Produced by the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law, this handbook serves as a guide to good governance, both in countries with well developed NGO sectors, as well as those with a relatively recent history of civil society organizing. We set about drafting a set of guidelines that could promote a shared regional understanding of good governance while showing how to turn abstract theory into workable practice.

Our study of nonprofit boards in the United States has taught us that Western models of governance are often far removed from the reality of our own countries. NGOs in CEE work in an unusual environment shaped by the communist past and the difficult political, social, and economic transitions of recent years. It important to strengthen the NGO sector in this part of the world by providing a consistent, locally responsive framework for nonprofit governance.