Institutions and Stewardship

Chapter contents

• Institutional Memory 3 entries What an organization knows that is written nowhere, how it is lost in generational waves, and what can actually be recorded before it goes.
  1. 01The Knowledge That Leaves
  2. 02Recording What Is Held
  3. 03Inheriting an Institution
• Institutions Under Strain 2 entries Growth, demographic change, and contested legitimacy — how institutions absorb pressure, and what happens when they cannot.
  1. 01Institutions Under Population Change
  2. 02When the Purpose Has Moved
• Stewardship 3 entries Holding something in trust for people who are not present: the obligations of a custodian, and the decisions that trade the future for the present.
  1. 01Holding Something in Trust
  2. 02The Founder Problem
  3. 03Deferred Maintenance
• Volunteer and Small Institutions 3 entries Fire districts, service clubs, granges, and boards run by unpaid people: recruitment, the quorum problem, and the particular fragility of volunteer governance.
  1. 01The Quorum Problem
  2. 02Running a Board Meeting That Matters
  3. 03Volunteers Doing Serious Work
• What an Institution Is 2 entries The distinction between a legal entity, a following, and an institution — and why the third is the only one that survives the person running it.
  1. 01An Institution or a Following
  2. 02Why People Comply When They Do Not Have To