Beyond Compliance: How Fiduciary Courage Shapes Our Mission

A Message from the Executive Director

When I think about leading the NCPA Foundation, I often reflect on the difference between fiduciary compliance and fiduciary courage. Compliance keeps us on track—filing the right reports, following grant guidelines, maintaining proper oversight. But courage? That's what drives real impact.

Fiduciary courage in the nonprofit world means being willing to make the hard decisions that serve your mission, even when they're uncomfortable. For us at the NCPA Foundation, this principle directly translates to how we support independent community pharmacies across the country and likely resonates with the work independents are involved in every day.

Photo by Ian Schneider on Unsplash

What Fiduciary Courage Looks Like in Practice

Sometimes fiduciary courage means saying no to a well-intentioned grant opportunity that doesn't align with our core mission of promoting efforts the support the sustainability and growth of independent community pharmacists. It means asking tough questions: "Will this program truly help independent community pharmacies to grow and thrive, or does it just sound good on paper?"

Other times, it's about having honest conversations with our board about resource allocation. Should we spread our efforts across many small initiatives, or concentrate our impact on fewer, more transformative programs? The courageous choice isn't always the popular one.

Supporting Independent Pharmacies Through Courageous Leadership

Independent community pharmacies face unprecedented challenges—from horrible PBM practices to reimbursement pressures to competition from chains and mail-order operations. Our fiduciary courage shows up in how we respond to these realities.