🏛️ What We Do

Membership on the the Board of Directors of DREAMS Center for Arts Education is an honor that requires knowledge, commitment, time, and attendance at board meetings. We are committed to diversity and inclusion in our recruitment and engagement of diverse board members.

✅ Expectation of the Board as a Whole

The mission of DREAMS of Wimington to build creative, committed citizens, one child at a time, through providing youth in need with high-quality, free-of-charge programming in the literary, visual multimedia, and performing arts.

As the highest leadership body of the organization and to satisfy its fiduciary duties, the board is responsible for:

Determining the mission and purposes of the organization
Selecting and evaluating performance of the executive director
Strategic and organizational planning
Ensuring strong fiduciary oversight and financial management
Fundraising and resource development
Approving and monitoring DREAMS’ programs and services
Enhancing DREAMS’ public image
Assessing its own performance as the governing body of DREAMS Center for Arts Education

✅ Expectations of Individual Board Members

Each individual board member is expected to:

Know the organization’s mission, policies, programs, and needs
Faithfully read and understand the organization’s financial statements
Serve as active advocates and ambassadors for the organization and fully engage in identifying and securing the financial resources and partnership necessary for DREAMS to advance its mission
Leverage connections, networks, and resources to develop collective action to fully achieve DREAMS’ mission
Give a meaningful personal financial donation
Help identify personal connections that can benefit the organization’s fundraising and repetitional standing, and can influence public policy
Prepare for, attend, and conscientiously participate in board meetings
Participate fully in one or more committees

⭐ Additional Board Expectations

Follow the organization’s bylaws, policies, and board resolutions
Sign an annual conflict-of-interest disclosure and update it during the year if necessary, as well as disclose potential conflicts before meeting and actual conflict during meetings
Maintain confidentiality about all internal matters of DREAMS

🕰️ Board Service Requirements and Term Expectations

The Board of Directors ordinarily meets at 5:30 p.m. on the third Wednesday of each month. It is expected that board members serve on committees, participate in board functions, attend board meetings regularly and demonstrate commitment and involvement in Board/DREAMS functions. Members must attend a minimum of nine meetings per year to maintain board membership. Our board now utilizes consent agendas. Board members must commit to reading all board materials before approving consent agendas at meetings.

The term of service for a Board Member is three years. At the end of three years, a Member may choose, with Board approval, to serve for another term or to leave the Board of Directors.

No group of people should display greater commitment to DREAMS than its Board Members. Bi-annually we complete a board self-assessment. As individuals, who have agreed to serve the organization in a number of ways, board members must set the tone for others–people in the community, funders, and constituents. Board Members should support the organization in spirit, encouraging others to be as enthusiastic about its programs and activities as they are.

🤝 The Board-Management Relationship

Board's Roles

Select, evaluate, and support the Executive Director

Mangement's Roles

Run the organization in line with board direction
Keep the board educated and informed
Seek the board’s counsel

Approve high-level organizational goals and policies.In its role as an oversight body, the nonprofit board sets and confirms policies that govern how the organization will be managed. In cases where a nonprofit employs professional staff, the board is not involved in direct management of the organization.

Recommend goals and policies, supported by background information

Make major decisions

Frame decisions in the context of the mission and strategic vision, and bring the board well-documented recommendations

Oversee management and organizational performance

Bring the board timely information in concise, contextual, or comparative formats
Communicate with candor and transparency
Be responsive to requests for additional information

Act as external advocates and diplomats in public policy, fundraising, and stakeholder/community relations

Keep the board informed, bring recommendations, and mobilize directors to leverage their external connections to support the organization

🪄 Governance Principles

Summary

Nonprofit board members oversee an organization’s policy and activities. They are responsible for assuring that the organization’s work is consistent with its mission and that it complies with applicable laws. By carrying out the duties of care, obedience, and loyalty, board members help to ensure that a nonprofit uses accountable practices, develops strategies that will lead to success and sustainability, and operates in fulfillment of mission goals. Board members are also expected to make financial contributions and to utilize their personal networks to bring financial and other resources to enable the organization to achieve its mission.

💡 Fiduciary Duties: Care, Loyalty, Obedience

While the board is not usually involved in the day-to-day activities of the organization, it is responsible for managing the organization and making important decisions, such as adding or removing board members, hiring and firing key officers and employees (more specifically, the executive director), engaging auditors and other professionals, as well as authorizing significant financial transactions and new program initiatives. In carrying out those responsibilities, members of a board of directors are fulfilling their fiduciary duties to the organization and the public it serves.

Nonprofit board members have three fundamental areas of legal and fiduciary responsibility, often referred to as the duty of care, duty of loyalty, and duty of obedience.

❤️ Duty of Care

The duty of care requires that a nonprofit board member participate actively in governance and oversight of an organization’s activities. This includes attending board and committee meetings, reviewing and understanding the organization’s financial documents, helping to frame strategic plans, identifying and managing risks as well as opportunities, and taking prudent steps to advance the organization’s mission goals.

👑 Duty of Loyalty

The duty of loyalty requires that a nonprofit board member act in the best interest of the organization at all times. This includes identifying and disclosing potential conflicts of interest before joining the board, and when they arise. When a potential conflict exists, board members must follow conflict of interest management steps as mandated by law and recommended in good governance guidelines. (Note: New York State law requires that all nonprofits have a written Conflict of Interest Policy.)

🚨 Duty of Obedience

The duty of obedience requires that a nonprofit board member work to ensure that the organization complies with applicable laws and regulations, acts in accordance with its own policies, and carries out its mission appropriately. Board members should ensure that their organization carries out its purpose and does not engage in unauthorized activities.

*Nonprofits in New York State are regulated by the NYS Charities Bureau. Please refer to the Charities Bureau’s publication, Right From the Start, for more information on how boards of directors of not-for-profit corporations and trustees of charitable trusts understand and carry out their fiduciary responsibilities to the organizations they serve.