About

Empowering nonprofits, cooperatives, and school boards to excel through world-class training, engaging facilitation, strategic planning, and expert guidance.

Organizational values

As a values-driven organization, we firmly believe our principles form the foundation of our work. Our core values include:

Open-mindedness

We are open to new ideas and directions. We bring creativity, innovation and outside-the-box thinking to every project.

Transparency

We are honest and forthright with our clients. We know a trusting, open client-consultant relationship is essential to success.

Value creation

We aim to create value in every interaction and project. Our dedicated efforts and passion for our work lead to your benefit.

Citizenship

We continuously work to improve our community and make efforts to incorporate a triple-bottom-line approach into all of our work.

Passion

Put simply, we love what we do—and only seek opportunities where we hold a strong interest and think we can help.

Professionalism

We strive to follow the ISO 20700 guidelines and the principles of the Certified Management Consultants of Canada.

Kevin knows his stuff. His classes were jampacked with information but presented in a way everyone could understand. His board classes should be taken by every board member!

The course was amazing. Kevin is very aware of the class and adjusts to different skills and experience of the board. Everyone learned something even us long-time board members.

He tried to get everyone involved and had us all participating just a few minutes after the class started. His speaking is clear and he had thoughtful answers to all our questions

I was thrilled to have the Guru as my facilitator for NPO Board Governance! Incredible, knowledgeable, entertaining! The participants were never ready to be done at the end of the evening! They learned so much that will be so beneficial to the Non-profit boards they sit on. If you are looking for an excellent facilitator do not hesitate to look to Kevin to fill that need!

Attending Kevin’s course on Non-Profit Board Roles & Responsibilities was invaluable. He kept my attention, and gave some fun anecdotes to help explain points. I am eager to learn more from him. Highly recommended!

Kevin spent the day with our leadership team and it was a full day of getting to know each other better as leaders as well as learning about finances, budgeting, and running effective meetings. 10/10 recommend Kevin for rockstar facilitation and engagement. If anyone can make a budget spreadsheet interesting, it’s him!

This was a very good workshop. Kevin set the right pace for a room of 40 plus people and kept them interested all day on a dry topic. Everyone had an opportunity to participate and contribute and there were lots of smiles in the room.

Kevin was the best facilitator I have seen in a long time. We will definitely be using him again. He was articulate, funny and adapted to our needs.

About the founder

Kevin Freedman, the chief board services officer and founder of the Governance Guru, is an internationally recognized governance expert with more than 60 years of cumulative experience sitting on nonprofit, corporate and public boards. For more than a decade, he has provided training, guidance and facilitation services to organizations across Canada and internationally.

A former executive director in the nonprofit sector, Kevin has helped dozens of organizations develop and implement strategic and operational plans, educated thousands of directors and prospective directors, and provided mentorship for executives and board chairs across the country. He is also a long-time instructor in the University of Winnipeg’s Faculty of Business and Economics, developing highly-sought-after classes taught to thousands of students.

Kevin is an award-winning leader and social entrepreneur known for starting and leading multiple initiatives in Canada and abroad, including an international water stewardship project and ad-hoc aid organization. He is a prolific public speaker and has presented to hundreds of schools and community groups on topics like blood donation, voluntarism and environmental issues. In recognition of his work, he has received accolades from the Mayor of Winnipeg, YMCA Canada, Golden Key International Society and Governor General of Canada.

Kevin is also the developer of Guru’s Rules, a comprehensive set of meeting rules made specifically for nonprofits. And he kinda, sorta, stole a car once.

How we can help

With 60+ years of cumulative board experience ranging from volunteer-based community organizations to large international organizations, we’ve seen it all. No matter the size or type of organization, we can help your board function better and accomplish more.

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Our Clients

Rules and resources

Join hundreds of boards around the world and use Guru’s Rules to help you run a more effective nonprofit board meeting and set a stronger board culture. We’ve also harnessed our extensive experience to develop additional tools and templates that streamline your work.

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