Conflicts of Interest: Sitting on a Barbed-Wire Fence

Jack B. Siegel, Charity Governance Consulting LLC

Can conflicts of interest be managed? Some boards have believed so and their organizations paid a heavy price.

This session will examine:

• four categories of conflicts
• the correlation between conflicts and poor governance
• why standard conflict validation procedures often don’t solve the problems with conflicts
• tax issues, including Form 990 reporting
• public, media, and employee perceptions
• how a board should go about developing a conflicts-of-interest policy and what issues should be addressed by the policy.

The session also will consider conflicts involving attorneys who simultaneously serve as board members and legal counsel, conflicts in compensating outside investment and compensation consultants, and conflicts involving a nonprofit’s outside auditors. The discussion will rely on examples, providing the audience with the opportunity to engage in what should be a lively discussion.

List of Sessions