# Concept VIII: do the trustees run the General Service Office and the Grapevine?

**In short:**
- Not day to day. Concept VIII says the trustees act in two ways: on large matters of overall policy and finance they plan and manage directly, but over the separately incorporated active services they have "custodial oversight," exercised "through their ability to elect all the directors of these entities" (p. 575).
- So A.A. World Services (which runs the General Service Office and publishing) and the Grapevine each have their own board, executive, staff, money and offices. The trustees choose those boards and keep watch; they don't manage.
- Bill W.'s reasons, written in 1962: early attempts to run the office through trustee committees failed, and "There is always a powerful connection between money and authority" (Twelve Concepts for World Service, Concept VIII).
- The earlier text (1946) already wanted anything requiring much money or management separately incorporated, "thus dividing the material from the spiritual" (p. 564).

## The earlier texts first (1946–47)

Long Form Six (1946): considerable property "should be separately incorporated and managed, thus dividing the material from the spiritual" (p. 564).

Bill's 1946 essay on money notes "an encouraging tendency to incorporate all such special functions separately if they involve any great amount of money, property or management" (P-17, Money, 1946), because an A.A. group "is a spiritual entity, not a business concern."

His 1947 essay describes the Foundation's trustees as custodians "who guarantee the effectiveness of the A.A. General Office and The AA Grapevine" (P-17, Will A.A. Ever Have a Personal Government?, 1947). Concept VIII keeps that word and spells out what it means.

## What Bill's Concept VIII essay says (1962)

**The board's real job.** Experience showed that the board as a whole must give itself "almost exclusively to the larger and more serious questions of policy, finance, group relations, public relations and leadership" (Twelve Concepts for World Service, Concept VIII). It can't be buried in the daily questions of running an office and a publishing business.

**Custodians, not executives.** "Here the Board’s attitude has to be that of custodial oversight; it cannot be the executive" (Twelve Concepts for World Service, Concept VIII). The trustees guarantee good management by electing the corporations' directors, some of whom must always be trustees. Each corporation "should possess its own charter, its own working capital, its own executive, its own employees, its own offices and equipment" (Twelve Concepts for World Service, Concept VIII).

**Learned the hard way.** When the office and publishing company were run through several trustee committees, as departments of the old Foundation, responsibility and authority were rarely in balance; point-blank orders were the rule; and "those who handled money and signed checks assumed the greater authority" (Twelve Concepts for World Service, Concept VIII). Once the office became a single corporation with defined officers, its own capital and voting directors, things improved greatly.

**Why not one big operation?** Bill considers and rejects:
- Turning the board into the operating company. It would need a full-time chief executive, and the board chairman, usually a nonalcoholic and unpaid as a trustee, can't be that. A hired manager couldn't be a trustee and would have no real standing.
- One large corporation running everything, Grapevine included. It would over-concentrate executive authority, and such an executive would be hard to find and replace.

**Money and power.** "There is always a powerful connection between money and authority" (Twelve Concepts for World Service, Concept VIII). The reserve fund is held by the trustees and working capital is split between the two corporations, each with its own executive. "Therefore we should strenuously avoid placing too much money or too much authority in any one service entity" (Twelve Concepts for World Service, Concept VIII). Bill expected later workers to be tempted to consolidate for simplicity, tax savings or efficiency, and warned of an "administrative shambles." He adds that this is not meant to bar needed change.

## Later changes (footnotes in the 2024–2026 Service Manual)

- A.A. World Services was incorporated as a not-for-profit corporation in 1962, the Grapevine in 1971; both are now membership corporations whose members are the trustees (Concept VIII, footnote 1).
- The two corporations are described as "affiliates and not ‘subsidiaries’" (Twelve Concepts for World Service, Concept VIII, footnote 3) of the General Service Board. Bill's 1962 text and P-8 call them subsidiaries.
- In 2020, 90% of the trustees lived "out of town" (footnote 2); in 1962 it was about half.

## Read it yourself
- Long Form Six (Appendix I, pp. 563–564), free from A.A.: https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_appendicei.pdf
- Concept VIII, short form (Appendix VII, p. 575): https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_appendicevii_.pdf
- P-17, with Bill's 1946 and 1947 essays: https://www.aa.org/aa-tradition-how-it-developed
- P-8, *The Twelve Concepts for World Service Illustrated*: https://www.aa.org/twelve-concepts-illustrated
- The full essay is in *The A.A. Service Manual combined with Twelve Concepts for World Service*: https://www.aa.org/aa-service-manual (sold at https://onlineliterature.aa.org)
- Related: *Concept VI* · *Concept X* · *Concept XI*

## Sources
| Source | Where | Written / first published |
|---|---|---|
| *Alcoholics Anonymous*, Appendix I, Long Form Six | pp. 563–564 | 1946 |
| P-17, Money; Will A.A. Ever Have a Personal Government? (Bill W.) | — | Grapevine, 1946 and 1947 |
| *Alcoholics Anonymous*, Appendix VII, Concept VIII (short form) | p. 575 | Concepts 1962; short form 1971 |
| *Twelve Concepts for World Service* (Bill W.), Concept VIII, with later footnotes | in *The A.A. Service Manual*, 2024–2026 edition | 1962; footnotes to 2020s |
| P-8, *The Twelve Concepts for World Service Illustrated* | — | first printed 1986; © 2017 |

*Recovery Starts is independent and not affiliated with Alcoholics Anonymous. Quotations are brief and cited; the Big Book, the Service Manual and Twelve Concepts for World Service, and P-8 are © A.A. World Services, Inc.; the P-17 articles are © AA Grapevine, Inc.*