More Than Passion Needed in Prospective Nonprofit Directors

More Than Passion Needed in Prospective Nonprofit Directors

By: Eugene Fram         

What nonprofit selection committee would reject a candidate who demonstrates passion for the organization’s mission?   I can attest to the fact that in many recruitment processes, an interviewee who shows strong empathy for the cause is a “shoe-in” for a board position regardless of any obvious weakness in skill areas. By contrast, one who appears less than passionate about the organization’s mission can be overlooked or even eliminated from the list.

Being emotionally overly attached to the organization’s cultural tradition can also trump objectivity when a change in board format is proposed.   I once interfaced with a board member who was so attached to his organization’s cultural norms he attempted to block moves towards a more efficient but more formal operational mode, protesting the changes would erode what he thought to be the nonprofit’s sense of family.

Founders’ Syndrome: A sense of ownership resides in some long-term board members that can lead to poor decisions that are in the best interest of the organization.  Founders of nonprofits, for example, often fail to delegate operational authority properly while they are building the nonprofit. Many even try to retain micromanaging control as a board member after their retirement. This results in continual board crises and has the potential of eroding all the accomplishments of the organization. Alignment with the mission is always desirable in board members.

Following are some tactics that will help boards to:

Become More Entrepreneurial:  Nonprofit boards can hesitant to develop an entrepreneurial management environment when they are dependent on governmental funding. However on an oversight basis, boards need to make certain opportunities are being evaluated by management.   

Some board members may fear being charged with misusing these types of funds when entrepreneurial efforts fail. But progress in the 21st century requires small experimentation. It allows the nonprofit to examine new systems, ideas, and understandings. Committed board members can help the CEO to seek additional funding to support these types of activities. For example, I encountered an insurance agent who I can describe as having some passion for the agency’s mission. But he energetically raised funds by using his knowledge of promoting insurance products. He later moved to chairing the board of a major health foundation that was very successful in meeting its objectives. 

Become More Effective in Strategic Planning: I have frequently noted nonprofit strategic planning that is entirely based on a simple SWOT analysis—simply listing strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats without analysis critically reviewing them.  Many nonprofits, such as human service and health organizations recruit their board members from different career backgrounds and are not willing to question or research changes suggested by peers.  Two board members, I observed wanted a nonprofit to use an  Management by Objectives process.  Without any due diligence, the nonprofit adopted a process that was so complex that the staff was over burdened with writing and reviewing objectives that client service levels declined.

Recruit More Effective Board Members: Add to the traditional nonprofit skills grid several career dimensions to recruit, many of whom may be described as being merely empathetic about the mission:
1. Seek recently retired people, both those traditionally retired and those who retired early, who may have time to be candidates for both governing and consulting with boards.
2. Seek individual contributors who may have more control of their time, such as doctors, lawyers, professors and small business owners.
3. Seek successful entrepreneurs who can schedule their own time, can resonate with the organization’s mission, vision and values and who want to give back to the community.
4. Beyond the time requirement, seek persons with experience on profit or nonprofit boards so they can share their board knowledge and become models for those having their first board experience. Their questions and behaviors can teach as much or more than formal seminars.

There is no doubt that passion for a nonprofit’s cause drives action. But how that passion is framed–with what degree of respect and objectivity it is presented–can advance or disrupt the organization.

Posted in Associations, associations, audit comitttees, Board agendas, Board Culture, Board Learning Opportunities, Board meetings, Board micromanagement, Board Recuitment, board self assessment, Buidling personal relationships, Corporate Governance, Donations, foundation boards, Founders syndrome, nonprofit executive director, Nonprofit governance, Nonprofit impacts, Nonprofit mangement, onboarding, Passion for Mission, Strategic planning, Trustees, voluneers 

Board Member Networking Pays Off for Nonprofits

By Eugene Fram    

Over decades of nonprofit board membership and consulting, I have rarely observed volunteer board members effectively networking with their peers to develop best board practices. Also rarely do I see them accompany management to regional or national conferences related to the nonprofit’s mission. These types of exposures are necessary to have groups of board members capable of making generative suggestions.

For board members who are willing and able to network, I suggest the following: 

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Once Again!! A Nonprofit Board’s Most Important Job!

By: Eugene Fram

Many people believe as I do that a nonprofit board’s job is to find the best possible person to act as CEO of the organization, then stand back and let that person manage. If your board is in agreement, here are guidelines for action:

• Recruit Widely: Develop a rigorous vetting process. Well before the search begins, make certain that potential internal candidates have had an opportunity to demonstrate management acumen. If an internal candidate is somewhat less qualified than an external one, don’t let the decision be swayed by the fact that the internal candidate would be less costly to employ.
• Understanding The Partnership: The need for the CEO and Board to operate within a partnership framework is well documented and accepted. However, the CEO is both the senior staff manager and a de facto representative of the board-staff relationship. Normal communications to the staff must be through the CEO. The CEO can’t be an insecure manager by withholding negative information from the board.
• A Nonprofit Board Has An Overview Responsibility: Sometimes, this responsibility can devolve into micromanagement of the management and staff. If the overview, policy or strategy functions of the board are not being adequately executed, a lead director may need to be appointed to help focus on them.*
• In terms of organization and CEO measurement, the board must seek data and information on outcomes and impacts, not become overly involved with process details.
• Nobody Does His/Her Job Perfectly: The board needs to be highly tolerant of inconsequential CEO mistakes. However, if these mistakes persist over time, the board needs to assess reasons for their continuing. Major errors need immediate investigation, and the board members also must be honest with itself about their own culpability in its due diligence process.
• The CEO And Staff Must Be Evaluated Fairly: In a nonprofit situation, this must be done in partnership, not hierarchically. Everybody must understand the “rules of the game.” Outcomes and impacts need to be related to the mission of the organization.
• The Board and CEO Must Partner On Fundraising: An effective CEO must, in the 21st century, be the face of the organization to accomplish its mission. Nonprofit board members are part-time stewards. Consequently the CEO must accept a significant responsibility for fundraising.

These guidelines can be useful to nonprofit boards in self-evaluation projects. They can determine whether or not the board is facing the realities of standing back and letting the CEO manage. The CEO should have full operational authority, and the staff should function without an atmosphere of board micromanagement.

*International Journal of Not-for-Profit Law / vol. 14, nos. 1-2, April 2012 / p.57.

Can Using Imperfect Data Assist Nonprofits in Defining Impacts?

By Eugene Fram

Nonprofit boards need to expand their evaluations of nonprofit managers and their organizations adding more behavioral impacts * to their evaluations.

For example, a nonprofit might count the number of volunteers that have been trained. But boards must go to the next level in the 21st century.
In the case of volunteers, they must seek to understand the impacts on those trained. They need, for instance, to understand how well these volunteers are assisting clients and how they are representing the nonprofit to the clients. The training is a process, but it determines their relationships with clients and yields impact data.

Qualitative data must be developed to the next level, and the average nonprofit CEO will argue that he/she doesn’t have the staff or expertise to develop impact data. Engaging an outside organization to complete a simple project can cost thousands of dollars.

Yet funders are asking for these types of data because they know in the nonprofit environment that good program outcomes do not necessarily mean that the organization is creating impacts related to its mission. As one analyst reported: ** Clear measure of performance and impact will be required by donors (in the coming years). Over and over donors are looking for performance metrics. They want proof that you are doing a good job with their money. …. They want efficiency and effectiveness. Some nonprofits are:
• Talking about their accomplishments in meaningful and measurable ways.
• Demonstrating clear results for the people and causes they serve.
• Turning their annual reports into “impact reports.”

Are Nonprofits In a “No Win” Situation?

They are not in such a situation if they are willing to use imperfect metrics to track progress and drive change. Most funders will accept such measurement if the organization shows it is trying to develop impact data and learning from their experiences over time. With the data, nonprofits can assess impacts on such honorable but vague goals such as “enhance quality of life,” “elevate artistic sensitivity,” or “community commitment.”

The following five-step process can be utilized: ***

• Agree on relevant outcomes: The board and management should agree that the metrics reflect organizational impacts, not activities or efforts. Impacts should focus on a desired change in the nonprofit’s universe rather than a set of process activities.
• Agree on approaches to evaluation: Many way to measure—personal interview, mail questionnaires, sampling client records, comparisons with other agencies, comparing imperfect data with similar types of national data.
• Agree on specific indicators: Develop behavioral outcomes desired. Example: Mentions in the local newspapers can be used as an indication of public presence.
• Agree on judgment rules: Board and management need to agree at the outset upon the impact metrics the organization would like to achieve for each specific indicator that contributes to the desired mission related objective.
• Compare measurement outcome with judgment rule: Assess impacts and then compare results to mission related objectives to determine contributions to strategic objectives.

Who implements the process?

Few nonprofits will have the person-power or budget to implement the process, but there are other ways to accomplish it to develop impact results.

• Seek a local university class that will assist under the close direction of a professor or a knowledgeable volunteer professional.
• Engage a recently retired professional volunteer, provide him/her with an organizational title (e.g., Director of Measurement Projects) and seek funds from local foundation to cover costs.
• Ask a local service organization, like Rotary, to fund the project, as a demonstration for X number of years. A business organization might also agree to such funding.
• Seek a doctoral or masters student who might conduct the project in exchange for the ability to publish an article about it. Submit a funding grant to cover costs.

Without some ways of measuring their impact on clients, nonprofits can easily degenerate into monitoring staff activities, mistaking outcomes for impacts. That danger is much greater than the danger of using imperfect metrics. Efforts involving process can easily be measured, but an imperfect metric can be improved with experience over time to reveal impact.

* See– http://amzn.to/1OUV8J9  

**http://boardassist.org/blog/top-10-fundraising-trends-and-predictions-for-2016/

*** https://nonprofitquarterly.org/2012/07/24/using-imperfect-metrics-well-tracking-progress-and-driving-change/

Lifestyle & Behavioral Information–Some Added Ways To Seek High Performance Nonprofit Board Members

By Eugene Fram

I have conducted nonprofit board recruitment projects. The boards with which I worked had rather similar challenges

.• They had concerns recruiting sufficient numbers of board members to fill their needs.

• Current board members, largely composed of younger people, in the 30-40-age range, had significant problems balancing work and family obligations and attending board and committee meetings.

• Attendance was sporadic. Although the boards were small, members really did not know each other. Another board member sent a work subordinate to attend board meetings. In anopther case, a nationally known board member never attended meeting and only occasionally met with the ED to offer advice. One one board member with decades of board experience admitted she did not know other members. The EDs and board chairs had significant power. One ED complained she was doing the work of operating the organization and operating the board, and She had too much potential liability.

• Although these organizations, with budgets in the $8-$10 million range were operating successfully, the EDs involved realized that they were in line for long-term problems if board recruiting didn’t change.

What to Do

• Consider establishing two boards, a board for governance and a consulting board. For the governance board, make certain the typical directors in the 30-40 year age range they have a good understanding of their work-family obligation to be able to devote time for the organization

.• For the consulting board, ask volunteers to work on projects that have a defined time limit. They will not be asked to be involved in more than one or two projects per year, an ideal inducement for millennials who are used to short bursts of activities. It may be necessary to recruit several persons with the same skills to provide coverage for several projects.

• Keep communications flowing to the consulting board like one would to the governing board. Have occasional social and educational events that allow the groups to meet informally. If the organization has a volunteer manager, this person should be charged to keep the communications flowing. Members of the consultingboard will only have occasional contact with the organizatio

• Overlay the traditional nonprofit skills grid with several time dimensions to recruit for both types of boards:

1. Recently retired people, both those traditionally retired and those who retired early, who may have time to be candidates for both the governing and consulting boards.

2. Seek individual contributors who may have more control of their time, such as doctors, lawyers, professors and small business owners.

3. Seek successful entrepreneurs who can schedule their own time, can resonate with the organization’s mission, vision and values and who want to give back to the community.

4.Beyond the time requirement, seek persons with experience on profit or nonprofit boards so they can share their board knowledge and become models for those having their first board experience. Their questions and behaviors can teach as much or more than formal new board seminars.

Summary:The traditional nonprofit board skills grid can still be helpful in the 21st century. However it needs to be extended to lifestyle and behavioral information for each board candidate, such as experiences with strategy development and critical thinking abilities. A more time consuming practice.

How Do Boards Develop Successful Business Practices In Nonprofit Organizations?

By: Eugene Fram    

Every nonprofit needs a business plan to implement marketing, financial, human resources, etc. activities. The goal of the nonprofit business plan is to maximize the achievement of the organization’s mission within existing resources.

Strong service and business practices should be the hallmarks of any nonprofit board that effectively focuses on four business factors: 

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What attributes does a nonprofit board member need to be a Change Agent?

By Eugene Fram

Be well acquainted with mission arena of the organization — This can range from current or previous employment in the arena or being a board member of an allied organization. The change agent must be able to “walk the talk.” Example: Ask the CEO of a counseling organization whether or not the treatment modalities used by the staff are current.

Must have a proactive style — Uninterrupted attendance at most board and committee meetings; asks questions that his/her board colleagues recognize as being perceptive ones; be well respected by peers internally and externally; responds well to the “give or get” policy of the organization and has a professionally cordial relationship with the CEO.

Needs to be patient and flexible — The frequent rotation of board personnel may mean that a process of convincing new board members that the change is in the best interest of the nonprofit’s clients. Be ready to change when outside circumstances require a modification of the shape of the effort.

Has excellent people skills — He/she will need to understand the various reactions to the change(s) being driven. These can range from board colleagues to management personnel, staff and even external stakeholders like funders.

Will “stay on message” in comments related to the change — Will be required to present arguments in a concise and understandable manner. Will be seen as a strong, but not overbearing, champion for the change.

The time issue — Most nonprofit board members are volunteers with full-time occupations and family responsibilities that must take time precedents. Becoming a nonprofit board change agent often requires these additional time commitments:

• Chairing a major board committee for a substantial time period.
• Possibly taking personal responsibility for research/ background efforts.
• Specialized training efforts may be required for other board members.
• A continual process of updating colleagues and seeking allies to whom some of the work can be delegated.
• Constantly being alert to legacy minded people who may impede forward moment toward the change goal.

Not every nonprofit board change agent will have all the qualifications cited above and all the time necessary to devote to marketing the change. But from those who have succeeded, others need to know what is potentially involved.

* https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/champions-change-agents-advocates-dr-jack-jacoby/

How Nonprofit Boards Can Support Management & Staff and Refrain From Micromanaging!

How Nonprofit Boards Can Support Management & Staff and Refrain From Micromanaging!

By: Eugene Fram                   

The dilemma is common to nonprofit organizations. As start-ups, everyone aspires to do everything. Passion for the mission and determination to “get it right” imbue board members with the desire to do it all. But once the organization starts to mature, board roles shift to focus more broadly on policy and strategy issues. With the advent of qualified personnel to handle operations, there are many overview activities, sans micromanaging, available to board members. Following are some ways that boards can assist and demonstrate support for operations, CEOs and staffs without interfering.

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6 Approaches to Innovation for Nonprofit Boards

6 Approaches to Innovation for Nonprofit Boards

By Eugene Fram                    

The Bridgespan Group, supported by The Rockefeller Foundation,  completed an exciting research study. The results identified “six elements common to nonprofits with a high capacity to innovate” * Following are some suggestion how to implement these elements.

  1.  Catalytic Leadership that empowers staff to solve problems that matter. This involves the board to lead with committed and generative leadership. **  Board members must be ready to ask tough questions. They must require management to respond to the classic question, “Who would miss the nonprofit if it were to disappear?” Board members should be able to suggest new ideas drawn from business and the public sector that can be adapted, assessed and tested by management and staff
  2. A curious culture, where staff looks beyond their day-to day obligation, questions assumptions, and constructively challenge each other’s thinking as well as the status quo. This, in my view is difficult to achieve, but boards should attempt to take every advantage to develop it. Boards that question the status quo are hard to find in all fields. They should, at the least, involve the staff in strategic planning efforts and pay close attention to its development. Staffs then are in an excellent position to challenge the status quo. One staff person in a human services agency, for example, challenged the status quo by observing the nonprofit did not have a “safety net” mission, but in reality had a “sustainability” mission. The agency was not only helping clients on a day-to-day basis but also was trying to assist them to achieve sustainable lifestyles.
  3. Diverse teams with different backgrounds, experiences, attitudes and capabilities—the feed-stock for growing an organization’s capacity to generate breakthrough ideas.

As the Bridgespan Group has noted, it is necessary to have board members, “who are diverse across their dimensions: demographics, cognitive and intellectual abilities and styles with professional skills and experiences. In my opinion, nonprofits have been successful in recruiting board members in all of these categories except two—cognitive and intellectual abilities. I have encountered nonprofit boards without a single director with strategic planning or visionary abilities. Board members’ full time occupations often do not require them to have these abilities. As a result, strategic planning was just a SWAT (strengths, weakness and threats) review without any real analytical depth. To rectify the situation, nonprofits need to add these abilities to their recruitment grids. Unfortunately, this makes the recruiting effort more difficult since the abilities don’t appear on many resumes. Candidates must be assessed from an in-depth interview process.

  1. Porous boundarieswiden the scope for innovations, by allowing fresh ideas to peculate up from staff at any level—as well as constituents and other outside voices—and seep through silos.

Because many nonprofits have small travel budgets, they may operate in “bubbles, ” consisting of themselves and similar neighboring organizations. In addition, they can acculturate board members to the “bubble” traditions and environments.   For example, they may ask a new board member, with strong financial abilities to help the CFO with accounting issues, instead of asking her/h to develop a strategic financial plan for the organization. Perhaps as national webinars become more available to nonprofit managements and their staffs, these information flows will help to change the innovation roadblocks. Then they can, “generate new ideas systematically, test ideas using articulated criteria, metrics methodologies and prioritize and scale the highest potential ideas.”

  1. Idea Pathways that provide structure and processes for identifying, testing and transforming promising concepts into needle-moving solutions. For example, the process of Lean Management can allow testing of new ideas quickly. Instead of waiting for a new strategic plan to establish a pathway for something new, a nonprofit can test it with a series of small-scale efforts to determine its viability. The idea can be dropped if positive results are not developed after a couple of tests.   If after successive tests with viable information results, the idea can be moved quickly to an implementation stage when the nonprofit has the necessary resources.
  2. The ready resources—funding, time, training and tools—vital to supporting innovation work. To fully take advantage of most of these six innovation guidelines, fundraising is critical. But each board and staff cannot do it alone. It must be a partnership between the board members and the CEO that recognizes fundraising for innovation is a necessary part of the nonprofit’s resourcing efforts.

*https://ssir.org/articles/entry/is_your_nonprofit_built_for_sustained_innovation

**https://journals.co.za/doi/abs/10.10520/EJC-967dbda2e

Are Nonprofit Boards Capable Evaluating Themselves?

Are Nonprofit Boards Capable of Evaluating Themselves?

By: Eugene Fram       

A 2025 survey of business boards by PWC (Accounting/Consulting Firm) yielded the following results;

  • More than half (55%%) of board members think someone on their board should be replaced.
  • Most board members (78%) do not believe their boards’ asssessment process provides a complete picture of overall board performance.
  • A majority (51%) say their boards are insufficiently invested in the investment process.
  • About half (45%) seek addiktional education or training on key topics.*

Given that many of these business boards have the financial power to employ legal counsel or consultants to conduct a rigorous impartial evaluation, what can a nonprofit board, with limited financial resources, do to make sure that the board and its members are being fairly evaluated to drive change?

Ask The Tough Questions:  No matter what process is used in the evaluation, the board has to address some difficult common questions.  These include:

  • To what extent are board members overly compliant with the wishes of the board chair or CEO? Having been a veteran nonprofit board member or a consultant with dozens of others, I find there is a tendency for nonprofit board members to “go along to get along.” As a result, the board tends to be compliant with the wishes of the board chair, the CEO or an influential director. Rigorous/civil dissent is not part of meeting discussions.
  • Leadership selection discussions are rarely a priority. Often, through lack of interest or the organization’s formal culture, the board has little contact with staff members below the senior management level and little interest in assessing where future management strength can be developed.
  • I have yet to encounter a nonprofit board that is willing to discuss its effectiveness in terms of overall strengths or weaknesses. Critical tough questions are: Are all members contributing at a minimum “get or give” level?  Especially between meetings, how can board’s internal communications be improved? To what extent does the board become involved in micromanagement or perpetuate it long after the board has outgrown the startup stage?   For example, I observed one mature board make a decision about the timing of fundraising events and then spend the next hour brainstorming the types of events that might be developed—clearly a management responsibility to investigate.
  • The strategic strength of the board. Nonprofit board member backgrounds should be aligned with the emerging needs of the nonprofit.  Examples, if fund development is going to be a priority, a person with event planning experiences should be recruited. If the reserve fund return is not being maximized, a person with a financial background, not a CPA, is required.
  • The ineffective nonprofit director. It is the most vexing problem that boards face. This person’s behavior can range from one who monopolizes discussions to the person who attends meetings but never makes any financial or other types of contributions. Some boards claim that they can approach the problem by asking each director to assess the effectiveness of his/h colleagues, but in decades of nonprofit governance experiences, I have never encountered a board that has had this process in place.

Review Current Practices:  If the board has never been self-evaluated, to do a proper self evaluation, these steps are important:

  • Develop a questionnaire to be completed by all board members.  It should be carefully crafted to determine how the board as a group and each individual board member contributes to enhancing the organization’s mission.
  • The committee assigned to the project should seek the assistance of someone with professional evaluation competence to guide the work.  Hopefully he/s will accept the assignment on a pro bono basis. This also can be an interesting project for a small group of graduate students, guided by a knowledgeable professor.  Because of the confidential nature of the material, no more than three students should be involved.
  • Develop the processes for dissemination, confidentiality, collation of materials and organization of survey information. Again, engage a professional to assist with these efforts.

Traditionally, nonprofits use a simple questionnaire to evaluate the organization and the CEO. Their development processes vary widely, and their usefulness often can be questioned when not all board members take the time to thoughtfully respond to the survey or when it is developed by committee. However, board self-evaluation needs to be completed with professional assistance, and the results reported with diplomatic care to drive positive board change.

*https://www.pwc.com/us/en/services/governance-insights-center/library/assets/pwc-2025-annual-corporate-directors-survey.pdf