Purpose + Role

FCCP is a fiscally-sponsored project. The sponsor maintains legal, governing and financial responsibility for the project’s activities. FCCP is a membership-driven project. Its membership elects an Advisory Board to oversee the project’s strategy and the successful implementation of its goals. The Advisory Board provides ongoing support to the members and to the FCCP Executive Director. It is the responsibility and duty of the FCCP staff and Advisory Board to serve as delegates of the intention of the membership.

The Advisory Board partners with the FCCP Executive Director to:

• Set priorities and project direction; provide guidance on program implementation

• Finalize budgets for submission to FCCP’s fiscal sponsor

• Review major expenditures that result in budget adjustments

• Secure resources for FCCP via membership-recruitment, core-support and project-based fundraising as well as direct grants or gifts to FCCP

• Communicate proactively with members about FCCP priorities, strategies and needs

• Serve as ambassadors for FCCP and its membership to a broader grantmaking community

• Advise staff on an as-needed basis in the implementation of programs and operations that meet the goals of FCCP and its annual plan(s)

Simultaneously, the Advisory Board engages with FCCP’s fiscal sponsor to:

• As needed, clarify and communicate member priorities and expectations

• As needed, review fiscal-sponsorship agreements, services, fees and policies

• Annually, evaluate the performance of the Executive Director

• As needed, recommend human-resource actions up to and including Executive Director hiring, compensation (including adjustments), dismissal and staff transition plans

All legal, financial and formal governing authorities rest with the FCCP’s fiscal sponsor. FCCP expects its sponsor to take its relationship with FCCP’s donors, leaders and members seriously. This includes an expectation of responsiveness and open dialogue about the needs of the project as communicated by the Executive Director and the Advisory Board, who represent the stated interests of FCCP’s donors (which FCCP refers to as ‘members’).

Composition

The Advisory Board bears significant responsibility to FCCP’s members, its staff and fiscal sponsor. To effectively execute its duties and meet its purpose, the Advisory Board:

• Is selected from among FCCP’s active members who are in good standing, and approved by those members via a roll-call consent vote

• Seeks diversity among its members in order to ensure that a range of skills, perspectives, opinions, grantmaking structures (e.g. private and public foundations, donor advisors, pooled funds, individual donors, etc.), roles, geographic regions and grantmaking strategies related to FCCP’s mission are reflected in the priorities and work of the organization

• Promotes equity in its composition by ensuring that FCCP’s leadership includes the active participation of women, people of color, people who identify as LGBT and FCCP members whose organizational and/or individual giving is comparatively less than that of other member institutions

• Reflects the principle of adaptive leadership – specifically, that the body as a whole leads meaningful change at FCCP by successfully understanding, prioritizing and responding to changing dynamics in a variety of relevant fields (including, but not limited to, democracy, advocacy, voter engagement, philanthropy, social science and more)

Advisory Role

All members of the Advisory Board are Advisors. Each Advisor is expected to be well-informed about and supportive of the vision, mission, strategies and programs of the Funders’ Committee for Civic Participation. In general, Advisors expect to spend five hours per month – often during office hours – performing Advisory Board work including but not limited to performance of the following:

• Participating actively on committees and task forces

• Participating in and preparing for Advisory Board meetings and calls

• Recruiting new members and otherwise raising / securing resources for FCCP

• Communicating with, retaining and otherwise engaging existing members of FCCP

• Identifying and fostering future leaders in democracy, voter-engagement and civic-engagement philanthropy

• Periodically assessing one’s own performance and that of the Advisory Board as a whole

• Conducting other tasks that may from time to time be required for the purposes of advancing FCCP’s mission and vision

The Advisory Board gathers quarterly; at least one meeting every year is conducted in person. Advisors are expected to make all reasonable efforts to attend meetings of the Advisory Board. Separately, Advisors are asked to participate actively in FCCP programming to engage with FCCP’s members, staff and ongoing growth.

See who currently serves on the FCCP Advisory Board.