Member benefits is the topic for the International Olympic Committee (IOC) as it discusses what it believes is an unfair financial relationship with one of its members: the United States Olympic Committee (USOC). According to the Hartford Courant (and a number of media sources via the AP), the IOC is challenging its arrangement with the USOC whereby the USOC gets (what the IOC terms) a disproportionate percentage of the take of IOC's revenue from television rights & marketing.
You know, this debate raises an interesting governance debate. In theory, members of a nonprofit board are all equal and their fiduciary responsibility calls for them to run the "business" of the nonprofit as though that nonprofit was their own business. That's the duty of care - prudent behavior that results in the maximum benefit for the nonprofit. There's also the duty of loyalty that says that board members can't look out for their own benefit over the benefit of the nonprofit.
And yet, with the IOC, it is clear that the USOC is indeed looking out for itself more than the IOC (even though I acknowledge that the US may indeed raise more money etc.). So what is right here? Should the USOC be putting its interests above those of the IOC? In doing so, is it fulfilling its duties of care and loyalty?