ASET is governed by a Board of Trustees that includes 14 volunteer members and the ASET executive director. To reach any ASET Board member, visit the ASET board page.

In organizations of all kinds, good governance starts with the board of trustees. The board’s role and legal obligation is to oversee the administration (management) of the organization and ensure that the organization fulfills its mission. Good board members monitor, guide, and enable good management; they do not do it themselves. The board generally has decision-making powers regarding matters of policy, direction, strategy, and governance of the organization.

The governing body of a nonprofit must be made up entirely of people in a position to govern it—setting the strategic direction of the organization and overseeing management’s execution of the mission.

The board of a well-governed nonprofit organization, like the board of a well-governed profit-making company, will do all of the following:

• Formulate key corporate policies and strategic goals, focusing both on near-term and longer-term challenges and opportunities.
• Authorize major transactions or other actions.
• Oversee matters critical to the health of the organization— not decisions or approvals about specific matters, which is management’s role—but instead those involving fundamental matters such as the viability of its business model, the integrity of its internal systems and controls, and the accuracy of its financial statements.
• Evaluate and help manage risk.
• Steward the resources of the organization for the longer run, not just by carefully reviewing annual budgets and evaluating operations but also by encouraging foresight through several budget cycles, considering investments in light of future evolution, and planning for future capital needs.
• Mentor senior management, provide resources, advice and introductions to help facilitate operations.
• Similar to for-profit corporations, the power to control and oversee the management of the affairs and concerns of a nonprofit corporation is set forth in its corporate charter. Generally speaking, state law permits both kinds of corporations to self-direct significant allocations of power and responsibility, and then requires them to follow their own corporate governance and operational policies. The familiar fiduciary duties of care, loyalty, and obedience, undergird these requirements in both sectors.

Mission is what distinguishes nonprofits from their for-profit cousins: Nonprofits have missions instead of owners or shareholders. While the prime directive for board members of for-profit organizations is to ensure the highest possible value for owners, by contrast, nonprofit board members’ prime directive is mission fulfillment.

Board independence and board attention are of paramount importance in good nonprofit governance. The independence of the board is key because of the non-distribution constraint – nonprofits exist to serve the public interest, not to benefit owners or other private parties. Business or family relationships between the organization or its executives and a board member or her firm are frowned upon and should be strictly scrutinized under a conflict of interest policy administered by independent trustees.