This article about governance, like many of the articles I’ve written for this column, is merely a starting point for conversations within your own community. It is through such engagement that you will find the answers you need for your particular sangha.
Governance 101
If you are charitable organization in North America, you are required by law to have a board of directors. This law ensures the organization will have a governing body that oversees operations, serves the public interest as a not-for-profit, and complies with applicable laws and regulations.
The role of governance is to provide the stewardship, sense-making, and foresight that advance an organization’s purpose. Governance leaders take responsibility for building and sustaining stakeholders’ confidence in the organization’s integrity, legitimacy, and viability as well as for the impacts it has on the larger ecosystem in which it operates.
Boards are ideally focused more on the strategic big-picture level and less on day-to-day operational details. It’s true that boards of small grassroots organizations often do a combination of both—especially in the absence of any paid staff—but when they unlock the front door and set out the cushions, they are doing so more as volunteers who happen to be on the board rather than as board members per se. The goal should be to aspire more toward governance and less toward day-to-day operations. It’s the difference between acknowledging the reality that board members of grassroots organizations wear many hats versus “endorsing” or “encouraging” the idea that the job of a board member is day-to-day operations. It really isn’t.
The key responsibilities of all boards comprise board operations, fiduciary responsibility for finance and revenue, oversight and policy, vision and direction, and being ambassadors for the organization. These can be expressed as three overarching duties:
• Duty of Care: attending meetings regularly; staying informed; making thoughtful, independent decisions; and overseeing programs, finances, and compliance.
• Duty of Loyalty: avoiding conflicts of interest; disclosing potential conflicts; maintaining confidentiality; and acting solely in the organization’s best interest.
• Duty of Obedience: following the organization’s mission and bylaws; complying with laws and regulations; ensuring activities align with the mission; and respecting donor intent and restrictions.
Three other aspects of governance are also important to consider: organizational culture, stakeholder engagement, and risk management.
Regarding culture, the board of directors: provides leadership in setting and communicating shared values, ethical standards, and desired organizational behaviors; confirms that they are reflected in all the ways the organization works; ensures the strategies are developed and implemented to attract, retain, and grow the right resources (e.g., financial, people, infrastructure and social capital) for achieving the organization’s purpose; and determines that the resources are mobilized effectively.
Regarding engagement, the board of directors: ensures the strategies and processes are in place to meaningfully engage the right internal and external stakeholders, including community partners, in advancing the organization’s purpose; designs the organization’s governance framework (e.g., accountabilities, assignment of roles, and principles driving governance decision-making); and continuously measures its performance, adapting the design to changing circumstances as needed.
Some of the issues or problems that arise in sanghas stem from—or are complicated by—the deference given to teachers, priests and abbots by their sanghas, including their boards, rather than independent thinking, due diligence and, on occasion, saying, “We hear you teacher but we see it otherwise.” It’s a close partnership, of course, and often the teacher is on the board, but they are only one member and should not be afforded free rein without oversight and critical thinking from others.
In preparing this article, I also consulted Alex Lowy, one of the Principals at the Transcend Strategy Group in Toronto, who has extensive experience advising religious groups. He corroborated Thomas Bruner’s approach and also pointed out that effective governance seeks to avoid or mitigate negative trends.
Regarding risk management, also important is the identification and occasional monitoring of risks, including financial, reputational, informational and human. It’s the flip side of what a board is responsible for making possible; ensuring that problems of various kinds are anticipated and if need be, prevented. What are our exposures? What could go wrong that would hurt us? What do we need to do to avoid this happening? Who is responsible for this? that sort of thing.
As daunting as all of this may seem, the good news is that there are many excellent free resources online to educate you on your governance journey.
Governance for Buddhist organizations
If you research governance and Buddhism specifically, you will quickly discover that there is very little out there. Although Buddhism purports to be a pragmatic guide to a good life, you are more likely to find a plethora of resources on such abstruse topics as the nature of Tathagatagarbha and a paucity about how to run a healthy Buddhist center. In researching resources for this article, I found nothing directly relevant other than an article I wrote last year for Lion’s Roar, titled “Post-charismatic Buddhism and the sangha crisis nobody seems to be talking about.” That is why the basics of governance are spelled out in the above introduction.
There are a few articles dealing with Buddhist perspectives on good government, such as “The Buddhist ideals of good governance,” a 2018 article from Buddhistdoor Global. However, the focus is on nation states, not how to manage a Buddhist center.
One of the only books on governance at a grassroots level, A Thousand Hands: A Guidebook to Caring for Your Buddhist Community, edited by Nathan Jishin Michon and Daniel Clarkson Fisher (Sumeru 2016), is an anthology of 50 chapters by a variety of Buddhist community leaders, covering a spectrum of subjects as diverse as working with ourselves (six chapters), working with others (30 chapters), and working with communities (14 chapters).
Shakyamuni Buddha himself taught about good governance in his discourse on the Ten Virtues of Ideal Kingship, and the sangha he founded practiced egalitarian, deliberative democracy. The article “Buddhism and Deliberative Democracy” is a thought-provoking overview of self-government in that ancient community. That is an excellent place to begin. Bringing those perspectives into the modern era, I recommend Ajahn Brahm’s e-book, The Buddhist Contribution to Good Governance, based on a keynote speech he gave to the United Nations 2007 Vesak Celebrations in Thailand. His Holiness the Dalai Lama has also written about governance and democracy.
Running a Buddhist center should not be mysterious. In the best of all possible worlds, there would be many resources available on each aspect of governance, presented in a way that offers value to those community leaders. Instead, we find ourselves with many questions. For example:
• How do you right-size your board of directors to the size of your sangha?
• How and where do you recruit suitable board members?
• What are the duties and rights of staff members serving the community?
• What pathways are available for community members seeking greater involvement?
• Who is responsible for change management, and what is the strategic plan for that?
• What is the optimal relationship between your governance team and those of others in your lineage or larger network?
• How does the board function in relation to non-Buddhist charities, NGOs, and social enterprises in the same community?
• What policies, protocols, and procedures are applicable when things go off the rails, as in breaches of fiduciary duties?
• And so on.
In seeking answers to those questions, we must turn not just to foundational Buddhist texts as our North Star, but to the wide array of governance resources for charities, which, while not Buddhist, are certainly not contrary to the basic principles at play here.
Furthermore, sharing what we learn with others is a kind of dana. Assisting others by giving them the benefit of our experience, both the successes and the challenges, is a kind of maitri. These gifts can only expand our personal practice.
John Harvey Negru is publisher at The Sumeru Press, Canada’s largest independent Buddhist book publisher, and author most recently of Engaged Buddhism: 50 Collected Essays, Interviews, and Profiles 2020-2025 (Sumeru, Spring 2026). He has been involved in many Buddhist community development projects and environmental causes over the past 50 years, and has been a technological design educator for more than 25 years.
Many of the articles featured in this column are based on topics from his 2018 book, Bodhisattva 4.0: A Primer for Engaged Buddhists.
Bodhisattva 4.0 is published monthly.
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Centering Sangha, Part 3: Governance
This article about governance, like many of the articles I’ve written for this column, is merely a starting point for conversations within your own community. It is through such engagement that you will find the answers you need for your particular sangha.
Governance 101
If you are charitable organization in North America, you are required by law to have a board of directors. This law ensures the organization will have a governing body that oversees operations, serves the public interest as a not-for-profit, and complies with applicable laws and regulations.
The role of governance is to provide the stewardship, sense-making, and foresight that advance an organization’s purpose. Governance leaders take responsibility for building and sustaining stakeholders’ confidence in the organization’s integrity, legitimacy, and viability as well as for the impacts it has on the larger ecosystem in which it operates.
Boards are ideally focused more on the strategic big-picture level and less on day-to-day operational details. It’s true that boards of small grassroots organizations often do a combination of both—especially in the absence of any paid staff—but when they unlock the front door and set out the cushions, they are doing so more as volunteers who happen to be on the board rather than as board members per se. The goal should be to aspire more toward governance and less toward day-to-day operations. It’s the difference between acknowledging the reality that board members of grassroots organizations wear many hats versus “endorsing” or “encouraging” the idea that the job of a board member is day-to-day operations. It really isn’t.
The key responsibilities of all boards comprise board operations, fiduciary responsibility for finance and revenue, oversight and policy, vision and direction, and being ambassadors for the organization. These can be expressed as three overarching duties:
Three other aspects of governance are also important to consider: organizational culture, stakeholder engagement, and risk management.
Regarding culture, the board of directors: provides leadership in setting and communicating shared values, ethical standards, and desired organizational behaviors; confirms that they are reflected in all the ways the organization works; ensures the strategies are developed and implemented to attract, retain, and grow the right resources (e.g., financial, people, infrastructure and social capital) for achieving the organization’s purpose; and determines that the resources are mobilized effectively.
Regarding engagement, the board of directors: ensures the strategies and processes are in place to meaningfully engage the right internal and external stakeholders, including community partners, in advancing the organization’s purpose; designs the organization’s governance framework (e.g., accountabilities, assignment of roles, and principles driving governance decision-making); and continuously measures its performance, adapting the design to changing circumstances as needed.
Some of the issues or problems that arise in sanghas stem from—or are complicated by—the deference given to teachers, priests and abbots by their sanghas, including their boards, rather than independent thinking, due diligence and, on occasion, saying, “We hear you teacher but we see it otherwise.” It’s a close partnership, of course, and often the teacher is on the board, but they are only one member and should not be afforded free rein without oversight and critical thinking from others.
In preparing this article, I also consulted Alex Lowy, one of the Principals at the Transcend Strategy Group in Toronto, who has extensive experience advising religious groups. He corroborated Thomas Bruner’s approach and also pointed out that effective governance seeks to avoid or mitigate negative trends.
Regarding risk management, also important is the identification and occasional monitoring of risks, including financial, reputational, informational and human. It’s the flip side of what a board is responsible for making possible; ensuring that problems of various kinds are anticipated and if need be, prevented. What are our exposures? What could go wrong that would hurt us? What do we need to do to avoid this happening? Who is responsible for this? that sort of thing.
As daunting as all of this may seem, the good news is that there are many excellent free resources online to educate you on your governance journey.
Governance for Buddhist organizations
If you research governance and Buddhism specifically, you will quickly discover that there is very little out there. Although Buddhism purports to be a pragmatic guide to a good life, you are more likely to find a plethora of resources on such abstruse topics as the nature of Tathagatagarbha and a paucity about how to run a healthy Buddhist center. In researching resources for this article, I found nothing directly relevant other than an article I wrote last year for Lion’s Roar, titled “Post-charismatic Buddhism and the sangha crisis nobody seems to be talking about.” That is why the basics of governance are spelled out in the above introduction.
There are a few articles dealing with Buddhist perspectives on good government, such as “The Buddhist ideals of good governance,” a 2018 article from Buddhistdoor Global. However, the focus is on nation states, not how to manage a Buddhist center.
One of the only books on governance at a grassroots level, A Thousand Hands: A Guidebook to Caring for Your Buddhist Community, edited by Nathan Jishin Michon and Daniel Clarkson Fisher (Sumeru 2016), is an anthology of 50 chapters by a variety of Buddhist community leaders, covering a spectrum of subjects as diverse as working with ourselves (six chapters), working with others (30 chapters), and working with communities (14 chapters).
Shakyamuni Buddha himself taught about good governance in his discourse on the Ten Virtues of Ideal Kingship, and the sangha he founded practiced egalitarian, deliberative democracy. The article “Buddhism and Deliberative Democracy” is a thought-provoking overview of self-government in that ancient community. That is an excellent place to begin. Bringing those perspectives into the modern era, I recommend Ajahn Brahm’s e-book, The Buddhist Contribution to Good Governance, based on a keynote speech he gave to the United Nations 2007 Vesak Celebrations in Thailand. His Holiness the Dalai Lama has also written about governance and democracy.
Running a Buddhist center should not be mysterious. In the best of all possible worlds, there would be many resources available on each aspect of governance, presented in a way that offers value to those community leaders. Instead, we find ourselves with many questions. For example:
In seeking answers to those questions, we must turn not just to foundational Buddhist texts as our North Star, but to the wide array of governance resources for charities, which, while not Buddhist, are certainly not contrary to the basic principles at play here.
Furthermore, sharing what we learn with others is a kind of dana. Assisting others by giving them the benefit of our experience, both the successes and the challenges, is a kind of maitri. These gifts can only expand our personal practice.
See more
Post-charismatic Buddhism and the sangha crisis nobody seems to be talking about (Lion’s Roar)
The Buddhist ideals of good governance (BDG)
A Thousand Hands: A Guidebook to Caring for Your Buddhist Community (Sumeru Books)
Buddhism and deliberative democracy (The Immanent Frame)
The Buddhist Contribution to Good Governance (Buddhist Society of Western Australia)
Buddhism and Democracy (His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama)
Related features from BDG
Buddhist Ideas on the Psychological Root Causes of Disputes and Conflicts
Buddhistdoor View: Rooting Out the Rot—Removing Corruption and Complacency in the Sangha
An Olive Branch: Reaching Out to Those Affected by Abuse in Buddhist Sanghas
Re-envisioning the Lay Practitioner’s Vocation in Contemporary Buddhism
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