Guidelines and composition

Responsibilities, composition, appointment and functioning of the board are defined in the statutes of the Net4kids Aid Foundation, the Net4kids Organisation and the Net4kids Continuity Fund. The board for each of these three foundations is identical, from function to resignation schedule. The decision was made to staff the three boards with the same individuals for practical reasons. There are no formal requirements to do this any differently.

In 2007, the board consisted of the following five individuals:

1. Loek van den Boog, Chairman

  • CEO Cordys BV (until 1 August 2007).
  • Executive Director Patni Computers systems LTD., India.
  • Executive Director Virtual Ventures B.V..
  • Chairman of the Board of Directors of Global Collect B.V..
  • Chairman of the Board of Directors of Human Inference B.V..
  • Member of the Board of Directors of Patni Computer Systems Ltd..
  • Member of the Board of Directors of Purple Labs S.A..

2. Anke van den Boog, Secretary

  • No other positions.

3. Pieter Klaas Jonker, Treasurer and supervisory member

  • Executive Director, Accountancy Drs. P.K. Jonker B.V..

4. Peter Willemse, board member

  • Power of Attorney for Deloitte Belastingadviseurs B.V..

5. Veronika Uhl, board member

  • Executive Director, Himmelblau Marketing Project Management.

New board members are nominated by the board for a four-year term, and may be re-appointed ad infinitum.

Changes to the board

  • Pieter Jonker volunteered for a second term and was re-elected in 2007 with general votes.
  • Ton aan de Stegge joined the board of all three above-mentioned foundations, effective 9 January 2008.
  • Veronika Uhl and Anke van den Boog stepped down on said date.
  • The decision was made not to fill the position of a fifth board member.

The terms of office for board members now end on the following dates:

  • March 2008: Peter Willemse (since re-elected for a second term).
  • March 2009: Loek van den Boog.
  • March 2011: Piet Jonker and Ton aan de Stegge.

Transparency
In 2007, Anke and Loek van den Boog, spouses and founders of Net4kids, were both members of the board. This is in contravention of guideline 5.5. subparagraph f of the Good Governance Guidelines for Charities (Code Goed Bestuur Goede Doelen). The board accepted this situation, as they did not form a majority in the board. However, this situation is not desirable in the longer term. Therefore, Anke van den Boog stepped down from the board effective 9 January 2008. Net4kids now fulfils the requirements of the Code Goed Bestuur on this point.

Administrative and supervisory boards
In 2007, Loek van den Boog, Veronika Uhl and Anke van den Boog were members of both the board and the management team. This is not a desirable situation; the three board members are effectively supervising themselves. Therefore, Net4kids completely separated the supervisory board and administrative board. Loek van den Boog will be the chairman of the supervisory board starting 9 January 2008, and has given up his position in the administrative board. Veronika Uhl and Anke van den Boog have positions in the administrative management.

Regulations
No regulations have been drafted describing the powers of the supervisory and administrative boards. In 2008, this point of action will be addressed again within the framework of documentation and registration.

Authorisations
The board determines the policy to be followed and defines the budget. Two board members are jointly authorised to commit the foundation. Deviations from the budget are discussed by the board as soon as they become apparent. At the end of each year, the board reports on their work in the annual report, and defines the annual account. The annual account is checked by an external accountant.

Reimbursement
All members of the board are unsalaried. Of the members of the administrative management team, only Veronika Uhl received remuneration of €44,175 in 2007, not for her board activities, but for her efforts as Programme Manager.

Guidelines
Donors often look for the CBF Keur, the quality mark of the Central Fundraising Agency (Centraal Bureau Fondsenwerving). We have made the conscious decision not to apply for the CBF quality mark. The transparency propagated by the CBF is already anchored in our business model. Where the CBF adheres to the guideline that no more than 25% of donations must be spent on fundraising, we explicitly guarantee donors that a full 100% of their donations will go to the child aid project of their choosing. Additionally, the CBF does not check whether funds reach their stated goal, but bases her judgement on information provided by the fundraisers. The impact of the donations – the effect the money has – is not investigated by the CBF. All of these issues are things we want to address differently.

What we do wholeheartedly support is the Code Goed Bestuur voor Goede Doelen (Good Governance Guidelines for Charities), drafted by the Wijffells Committee in 2005. The board of the Net4kids Aid Foundation aims to fulfil the requirements set insofar as they are feasible for a smaller organisation. We do our utmost to meet the requirements the guidelines. Within this framework, we like to quote Mr Wijffels himself: “Transparency is an intrinsic part of the Net4kids model… this offers an implicit quality guarantee.”
           
However, we do not sufficiently address some of the guidelines. The guidelines in question mostly relate to documentation of policy regarding volunteers, finances, communication and checks. The goal is to address these points in the implementation of the next phase for Net4kids.