✨ Governance of CCRC/LifePlan Communit

Loomis Communities, a non-profit organization in Mssachuetts has three communities. The Board of Directors has for some years had a resident of each of those communities on its Board. It is made very clear that they are regular members with all the usual duties and are not "representative" of their community. That, in itself, seems odd to me - or course they are members in order to represent the views of residents as well as to perform Board duties and responsibilities.

My question to other CCRCs that have resident members on Board is the process used to select those members. Is there a resident nominating process? Does the Executive Director at each community choose a resident? How does the process work?

Nancy Eddy

Resident

At Goodwin Living (non-profit CCRC with 3 communities) we have had a resident on the Board of Trustees (BOT) for at least a decade. The r resident applies through the regular BOT process. They are not nominated by the residents. The chairs of the Residdnt Councils are non-voting members of the BOT and represent residents. That said, every member of the BOT brings a perspective to discussion — marketing, medical, real estate, etc. The resident member is no different. S/he brings past professional experience as well as the perspective of a resident. Still, the job of the BOT is to keep the organization healthy and strong into the future, not to advance any single perspective.

The community where I currently live, Ingleside at King Farm in Rockville, MD, has one resident as a member of the Board of Directors. This is a requirement of Maryland state law. The Resident Council (which was once freely elected by the residents but now is essentially self-perpetuating with residents having no voice in choosing new members) is to choose 3 candidates for the Board which are forwarded to the Board for it to choose among, using the same criteria they use for other Board members. The last time this process was run there was little interest among residents in serving on the Board and they only had one nominee, who was accepted as the resident Board member and has been on other boards, including a university board. The resident Board member is treated the same as other Board members and does not legally represent the residents. She does report regularly to the Resident Council. Prior Board members reported to the community as a whole through the resident newsletter, but the current one does not do that. There is no reporting requirement.

MaCCRA, our state NaCCRA affiliate, has presented a bill to the Maryland legislature which, among other provisions which are more controversial, would require 2 resident Board members to be chosen directly by the residents or Resident Council. Because the industry strongly opposes provisions of the legislation regarding return of deposits, it seems unlikely the legislation will be approved.

We have sister communities in DC and Virginia. They are governed by the laws in each jurisdiction, so one has one resident member and the other has two. The various communities all go with the minimum required resident representation generally, but sometimes a resident is on the Board who is selected by the normal processes (in at least one case, the resident was already on the Board when he moved in) rather than as a resident representative.