New Year, New Perspectives on Board Governance

This blog post was originally published in 2022 and remains relevant today….

There are some ironies about boards that we’ve been thinking about lately.

Irony #1: Boards have ultimate authority for setting the strategic direction of a nonprofit, and yet it is the staff who usually have the most expertise about the organization and its mission.

Irony #2: Boards are necessary because of IRS rules that mandate the organizational structure of nonprofit organizations, not because the structure is optimal from a business perspective.

Irony #3: Boards shoulder ultimate legal responsibility for a nonprofit but are not necessarily privy to its day-to-day operations.

The reality is that the organizational structure we need to navigate is somewhat [very] disorganized and impractical, but we must find a way to make it function. Boards are literally “the boss” of the executive director and yet, as per irony #1 above, it is common for executives to have far more experience in nonprofit management and mission expertise than board members.

Added to this is the fact that Executive Directors often must “manage” their boards – push priority agenda items, coerce them into participating in fundraising, and encourage them to develop governance policies (or prepare them in advance for the Board to rubber-stamp their approval). A board can be a lot of added work for an Executive Director.

The truth is that many boards just don’t know what they should be doing. In the context of that void, it seems that the default position is for board members to second guess management decisions, try to adopt that role themselves, and conduct post-mortems on situations that are no longer relevant. The entire focus of the board becomes backward-looking rather than forward-looking.

So, how do we course correct and steer the board in a direction that is effective? We think there’s a fairly simple way to regroup and create clarity for the board, which will lead to a stronger, more high-functioning unit that supports the Executive Director. It begins with a strengths-based approach. 

Have we got your attention? Stay tuned for our next blog post with some recommendations for making the board model more effective! OR you can join us in-person at the Nonprofit Learning Lab’s Denver Conference, Thursday, January 25th at 11:10 a.m. at the Lowry Conference Center for a workshop on Creating Synergy: Board and Executive Leadership.