumptions most boards bring to making policy: that authority must be dispensed timidly, a little bit at a time. A wise board flips this script and delegates full management authority, then sets limits and adds guidance until it is ready to let others make decisions away from the board table.

Typically, boards work like painters, adding little strokes to a blank canvas. Smart boards work like sculptors, starting with a massive hunk of marble and removing what they don’t want, chip by chip.

Painting Policy on a Blank Canvas

Let’s look at how most board policy committees do their work:

First, committee members hunt for existing policies and think of others that might be helpful. This alone is a big job. In many congregations, policies are incomplete and out of date. Sometimes they exist, like Bible texts, in scattered versions from different eras.

The committee does its best to harmonize all this material into a coherent body of board policies. They then try to fill the gaps by creating new policies to answer questions that have come to the board piecemeal—what to charge for a wedding rehearsal, how committees get their expenses reimbursed, how many adults must be in a classroom, etc. etc. etc.

In effect, they start with a blank canvas—a topic, let’s say wedding rehearsals—where the board has not laid down a policy. Guided by questions the board has had to answer in the past, the committee starts to create answers: What should it cost to use the building for a wedding rehearsal? What if you need to use the organ? The sound system?

A skillful policy committee can cover most of the questions the board has answered in the past. But reality is endlessly creative; new questions arise all the time. What if the wedding planner wants to pin corsages on the pews? How loud can the DJ crank the sound system? Can the best man bring his hypo-allergenic dog? Each novel question prompts a new agenda item for the board. In the end, the policy process solves less than its supporters hoped.

Sculpting Leakproof Policies

Luckily there is a better way. It begins not with a canvas but with a block of marble:

This Congregation encourages members and neighbors to celebrate their weddings in our building and property. Our purposes in doing so are to support faithful marriages, build relationships, and produce revenue to support our work. To these ends, the Board hereby delegates all authority to manage weddings held in our building to a volunteer Wedding Manager appointed and supervised by the Minister. The Wedding Manager may make all decisions related to weddings except as limited expressly by these policies.

This policy starts not with answers to specific questions, but with a clear statement of purpose and by naming the person who will hold authority—all authority—in this area. Having done this, the board could stop. If it trusts the judgment of the people it has put in charge, it could simply expect them make reasonable decisions under the policy. Or it may prefer to chip away at the authority it granted:

• The Wedding Manager must be impartial in scheduling weddings, giving prior claims priority over later ones and close relatives of church members priority over nonmembers. Discrimination based on race, ethnic origin, sex, or the genders of the parties is not allowed.
• The Wedding Manager must publish a uniform schedule of fees for close relatives of church members that cover the church’s costs, and for nonmembers that provide for a substantial additional contribution to the church.

That’s a start. The board has stated some of its core values—fairness and nondiscrimination—and its expectation that nonmembers will contribute to the congregation’s overall support, as members do. The Wedding Manager is not free to violate those values—the contours of the sculpture become clearer.

Are We Done Yet?

At that point, once again, the board might rest, like God on the Sabbath, and ask, “Have we now said enough that we can trust our Wedding Manager (and her supervisor the Senior Minister) to manage weddings in a way that fits our purpose and our values?” If so, they can stop. If not, they might ask what policies they might need to add.

The board might even go on to set fees, draw boundaries on the floor plan, require liability insurance, and require certain words to be included in the ceremony. Or they might not! In which case the Wedding Manager will make and be accountable for those decisions.

What is “Leakproof” about these policies? They ensure that rain or shine, someone is responsible for making all decisions quickly and close to the action. The Leakproof approach to policy, once it is understood by board members, staff, and volunteers, opens space for creativity. The work continues: People can get married. The congregation can get revenue. No one has to wait for a board meeting.

The Wedding Manager is empowered—and expected—to make all decisions. Because she has been given clear authority, she can be held accountable for its use. Accountability is possible only when authority is clear.

These wedding policies do implicitly reserve certain decisions for the board to make. For instance, the Wedding Manager is not permitted to prohibit same-sex marriages, so anyone who wants to do so needs to ask the board to change its policy.

Elsewhere in the policies, the board will set limits on spending, normally by use of an annual budget and a process for adjusting budget lines in the course of the year. Such policies, and others about health and safety, respectful behavior, and public communication, apply to everyone in leadership.

A Test for the Board

It’s worth noting that no matter what the policy says, sooner or later someone will show up at a board meeting to complain about something that the Wedding Manager did. This moment is an important test for the board. A well-disciplined board confines its conversation strictly to two questions:

• Was our policy violated? (If so, that is a disciplinary issue for the Wedding Manager, to be addressed by her supervisor.)
• Do we need to add a policy we do not have, or change one that we do have? (Then, and only then, does the board add an item to its own agenda.)

This way takes discipline, because most boards have a history of acting like appellate courts, deciding cases as they come, rather than repairing and improving policies.

Leakproof policies begin with a much bolder grant of power than your board may be accustomed to. But starting this way does not mean more power is ultimately granted. That depends on how much marble the board chips away—how many values, goals, and guardrails it chooses to impose. Boards can always come back and fix policies that turn out not to be so leakproof after all.

But in the meantime, Leakproof policies protect the congregation from a plodding process that slows the work of staff and volunteers, clouds accountability, and distracts the board from its most useful focus, which is not to manage daily work but to clarify the congregation’s goals and values and to shape its future.