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. 

Our objectives for 2022

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.

Interview met Jannie Haek, CEO Nationale Loterij

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. 

 

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Questions? Contact us!

Heeft u suggesties, projecten of vragen? Wij staan klaar om u verder te helpen.

Ewout Görtz

ewout.gortz@guberna.be

+324 91 59 84 27

Publications for social profit organisations

Cyber-Risk Oversight

The ISA’s cyber-risk handbooks are an attempt to provide Board members with a simple and coherent framework to understand cyber risk, as well as a series of straight-forward questions for Boards to ask management to assure that their organisation is properly addressing its unique cyber-risk posture.

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Urgenda: how urgently should climate change be put on the agenda of the board?

On our first digital member forum onthe 21st of April we will reflect upon the impact of the Urgenda legal case on the accountability of companies. But what/who is Urgenda? Why is a court ruling on climate change against the Dutch government significant for Belgian companies? Which lessons can a board of directors take away from this case? And what will be the impact of the current COVID-19 crisis on the climate debate?

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Multi-stakeholder governance in social organisations

Sociale ondernemingen zijn ondernemingen die sociale en maatschappelijke problemen, zoals armoede, sociale uitsluiting en ecologische problemen willen aanpakken en dit doen door het verhandelen van goederen en/of diensten. Ze onderscheiden zich van non-profit organisaties doordat ze hun financiële middelen verwerven via het uitoefenen van een ondernemingsactiviteit en niet (alleen) uit giften en subsidies. Ze onderscheiden zich van reguliere, commerciële organisaties omwille van het dominante sociale doel dat ze nastreven. Sociaal ondernemerschap krijgt in toenemende mate aandacht van beleidsmakers en academici als een middel om sociale en maatschappelijke problemen op te lossen.

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"Male, pale & stale” is dead, long live diversity!

The 'glass ceiling' is familiar to us all, as are the quota laws, because they are supposed to bring solace. For GUBERNA, however, this is not the focus. We are indeed a great advocate of more women in managerial positions and especially on boards of directors. It is not for nothing that we have been addressing this topic in our operations for a long time. The successful mentoring programme is one example of this. But gender is only one piece of the puzzle. 'Diversity' is the greater goal for GUBERNA.

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