Programs Committees

Vast majority of content in this topic applies to for-profits and nonprofits. This book also covers this topic.

Developing, Operating and Restoring Your Nonprofit Board - Book Cover

Overview of a Programs Committee

This Committee provides guidance, oversight and support to ensure high-quality programs and services. Typical recurring annual goals might be to ensure:

Each program has goals and services that are designed to meet verified needs in the community, achieve desired outcomes among specific groups of clients, and be in accordance with the mission. This could include identifying collaborators, competitors, pricing, etc., for each program.
Each program is fully resourced to deliver desired services.
Each program is evaluated to verify that desired outcomes are achieved.
The process in each program is evaluated to achieve continuous improvement.
Operations of each program remain effective and efficient.

The Committee should have a work plan that itemizes these, or very similar, annual goals and also associated objectives with each goal such that when the objectives are achieved in total, they also will have achieved its respective goal. When committees do not have work plans, they often flounder in finding valuable and focused means to provide value to the Board. Unfortunately, in these situations, many Board mistakenly conclude that "committees do not work", or they reduce the number of committees, thinking that inactive committees were because there were too many -- rather than realizing that committees can be extremely useful when focused on the most important annual recurring goals.

Additional Perspectives on Programs Committees

Programs Committee sample
Running a program committee meeting
Program Committee scroll down
Programs Committee (scroll down)

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