Twelve Concepts
  1. Final responsibility and ultimate authority for A.A. world services should always reside in the collective
    conscience of our fellowship.
  2. The General Service Conference of A.A. has become, for nearly every practical purpose, the active voice
    and the effective conscience of our whole Society in world affairs.
  3. To insure effective leadership, we should endow each element of A.A. - the Conference, the General
    Service Board and its service corporations, staffs, committees, and executives - with a traditional "Right
    of Decision".
  4. At all responsible levels, we ought to maintain a traditional "Right of Participation", allowing a voting
    representation in reasonable proportion to the responsibility that each must discharge.
  5. Throughout our structure, a traditional "Right of Appeal" ought to prevail, so that minority opinion will be
    heard and personal grievances receive careful consideration.
  6. The Conference recognizes that the chief initiative and active responsibility in most world service
    matters should be exercised by the trustee members of the Conference acting as the General Service
    Board.
  7. The Charter and Bylaws of the General Service Board are legal instruments, empowering the trustees
    to manage and conduct world service affairs. The Conference Charter is not a legal document; it relies
    upon tradition and the A.A. purse for final effectiveness.
  8. The trustees are the principal planners and administrators of overall policy and finance. They have
    custodial oversight of the separately incorporated and constantly active services, exercising this through
    their ability to elect all the directors of these entities.
  9. Good service leadership at all levels is indispensable for our future functioning and safety. Primary
    world service leadership, once exercised by the founders, must necessarily be assumed by the
    trustees.
  10. Every service responsibility should be matched by an equal service authority, with the scope of such
    authority well defined.
  11. The trustees should always have the best possible committees, corporate service directors, executives,
    staffs, and consultants. Composition, qualification, induction procedures, and rights and duties will
    always be matters of serious concern.
  12. The Conference shall observe the spirit of A.A. tradition, taking care that it never becomes the seat of
    perilous wealth or power; that sufficient operating funds and reserve be its prudent financial principle;
    that it place none of its members in a position of unqualified authority over others; that it reach all
    important decisions by discussion, vote, and, whenever possible, by substantial unanimity; that its
    actions never be personally punitive nor an incitement to public controversy; that it never perform acts of
    government, and that, like the Society it serves, it will always remain democratic in thought and action.


                            Reprinted with permission of Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. ©  
Twelve Concepts for World Service