About Our Board Of Directors

What Is A Tripartite Board?

A tripartite board is a governing body that is made up of three important groups: low-income community members, elected public officials, and community representatives from different backgrounds like education, healthcare, agriculture, business, and churches and other faith communities. This board structure ensures that we receive input from many different voices on important needs and programs that help communities grow and thrive. Tripartite boards govern community action agencies like Community Partnership that manage the Community Services Block Grant (CSBG), a government program started in 1964 to help people with low incomes improve their lives. Each group has a set number of members. Our board has twelve members. Four are elected public officials, four are from the important community groups, and four are low-income community members.

Including low-income members and members from important community groups ensures that community action agencies like us stay rooted in the grassroots traditions that founded the anti-poverty movement in the early 1960s. Even though ideas about how to solve poverty have changed over time, our board structure allows us to design programs and services which address the unique needs our communities face. It also allows us to attract people with the passion, knowledge, and resources to ensure our agency, and the communities we serve, blossom and thrive.

Tripartite boards must be transparent about financial decisions made by their organizations and about any potential conflicts of interest. Board members have a fiduciary duty (legal and ethical responsibilities) to act in the best interests of the organization and the people it serves. These duties include the duty of loyalty, which means that board members must prioritize our organization’s success over personal or professional interests, and duty of care, which requires board members to avoid actions which could cause harm to others. Board members must inform other board members and the organization if they cannot perform these duties, or if a conflict of interest exists.

Community Partnership’s board structure must comply with the federal law that governs the Community Services Block Grant. Our board fills empty seats according to the policies outlined in our bylaws.

We know there have been concerns raised in recent months by local elected officials. Over the coming weeks, we will be working to tell our story. Our board of directors is committed to transparency, and implementing best practices used by agencies like ours across the country. One best practice is making our board meeting minutes public. We have published our meeting minutes below starting in 2022, and we will be publishing all our meeting minutes moving forward once they have been reviewed and accepted by our board of directors.