Supervisory Board Report
Our ongoing operations are monitored by an external Supervisory Board - to both maintain the integrity of everything we do and meet our legal obligations in full.
War Child is registered in the Netherlands as a foundation - and Dutch law states that a clear division must be maintained between the managerial and executive responsibilities of an organisation and its supervisory responsibilities. Our Supervisory Board ensures that we adhere to this structure.
The Supervisory Board appoints the Managing Director and is responsible for providing the holder of the position with advice and supervision. The board undertakes these responsibilities during four regularly scheduled annual meetings and additional meetings when necessary.
All our board members work on a voluntary basis and lend us significant expertise and experience. The board has no managerial responsibility and is responsible for its assessment of the quality of its contribution. Board members are appointed for four years and can be reappointed for an additional four-year term to maintain continuity.
The Supervisory Board Rules contain principles of governance and are available on War Child’s website.
Meet the Supervisory Board
Peter Bakker is Chair of our board and responsible for overseeing our general operations. He also serves as President of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development and is an Ambassador Against Hunger for the UN World Food Programme.
Willemijn Verloop is Vice Chair and founded our organisation in 1995. Today Willemijn is primarily responsible for supervising our marketing, communication and fundraising activities. She is also the director of Social Enterprise NL and a founding partner of Social Impact Ventures - and sits on the supervisory boards of Tony Chocolonely and Stadsschouwburg Amsterdam.
Rob Theunissen is Treasurer of our Supervisory Board. Rob provides key oversight of our financial and ICT operations as contributes to the ongoing strategic development of our organisation. He is a Partner at McKinsey & Company.
Raymond Cloosterman sits on the board and contributes his significant expertise in the areas of marketing and fundraising. Raymond is the founder and CEO of Dutch cosmetics giant Rituals.
Edith Kroese sits on the board and contributes specialist expertise in the areas of strategic planning and impact measurement. She also supervises monitoring and evaluation in both our Amsterdam office and our countries of operation. Edith is founder and Managing Director of business consultancy Avance.
Arjan Hehenkamp sits on the board and contributes specialist expertise to enhance the security and efficiency of our humanitarian operations. Arjan is currently adjunct director of Stichting Vluchteling. He has over 25 years’ experience leading international medical and humanitarian programmes for international NGOs - including Artsen zonder Grenzen.
Meetings and activities
The Supervisory Board meets regularly throughout the year to review the performance of War Child against set objectives outlined in our Annual Plan, our 2025 strategy and within the organisation’s articles of association. In 2018 the Board held four regular meetings and three audit committee meetings, all attended by management.
One key topic of supervision over the course of the year concerned the composition and activities of War Child’s Integrity Working Group - formed in response to reports of incidents of abuse and sexual misconduct in the NGO sector. The working group’s efforts to review and update internal reporting systems such as our Code of Conduct, Integrity Policy and Child Safeguarding policy were closely monitored.
The board also monitored the organisation’s financial performance as measured against the annual budget for 2018. The organisation’s efforts to strengthen both its grant management mechanisms and internal audit controls were welcomed by the Supervisory Board. The audit committee of the Supervisory Board welcomed War Child’s internal auditor at two of its meetings to discuss risk management, audit follow-up and fraud incidents.
Operational funding reached record levels in 2018 - representing nine per cent growth year-on-year - yet still fell short of our proposed ambitious budget for 2018. A focus on large-scale campaigns over more diffuse individual campaigns was considered to help address this shortfall.
Other operational issues taken into consideration over the course of the year included the efficacy and impact of our research and development activities; staff welfare based on the findings of our Great Place to Work survey; and the progress and obstacles encountered in War Child Global - the initiative to foster closer collaboration between the three major War Child implementing organisations.
In its first meeting of the year the Supervisory Board approved our annual report outlining our activities over the course of 2017. In its last meeting of the year the board approved both the Annual Plan and Annual Budget for 2019.
The Board in December 2018 also held its regular annual meeting to evaluate its function and performance across 2018 as a whole. The Board evaluated that it had ‘met expectations’ when measured against the key criteria contained in its operational guidelines.