DAVID Fishel tells an interesting story involving the chief executive of IBM and the music director of the English National Opera. Running Britain's first workshop for arts boards in the early 1990s, Fishel, a consultant, was approached by the chief executive, who admitted he was nervous about questioning artistic decisions.
"This guy's a serious corporate player running one of Britain's largest companies and he felt really uncertain about what's
kosher and not kosher in an arts boardroom," Fishel says.
"If he felt that way, a very confident person, you can imagine what the rest of the board members feel; they just don't know what the rules are."
Since that experience Fishel has become an authority on good governance in the not-for-profit sector, writing a book on the subject and establishing his own consultancy in Brisbane.
He established a new business arm, BoardConnect, last year following a pilot in 2008, and last month it secured funding from Arts Queensland. It offers free online resources, a telephone helpline, seminars and board audits provided at non-commercial rates. All consultations are confidential.
Fishel first got a feel for the boardroom as the manager of theatre companies in London and Liverpool. Government funding allowed him to undertake a tour to the US, where he visited arts organisations in five cities.
Two things quickly became clear: there was no one model for how boards should operate, and formal support mechanisms, such as the National Centre for Nonprofit Boards, were badly needed back home.
"Boards aren't handed down by God and you just get a good one or bad one. . . You can choose to make it good or bad depending on your behaviour and your effort," Fishel says.
Local participation would suggest organisations understand what's at stake: all but three of the 79 groups funded by Arts Queensland have used BoardConnect in some way.
Fishel says the priority for good governance is role clarity. When the boundaries aren't clear or there's friction between parties about who has the final say, the fallout can be spectacular.
Opera Australia's decision not to renew Simone Young's contract and the public meltdown between Meryl Tankard and the Australian Dance Theatre board are reminders of this difficult terrain.
"The board's there most importantly for the hard times, not for the good times," Fishel says.
"If things are going really well then you let the staff get on with it, if things are going really badly then the board must do something about it."
Fishel, who sits on the Queensland University of Technology Council, encourages potential board members to commit to one organisation at a time.
A notable exception is Brisbane accountant Brian Tucker, who provides pro bono auditing services to Aboriginal art centres across the country and has served on more than 40 not-for-profit boards over three decades.
His early experiences were less than glamorous: after his first board meeting at Brisbane's Institute of Modern Art in the mid-80s, he was rostered to babysit the gallery on a Saturday because there wasn't enough staff.
With almost all arts board members (including chairmen and women) volunteering their time, Tucker says an altruistic mindset is important.
"I'm sure there was a period where people went on boards because it looked good on their CV," he says.
"I think people now realise it's not a matter of going along and attending a meeting and having cheese and biscuits afterwards, it's a matter of actually working and not just at the board meeting."
Securing the right people at the right time continues to challenge many boards.
Fishel says he encourages organisations to write or amend their constitutions so that recruitment responsibilities are transferred to existing board members. They should also set short terms (usually two to three years) to promote planned turnover.
Chief executive of youth arts organisation Flipside Circus Deb Wilks says sorting out governance issues helps to attract the right candidates. Wilks enrolled in BoardConnect's excellence in governance program last September.
Flipside's participation follows a shift in its board composition after the organisation experienced rapid growth and cultural change. The program also provides subsidised access to expertise it couldn't otherwise afford (Wilks estimates the support received would cost $35,000 at commercial rates).
Flipside has since recruited a prominent Brisbane arts identity to the board, and put a strategic plan in place.
Tucker says once the right people have put their hands up, reporting relationships within and to a board need to be defined.
He recalls an organisation where the general manager and artistic director were on equal footing, leading to regular stoushes in the boardroom.
"When they had a disagreement between themselves the whole thing just fell apart because what you had was staff members then taking sides, and then the staff members started to lobby the board members."
Former Queensland deputy premier Joan Sheldon, who is chairwoman of the Queensland Ballet, says while it's not the job of a board to micromanage paid staff, it is the board's responsibility to balance vision with reality.
"It's not up to the board to sit there and give artistic direction, that's why you have an artistic director, but you can't have an artistic vision that cannot be fulfilled, or can be fulfilled to the financial detriment of the company," Sheldon says.
Arts organisations, she adds, need to be run like businesses. In QB's case, this has meant balancing the community benefits of regional touring with the income generated by popular seasonal productions in Brisbane such as The Nutcracker.
Diversifying income streams, particularly from corporate sponsors and philanthropy, also occupies an increasing amount of her board's time.
Fishel says arts organisations should look to the standards expected of corporate boards, including the due preparation and delivery of paperwork, and seek expert advice from multiple sources when making big decisions.
On the other side of the ledger, corporate boards could learn important lessons about diversity and effective community engagement from their not-for-profit counterparts, he says.
Over the next 12 months BoardConnect plans to expand nationally, after a Victorian pilot last year involving eight organisations.
