Do you know how to smell a rat on your committee or board?
Most committee members are honest, hardworking people giving their time freely for a cause they believe in. After decades of consulting with community groups, boards, and not-for-profits, I know this to be true with confidence.
But not everyone who participates in voluntary organisations does so with honest intent. And the ones who don’t tend to be considerably more sophisticated than the problems they create initially appear to be.
The Nature of the Problem
Dishonesty in voluntary organisations is not usually dramatic. It’s rarely the kind of brazen fraud that shows up in newspaper headlines. It’s more often a slow erosion — small deceptions that compound, financial irregularities that develop gradually, influence exerted in subtle ways over time.
The people who cause the most damage in voluntary organisations are not obvious bad actors. Obvious bad actors get noticed and removed. The ones who persist are the ones who are plausible, often initially impressive, and careful about covering their tracks.
This is why the warning signs are worth knowing. Not to breed paranoia, but to calibrate attention appropriately.
The Financial Warning Signs
In any voluntary organisation, the most significant risk area is finances. Here’s what should raise your concern.
One person controlling the entire financial process. In a well-governed organisation, financial oversight involves multiple people. One person writes the cheques, another approves them. Bank statements are reviewed by someone other than the person who manages the account. When a single person controls the entire financial process — access, transaction, reconciliation, and reporting — the checks and balances that honest governance requires are absent.
Unusual resistance to financial transparency. A treasurer or financial officer who makes it difficult for other board members to access financial information, who provides reports that are hard to read or verify, or who becomes defensive when questioned, is exhibiting behaviour worth examining carefully.
Discrepancies between reported figures and source documents. If the numbers in a report don’t match the bank statements, or if bank statements are never made available to the full board, something needs investigating.
The Procedural Warning Signs
Beyond finances, there are procedural patterns worth watching for.
Selective application of the rules. Some of the most effective manipulators in meeting contexts are people who know the rules well and apply them selectively — invoking procedure when it serves their interests and finding reasons to work around it when it doesn’t. A pattern of inconsistent procedural adherence is worth noting.
Resistance to external scrutiny. An organisation that resists external audit, delays bringing in professional advisers, or creates barriers to members accessing information is often an organisation where someone has something to protect.
Marginalisation of questioners. Healthy organisations welcome genuine inquiry. When a new member asking reasonable questions is repeatedly shut down, made to feel unwelcome, or socially marginalised, it’s worth asking why.
What to Do When You Suspect Something is Wrong
Trust the instinct that something is off, but don’t act on instinct alone. Document what you’re observing — specific incidents, specific claims, specific discrepancies. Dates, amounts, contexts, exact words where possible.
Raise concerns through legitimate channels first: the chair, the president, the full board where appropriate. If the concern involves the person you’d normally go to, go around them — to the board as a whole, or to the relevant regulatory body for incorporated associations.
Bring in external help earlier rather than later. An external auditor or governance consultant can provide the independent perspective that an internally compromised situation cannot generate.
The Governance That Prevents It Or Minimises Risk
The most effective protection against dishonesty in voluntary organisations is good governance practised consistently before problems arise. Financial oversight by multiple people. Regular independent audit. A culture that welcomes questions and treats transparency as a value rather than a threat.
These aren’t complex requirements. They’re the basic infrastructure of trustworthy organisational life. Build them deliberately, and you make it considerably harder for the bad actors to find the room they need to operate.