RE: Board Minutes

Hi Rachelle,

In certain circumstances even a private non-profit may be obliged to provide board minutes.  We are a non-profit, membership organization, with a board of directors elected by the membership.

We had a member who felt our money was not being spent wisely and thus our employees were not being paid as well as they might have been. He requested board minutes, annual reports, and I think audits and some other financial reports. We provided only the information our attorneys felt was required under the laws governing our sort of organization. The member felt that was not enough, since we should be subject to other laws for public entities since we received some grant funding from government sources.  So, he took us to court.

This case was further complicated by the fact that he had once done some preliminary research in the Archives with the intention of writing a dissertation on our organization. He never followed through with it, but he claimed he had more access than he did. Luckily, I still had correspondence and other information regarding what he saw in the Archives, so that helped our case.

The upshot of the court case was that we needed to supply board minutes, but only to members, and some financial information if it was included in the regular board packet which accompanies board meetings.

Our board then developed a formal policy as to what was available, to whom, and the way to request this information. Employees have access to these same things upon request.

Hope this helps.

Kit Leary
Oregon Shakespeare Festival
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www.osfashland.org