Tips for Improving Board-Staff Interaction at Corporate Foundations

Making the Most of Corporate Foundation Boards: Strategies and Practices
by Laurie Regelbrugge

A foundation staff’s ability to work effectively with its board is probably the most important factor in the survival and success of a corporate foundation, writes Laurie Regelbrugge in this book’s introduction.

Ms. Regelbrugge, manager of Unocal Corporation’s foundation, in El Segundo, Calif., fills this book with strategies and techniques for better board-staff interaction, drawn from interviews, research, and personal experience. Those approaches include tips for conducting productive and engaging meetings, and ideas for maintaining good relationships between board and staff members, such as defining roles and responsibilities more clearly and maintaining regular communications between the two groups. The book also describes five common approaches for board involvement in corporate foundations, each with its advantages and limitations.

Most chapters include a “Do and Don’t” section, and some provide supporting tabular information and sample documents.

Publisher: Council on Foundations, 1828 L Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036-5168; (202) 466-6512; fax (202) 785-3926; http://www.cof.org; 104 pages; $75 for members, $120 for nonmembers.