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-- and remember that more often than not, it's the unintentional but not carefully thought out mishaps that can get people in trouble.
Lots of people don't like to think about risk management because it involves a lot of worst-case-scenario thinking. When you're planning an event, think, "Okay, in the worst case scenario, what can happen that someone would try to blame us for?" Some scenarios you can exclude as completely outlandish, but there are a lot that you can imagine and avoid. Also, what counts is not what is actually the organization's fault, but what someone could try to blame you for (because even if you win in court, it's expensive), and what you could have prevented if you'd thought about it beforehand.
Fundamentally, your (the colony's and all of its members') legal responsibilities fall into these categories:
1) To abstain from intentionally harming anyone;
2) To undertake the precautions that objectively reasonable and prudent persons would take to prevent harms that an objectively prudent person would foresee (legally, this is decided after the fact, which is why you have to think ahead!);
3) To satisfy the requirements of your organization's insurance policies;
4) To commit no criminal behavior.
The sorority is a corporation covered by corporate law and the law of agency. Without going into details, this means that the corporation can be responsible as a whole for some wrongs of its officers, and the officers can sometimes be personally responsible for the wrongs of the corporation (for example, if the officer directs the conduct or fails to act when she has an affirmative duty to prevent it and knows about the facts that should give her the knowledge that there's a problem).
So, now that I've gone and scared you, what do you need?
1) As much advice from headquarters as you can get! Fortunately, they will be thrilled to advise you endlessly on risk management. It may be up to you to figure out the details of how risk management policies designed for larger chapters will work in your colony.
2) The respect and support of the members. Fortunately, people are usually more inclined to follow rules if you can explain why the rules exist.
3) Imagination. It's no fun to brainstorm risks, but it's very satisfying to say, "you know, I thought of that problem, and it's taken care of." You may run into resistance if you present an entire list of possible risks to the chapter ("oh, come on, that would never happen!"), but if you pick out the biggest risks and suggest rules that are engineered to prevent them as well as the more outlandish problems, that'll probably go over well.
Beyond all of this, though the number one most valuable asset in risk management is to have members who care about one another, who respect each other and the organization, and who are serious about looking out for each other. It's much easier to build a fun organization that operates safely on that foundation than on any other. Spend energy cultivating this, and you'll have fewer other problems. You still need to do the other stuff, but a solid foundation in the chapter's personality makes a big difference.
Last edited by Eupolis; 10-14-2002 at 08:53 PM.
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