Stewardship

Stewardship is an ethic that embodies responsible planning and management of resources. The concept of stewardship has been applied in diverse realms, including with respect to environment, economics, health, property, information, and religion, and is linked to the concept of sustainability. Historically, stewardship was the responsibility given to household servants to bring food and drinks to a castle dining hall. The term was then expanded to indicate a household employee's responsibility for managing household or domestic affairs. Stewardship later became the responsibility for taking care of passengers' domestic needs on a ship, train and airplane, or managing the service provided to diners in a restaurant. The term continues to be used in these specific ways, but it is also used in a more general way to refer to a responsibility to take care of something belonging to someone else. To be a steward, and or act in steward to something, is known as stewardship.

Environmental stewardship

Environmental stewardship refers to responsible use and protection of the natural environment, through conservation and sustainable practices. Aldo Leopold (1887–1948) championed a land ethic "dealing with man's relation to land and to the animals and plants which grow upon it". According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, environmental stewardship is the responsibility for environmental quality shared by all those whose actions affect the environment. The Fisheries and Oceans Canada 'Stewardship in Action' Program emphasizes cooperative planning and management of environmental resources with organizations, communities, and others to engage actively in the prevention of loss of habitat and facilitate its recovery in the interest of long-term sustainability.

Fiscal stewardship

Fiscal stewardship refers to the practice of assuring that current spending programs and tax policies are affordable and sustainable over time. For instance, New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has been criticized by The New York Times for "mixed fiscal stewardship," having managed short-term crises with a deft hand, but falling short some on long-term problems. David M. Walker, President of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, has been a frequent commentator on the need for fiscal stewardship at the federal level, to avoid mortgaging the future of the country and of successive generations.

Data Stewardship

The concept of stewardship has been variously applied in information management. A data steward is responsible as the source of data and metadata, including content, quality, and compliance with standards, whereas a data custodian is responsible for data management, including transport, storage, security, and access.

Geospatial-Intelligence Stewardship (GEOINT) refers to the responsibility to properly develop, utilize and safeguard GEOINT, including its people, its property and its financial assets to maximize the effectiveness for GEOINT offices (or cells) and decision makers (or commanders) (see Geospatial Information Officer).

Health Stewardship

World Health Organization

In 2000, the Director-General, World Health Organization, highlighted health stewardship as a new concept noting that the function involves "setting and enforcing the rules of the game and providing strategic direction for all the different actors involved." The concept was developed and defined as "the careful and responsible management of the well-being of the population, the very essence of good government... This does not, of course, mean that the government needs to fund and provide all health interventions. It needs, however, to set the direction for both public and private sectors and ensure that the health system contributes to the socially desired intrinsic goals... Within government, Ministries of Health must take on a large part of the stewardship of health systems and should direct/coordinate intersectoral action for health."

In 2001, the WHO noted the difficulty in preserving the idea of stewardship when translating the term into other languages. Participants referred to it metaphorically as combining three elements ("the GLUE that holds the health system together; the OIL that keeps it running smoothly; and the ENERGY that gives it ethical direction and momentum"). They generated a list of possible stewardship tasks that fitted within the three-part classification that WHR 2000 set out:

• Formulating health policy
• Exerting influence
• Collecting and using intelligence

In November 2001, the WHO further developed health stewardship which identified a number of essential ingredients or "core domains" that appear to constitute good stewardship. Domains are conceived as relatively well defined, distinct areas of responsibility that collectively constitute effective stewardship. The six domains or sub-functions that constitute effective health system stewardship, i.e., that lead to better outcomes to achieve the goals of health systems are referred to as:

• Generation of intelligence
• Formulating strategic policy direction
• Ensuring tools for implementation: powers, incentives and sanctions
• Coalition building / building partnerships
• Ensuring a fit between policy objectives and organizational structure and culture
• Ensuring accountability

WHO Report, WHR2000

WHO Stewardship

Organizations

In an organizational context, stewardship refers to management's responsibility to properly utilize and develop its resources, including its people, its property and its financial assets. For more in depth detail, see, in Organizational development, the pages on succession planning, employee development, and performance improvement. In a development sense, stewardship also refers to thanking and recognizing donors. This includes organizing thank you phone calls, recognition events, and conveying the impact that the donor's gift has had.

Land claims

Stewardship in a land claims context is when a monarch or other noble may appoint a steward to oversee parts of his blubby

Religion

Stewardship is also a major part of teaching in Christianity and Islam. For example, Green Christianity emphasizes stewardship as a Bible-based environmental outlook. Financial stewardship is based on the belief that God is the true and ultimate owner of each person's possessions, and that one is accountable to God for the acceptable care and use of those possessions. Stewardship can also refer to Jesus Christ's accountability to God the Father for the Christians that have been entrusted to Him or how to use your resources for God.

Donor Relations and Stewardship

Donor relations and stewardship professionals support the development profession by recognizing and thanking donors in a fashion that will cultivate future giving to nonprofit organizations. The Association of Donor Relations Professionals (ADRP) is the first community of stewardship and donor relations professionals in the United States and Canada.

Measuring Stewardship

It is desirable to increase capacity within an organizational system with regards to each of the systems tasks/domains. The assumption is that, collectively, the better the sub-functions are carried out, the more effective a system's stewardship will be and the higher attainment of intrinsic goals. These domains, attributes and relationships are based on prevailing notions of effective stewardship, and emphasizes that all should be considered "testable hypotheses".

The concept of stewardship evolves in the course of consultations and analysis. Emphasis on the work being proposed is mainly aimed at improving understanding of the different components of stewardship, so that action can be taken by its various mission partners. Qualitative as well as quantitative approaches are likely to be needed. On the question about the use of surveys to measure stewardship, common issues are:

• Who should be surveyed: key participants, informants, mission partners, or a mix?
• Who should carry out such surveys?
• Would assessment from local surveys be useful to governments who may have to make unpopular decisions?

See also

• Agency (law)
• Association of Donor Relations Professionals
• Conservation biology
• Forest farming
• Hima (environmental protection)
• Natural resource management
• Religion and ecology
• Stewardship (theology)
• Sustainability