Board of governors is a term sometimes applied to the board of directors

Board of directors

A board of directors is a body of elected or appointed members who jointly oversee the activities of a company or organization. Other names include board of governors, board of managers, board of regents, board of trustees, and board of visitors...

 of a public entity or non-profit organization

Non-profit organization

Nonprofit organization is neither a legal nor technical definition but generally refers to an organization that uses surplus revenues to achieve its goals, rather than distributing them as profit or dividends...

.

Many public institutions, such as public universities

Public university

A public university is a university that is predominantly funded by public means through a national or subnational government, as opposed to private universities. A national university may or may not be considered a public university, depending on regions...

, are government-owned corporation

Government-owned corporation

A government-owned corporation, state-owned company, state-owned entity, state enterprise, publicly owned corporation, government business enterprise, or parastatal is a legal entity created by a government to undertake commercial activities on behalf of an owner government...

s. The British Broadcasting Corporation was managed by a board of governors, though this role has now been taken by the BBC Trust

BBC Trust

The BBC Trust is the governing body of the British Broadcasting Corporation. It is operationally independent of BBC management and external bodies, and aims to act in the best interests of licence fee payers....

. In other cases, government services are provided by "independent establishments," which provide an environment mixing a corporation and a government agency (see public-private partnership

Public-private partnership

Public–private partnership describes a government service or private business venture which is funded and operated through a partnership of government and one or more private sector companies...

). These, such as the United States Postal Service

United States Postal Service

The United States Postal Service is an independent agency of the United States government responsible for providing postal service in the United States...

, are governed by a board of governors. The US Federal Reserve System

Federal Reserve System

The Federal Reserve System is the central banking system of the United States. It was created on December 23, 1913 with the enactment of the Federal Reserve Act, largely in response to a series of financial panics, particularly a severe panic in 1907...

is also partially governed by a board of governors.