Welcome to the Advanced RCO Bootcamp. If you are here, you have already done the foundational work of building or leading a recovery community organization. This part builds on that foundation, so we are not starting from scratch.

What we are doing is going deeper. Board development and governance are areas where many organizations operate on institutional muscle memory, doing things the way they have always been done because no one has stopped to ask whether it still works. This part is that stop.

We will examine the structures and relationships that either hold an organization together or quietly pull it apart: bylaws, the board’s role in fundraising, the relationship between the Executive Director and the Board Chair, and how governance needs to shift as an organization grows and changes. None of this is theoretical. These are the conversations that happen in parking lots after board meetings and in late-night emails between a frustrated ED and a well-meaning board chair who are not quite on the same page.

By the end of this part, you will have a clearer picture of where your governance is strong and where it needs work. Take the pre-test before you begin, not to be graded, but to give yourself a baseline. You will take the same questions again at the end, and the difference is the point.