The funder wants a one-on-one
What a Coaching Scenario is
Not quiz style. This is judgement practice — you're put inside a real situation from human-services work and asked what you would actually do. It draws on the knowledge you use on the job, not the kind you can look up.
Every choice changes what happens next, and every choice gets a coaching beat straight after it: what drew you toward that option, and how it played out. What's held back is the verdict on your path, so you stay with what you'd genuinely do rather than working out what you're supposed to say.
- 4 decisions
- Each one shaped by the one before it. No two paths through are the same.
- Coaching as you go
- A beat after every decision, naming the pull behind your choice and where it led.
- A full debrief
- Your whole path replayed at the end, with the reasoning behind each decision you made.
- Evidence you can keep
- A completed scenario is recorded in your PracticeLab and appears in your downloadable ProofKit.
Scenarios are made to be talked about. Most people finish one still turning it over, which makes them a ready-made prompt for supervision, a team meeting or a conversation with a colleague — everyone walks the same situation, and comparing where you each landed is often where the real learning happens.
This one ends with
Next time a funder, partner, or stakeholder reaches out to you directly, ask yourself: am I the right person to respond — and does Camille know this is happening?
The situation
You are Erica, a director on the board of a mid-sized community health and social services organisation. The organisation runs several funded programmes, including a youth mental health outreach programme that has been operating for two years under a contract with a major government funder.
This morning you received a direct email from William, a senior contract manager at the funder. He's polite and collegial — you've met him at sector events. His email says he'd like to catch up with you directly, one-on-one, to 'get a board perspective' on how the youth programme is tracking and whether the organisation is thinking about its future direction. He mentions he's heard good things about your background in mental health service design. There's no mention of the CEO, Camille, in the email.
Your first instinct is to say yes — William is senior, the relationship matters, and it feels good to be asked. But something about the framing gives you pause. The programme is under active contract management, and you know Camille has been navigating some delivery pressures with the funder over the past quarter. You're not across the detail.
You have William's email open in front of you. Before you reply, you need to decide what to do first.
What you're practising
Before you start, notice
Real-world decisions in scenarios like this are shaped as much by feeling as by reasoning. People often notice one of these pulls — naming what you feel before you decide is half the skill.
- Flattery and the pull of being sought out — it feels like recognition, and saying yes feels natural
- Anxiety about the funder relationship — the worry that being cautious might read as difficult or unhelpful
- Uncertainty about where the governance/management line actually sits in practice, not just in theory
- The discomfort of redirecting a senior external person — it can feel like you're making things harder than they need to be
Policies this draws on
- Your organisation's board charter or governance policy
- Your organisation's funder relationship or contract management policy
- Institute of Directors — Four Pillars of Governance Best Practice
- Your own organisation's policies take precedence — check them where they apply.
Heads up — coaching scenarios work differently. You'll make a sequence of decisions as the situation unfolds, and after each one you'll get a coaching beat: what drew you toward that choice, and how it played out. The one thing held back is the verdict on the path you took — that lands in the debrief at the end, with your whole walk replayed alongside it.
New to Good Practice Hub? Coaching Scenarios come with PracticeLab Pro, or browse the practice library to see what else is there.
More Coaching Scenarios
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Coaching ScenarioWhen it feels like you're making a fuss
You've just walked out of a session with Garry, a client you've been supporting for about seven months. You know him well. He's had a genuinely hard few weeks — housing instability, a relationship breakdown, some worrying signs around his drinking. Today, though, something shifted.
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