Community Foundation of Lorain County

“Review of form 990 - the form 990 is prepared by an outside public accounting firm and reviewed by the chief financial officer. The form 990 is then reviewed by the audit committee prior to filing. Once approved by the audit committee, a copy of the form 990 is distributed to the board prior to filing.”

“Monitoring and enforcement of conflict policy - directors, officers, and employees are required to disclose in writing (and have notarized) all potential conflicts of interest. This information is compiled and provided to the board. At each board and committee meeting, the first order of business on each agenda is to ask for any new updates on conflicts. All known conflicts of interest are noted on each resolution prior to approval by the board. If a director has a conflict, he/she is allowed to participate in the discussion of the issue but must abstain from any vote or action, and such abstention is so noted in the minutes (a noted conflict on a resolution is an understood abstention).”

“Compensation review and approval - the executive committee of the board of directors reviews ceo compensation annually. The committee uses a compensation study that is compiled annually by the council on foundations and local/regional data on ceo compensation that is compiled by the cfo. After reviewing this data, the executive committee determines an appropriate compensation amount and makes this recommendation to the full board. The board takes this recommendation into account and approves and/or modifies the amount based on its annual review of the ceo's performance. All other staff compensation is reviewed by the ceo (using the same compensation survey) and reviewed by the executive committee during the annual budget process. The members of the executive committee and the board are independent of the persons for whom the compensation decisions are being made. The deliberations of the executive committee and the full board are documented in the foundation's minutes.”

“Availability of documents - current financial statements are made available to the public on the foundation's website and to anyone who may request a copy. The foundation's current governing documents and current conflict of interest policy are and have been made available upon request to anyone.”