I can explain some of the different types of identified conflicts of interest that may not actually be conflicts of interest.
For instance, we may have a board member who is, perhaps, president of a company. They have a vendor that provides regular sewer maintenance services for their organization as a regular course of business. That vendor may also be identified as a project partner for one of our proponents developing an innovative technology for sewer management systems.
This may be identified as a potential conflict, but there's no monetary aspect the partner participating in the project is necessarily receiving for being part of another company in their regular course of business.