Board of Directors: Minority/Previously Excluded (OI6696)

A board of directors is a group of individuals legally responsible to govern a corporation and responsible to the shareholders and other relevant stakeholders. A governing body with a different name (e.g., "advisory body") may be considered a Board of Directors provided it has a fiduciary responsibility to shareholders and/or other relevant stakeholders.

The categorization of minority/previously excluded groups vary by the locations and situations in which they live. Because there is no internationally agreed-upon definition as to which groups constitute minorities, in situations where well-established local policies exist (e.g., South Africa: Broad Based Black Economic Empowerment (BBBEE) definition of previously excluded, India: based on backward caste), organizations should refer to local guidelines to identify minority or previously excluded groups. Otherwise, organizations should provide additional detail as to their tailored methodology for defining these groups.

This metric is multi-dimensional in regards to the five dimensions of impact. It may help describe the WHO dimension when the stakeholder group represented by the metric is the stakeholder group targeted by the investment or organization. It may also help measure the HOW MUCH Scale dimension, which helps estimate the number of the targeted stakeholders experiencing the outcome. For more on the alignment of IRIS metrics to the five dimensions of impact, see specific guidance document. No single metric is sufficient to understand an impact; rather, metrics are selected as a set across all dimensions of impact. When possible, the selection of metrics to measure and describe the five dimensions should be based on best practice and evidence.