The Sponsor, the Students and the Chair
A 900-student international school charges $24,000 tuition, with 22% of families on financial aid. The board chair has negotiated a $600,000 gift from a regional mining company to fund a STEM and sustainability centre, with a naming agreement. The company is the subject of a government environmental enforcement action and a long-running land dispute with a community in the same region the school draws students from. The students' sustainability council is running a campaign on water quality in that region, and two teachers have requested to teach the dispute as a case study. The chair wants the agreement signed before the next board meeting and says the gift comes with 'no strings attached'. A board member who holds shares in the company declared the interest only after being asked directly. Marketing plans a press release in three weeks.
1. What process do you insist on before the board decides, and what should the decision record contain?
Read the worked answer
Insist on three steps, in order. First, due diligence: the enforcement action and the land dispute are matters of public record and should be documented factually, with the company's response, and assessed against the school's mission and gift acceptance policy. If the school has no gift acceptance policy, that is the first thing to write.
Second, a mission-alignment test with explicit criteria agreed before the gift is discussed on its merits: does the gift advance the school's educational purpose; does it create a dependency; does acceptance compromise the school's ability to teach contested topics honestly; what does the affected community, including families from that region, hear us saying? Third, consultation: the finance committee, the full board with the interested member recused, and a structured way to hear student and staff views before, not after, the decision.
On 'no strings attached', test it. Ask for the naming and recognition terms in writing, plus any expectation about how the centre's curriculum treats the company or the dispute. If the answer is that the school is free to teach the case critically, that is worth having in the agreement.
The record should state the criteria used, the information considered, the conflict declared and the recusal, the alternatives considered including declining or accepting a reduced, unnamed gift, and the reasoning. If the board cannot write that paragraph honestly, it should not sign.
2. How do you handle the board member's undeclared shareholding?
Read the worked answer
Handle it as a governance matter, not a scandal, and do it promptly and privately before the next board meeting. Speak to the member directly, state what was declared, when, and what the school's policy requires, and ask for a written declaration covering the extent of the interest and any other relevant holdings. Then apply the rules consistently: recusal from all discussion, voting and committee work on this gift, and exclusion from any papers relating to it. Record the declaration and the recusal in the minutes.
The reasoning is that a late declaration is not automatically a breach of integrity - people genuinely forget - but an undeclared interest in a live decision is a conflict that must be neutralised, and how the board responds sets the precedent for the next one. If the school has no written conflict-of-interest policy with an annual declaration cycle, this incident is the argument for adopting one.
Ask the chair to raise it as a standing agenda item on declarations at the start of each meeting, so the burden is not on individuals to remember. If the member disputes the recusal or the interest turns out to be material and undisclosed over a longer period, escalate to the board's governance committee or the full board without the member present.
3. How do you respond to the students and teachers who want to study the dispute, and to the chair's 'no strings' assurance?
Read the worked answer
Say clearly, and in writing, that the gift does not determine what is taught. That commitment is the school's, not the donor's, and it should be restated to the sustainability council and the two teachers before the board decision, not after - otherwise it looks like a condition negotiated in retrospect.
Support the teachers. A case study of a live dispute involving a sponsor is exactly the kind of authentic global citizenship work the school claims to value, provided it is taught with disciplinary rigour, multiple perspectives, and access to primary sources including the company's own statements. Offer to help them build the unit properly and to have the head confirm in writing that no approval from the donor is required.
The 'no strings' assurance should be tested, not simply believed. Ask the chair what would happen if the students' campaign produced findings critical of the company. If the honest answer is discomfort rather than prohibition, that is workable; if it is that the school would be expected to soften the message, the gift is not string-free and the board should know that before signing.
Finally, prepare the community for the press release. If the school announces a major gift while silencing student inquiry, the reputational cost will exceed $600,000.