Working with Your Board: Building Engagement, Understanding and Capability

Many foundations rely on engaged and informed boards to help guide strategy, oversee governance and support effective philanthropy. But building trustee engagement, understanding and capability can be challenging, particularly as foundations navigate increasingly complex decisions and changing community expectations.

This session will move beyond governance structures and explore the everyday realities of working with boards and trustees. Drawing on the experience of our group, we will examine how foundations are:
• building board engagement,
• strengthening trustee understanding of the communities and organisations they support, and
• navigating the tensions that can arise between governance, risk and effective philanthropy.

The focus will be practical and experience-led: what are we actually doing, what is working well, where are the challenges, and what lessons have we learned along the way?

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This session is part of the Lean Funders Peer Learning Circle — a small, ongoing peer group for staff of small private and family foundations (typically organisations with one or two staff).

Unlike larger Peer Networks or one‑off events, the Circle is deliberately limited in size and designed for consistent participation. Members commit to regular attendance, creating a trusted space for honest, experience‑led discussion about the practical realities of grantmaking in lean teams.

If you are a PA member who is a lean funder and is interested in becoming an ongoing member of this Learning Circle, please contact Peer Network Lead, Mary Chackola.