NGO Governance Platform Project
Background
For a long time, NGO board members have contributed their time, knowledge and experience voluntarily. Governing boards of organizations assumes an extremely important role in driving the development of not just respective organizations, but social welfare sector. As the society evolves ever quicker and faces more rapid changes and even more complex problems, public expectation on NGOs’ transparency, accountability and service quality have become increasingly high. Facing these expectations and demands, NGO boards have great responsibilities to enhance organization governance so as to improve service quality, in turn increasing public trust and support for the organization, and adding positive momentum to the development of social welfare and the society at large. Supported by The Lotteries Fund , HKCSS introduced a four-year pilot program in April 2016 to build an NGO governance platform, to encourage NGO board members from a diverse background to interact, share and learn from each other.
Program Objectives
- Facilitate experience sharing and exchange among NGO governing bodies to encourage mutual learning and promote best practices.
- Develop a knowledge portal on NGO governance accessible to NGO board members so as to promote their continuous professional development.
Main Activities
- Building a knowledge portal
We will build an online knowledge portal for accessing information of the sharing sessions, seminars, conferences and research aforementioned. Also, we will collect local and overseas materials to facilitate mutual learning. All these could be useful for developing a set of reference tools for local NGOs.
- Research
We will collaborate with scholars and research institutes to study NGO governance in Hong Kong, providing theoretical and empirical bases to the Project’s work.
- Visitation
Together with project partners, we will visit and interact with NGO boards, introducing the Project to their directors and understanding their concerns.
- Networking
We will organize social gatherings and meetings around specific themes of organizations’ concerns, for NGO board members to know, support and learn from each other, gradually forming a network among them.
- Professional exchange
We will organize thematic seminars, local and international conferences regularly, at which experts will share about knowledge about new laws and regulations, local and overseas experiences.
- Training
We will provide training tailored for NGO board members, on one hand supporting current board members with their continuous professional development, and on the other hand providing learning opportunities for persons interested in serving the NGO sector.
