Centre Social Governance

The GUBERNA Centre Social Governance aims to add value for all types of social profit organisations using good governance best practices. Good governance in social profit organisations has to do with the way power and organisational processes are managed to achieve their mission and obtain social impact in the collective interest of all stakeholders (members, beneficiary groups, subsidising government, donors, etc.).

Since best governance practices in social profit organisations tend to differ strongly from one another, GUBERNA decided to start initiatives for the specific sectors that these organisations are active in. The hospital sector, for example, was given a specific place within the centre. In addition, GUBERNA has developed (or has participated in) different projects to help social profit organisations achieve their mission and social impact in the best possible way.

Membership for social profit organisations

This membership offers different advantages and pricing benefits for small social profit organisation and their board members.

Discover the social profit membership

Social Governance Academy

In order to continue the King Baudouin Foundation’s initiatives and contribute to the execution of these recommendations, four partners (GUBERNA, Curia, Hefboom en Crédal) joined forces. Thanks to prof. Marleen Denef's (CURIA) proactivity, the Social Governance Academy (SGA) was started, a centre that gives the necessary support to social profit organisations to carry out recommendations with their organisation. In 2011 and 2012 the Social Governance Academy organised hands-on workshops to help organisations and to establish the conditions for good governance.

In order to build trust and maintain integrity, GUBERNA emphasizes the importance of a strong governance framework that aligns with the organization's values and goals.

Werner Sels - CEO, Ondernemen Zonder Grenzen

Our services

Like the other centres of expertise, GUBERNA regularly carries out tailor-made services for social profit organisations. Please see a few of our specific services below:

Evaluation of the board Incompany training Developing or revising your governance charter

Webinars corporate governance in the social profit sector.

With the support of the Belgian National Lottery and its players, we have made a webinar series, each about 20 minutes long. In each video, we and actors active in social profit organisations take a closer look at the essential elements of the board.

Hospital governance forum

The Hospital Governance Forum is a GUBERNA initiative that was launched in 2019. Our goal with this forum is to actively bring together the hospital sector. This platform allows hospital board members to share their governance experience with their peers. Given the changing nature of this sector, we also focus on developing initiatives and tools that help board members overcome the challenges they face.

Specifically, the Hospital Governance Forum comes together twice per year to discuss a specific governance topic. To start the session, a GUBERNA member shares a case, followed by a discussion on this case amongst peers. GUBERNA may publish a report about the discussed topic (available under ‘publications’ on the website). Due to the recent federal law that hospitals are required to form a hospital network, which leads to specific governance questions, this has become central in all topics that are discussed during the meetings.

Are you a GUBERNA member? Then, the Hospital Governance Forum might be for you. Simply send an email to social@guberna.be to receive an invitation for the next Hospital Governance meeting. Registration is on a first come, first serve basis.

Recommendations

Thanks to the King Baudouin Foundation, a steering group was organised of about 20 people in the social profit sector (president, board members and directors from various subsectors) to write recommendations for governance in social profit organisations (SPO’s). The members of the steering group all participated under their own name. With these recommendations, the King Baudouin Foundation wanted to provide support to organisations to ask the right governance questions.

The 8 initiatives proposed are for associations, foundations and other organisations in the social profit sector. They encourage organisations to initiate conversations about starting and continuing good governance practices, while taking the specific needs of the organisation into account. Every recommendation includes more detailed guidelines for practical application.

With this initiative the King Baudouin Foundation wants to make governing SPO’s more attractive by strengthening the position of board members and by giving them guidelines to fall back on. In this way, is may be easier for board members to find voluntary or engaged board members.