Board Recuitment

What Nonprofits Can Do To Maintain Liquidity

What Nonprofits Can Do To Maintain Liquidity

By: Eugene Fram    Free Digital Image

It doesn’t take a pandemic to make a nonprofit question its capacity to survive. Events such as a loss of major funding, a damaged reputation, huge unpredicted expenses could swiftly reduce the lifeblood of the organization, plunging the nonprofit into deep concern for its long-term survival.

Any nonprofit CEO has the data to predict how long the organization can stay afloat without income. This, however, would be only one rough measure of the nonprofit’s liquidity. Board members need to take the discussion further. They need to realistically appraise total liquidly from fixed/variable expenses and income venues as they relate to mission accomplishment.

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The Devil’s Advocate on a Nonprofit Board: Asset or Liability

The Devil’s Advocate on a Nonprofit Board: Asset or Liability?

By: Eugene Fram              Free Digital Image

An unwritten rule for nonprofit board membership is that it is best to “go along to get along.” But sometimes a nonprofit director’s “no” vote to an action that has had inadequate discussion can allow him/h to avoid tax penalties that have been levied on other board members for lack of due care.

Stanford University research results indicate that groups with a lone minority dissenter outperform other groups where all members agree. In addition, these groups…”are more successful than (groups) in which all members disagree and fall prey to escalated emotional, difficult-to resolve (group) brawls “ *

The key to success, according to these data, is to,” … have a devil’s advocate (DA) on the nonprofit board. … This is a person or a small board minority that “has the sensitivity to see the differences, perceives them as conflict, and then communicates about the differences in non-confrontational ways.” **

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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                    Free Digital Image

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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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                    Free Digital Image

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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The Search For a New Nonprofit CEO Needs To Be Realistic

 

The Search For a New Nonprofit CEO Needs To Be Realistic

By Eugene Fram      Free Digital Image

Boardmember.com in its October 11, 2012 issue carries an op-ed item by Nathan Bennett and Stephen Miles titled, “Is your Board About to Pick the Wrong CEO.” Although targeted to for-profit boards, all of the five items listed in the article can be applied to nonprofit boards. 

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Once Again: How Should Nonprofits Conduct Board Evaluations?

 

Once Again: How Should Nonprofits Conduct Board Evaluations?

By: Eugene Fram    Free Digital Image

 Data from BoardSource show that only about 58% of boards have had “formal, written self-assessment of board performance at some point. Only 40% of all boards have done an assessment in the past two Years,” a recommended practice. With the rapid turnover of directors that nonprofit boards traditionally experience, this seems inexcusable. As a “veteran” nonprofit director, following is what I think can be done to improve the situation.

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Falling in Love With the Mission & Other Sage Advice for First Time Nonprofit Board Members

 

Falling in Love With the Mission & Other Sage Advice for First Time Nonprofit Board Members

By: Eugene Fram          Free Digital Image

Sam Smith recently entered early retirement and wants to become a director on the board of a nonprofit organization. His motive is to give back to the community where he has prospered. As a first time board member, he can look to some advice from pros in the area, from an article by Stanford’s Center Social Innovation (CSI).
http://stanford.io/1qefmx1

Following are my reactions to some of the article’s suggestions, hopefully adding important field information. My comments are based on having served on 12 nonprofit boards over several decades and my experiences as a consultant to at least a dozen additional nonprofit boards.

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What Makes A Great Nonprofit Board Member?  Some Unique Suggestions!!!
What Makes A Great Nonprofit Board Member?  Some Unique Suggestions!!!

By: Eugene Fram          Free Digital Photo

Viewers may question my taking time to develop this post when a Google search, using the above title, shows about 302 million listings recorded in 0.63 of second! The answer is that I located a board article with a few interesting insights, relating to for-profit boards, that also can be useful to the selection of nonprofit directors. * Following are some of the unusual ideas.

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The Nonprofit Dream Team: a Board/CEO Partnership that Works!

The Nonprofit Dream Team: a Board/CEO Partnership that Works!

By: Eugene H. Fram    Free Digital Image

Rebalancing and maintaining important relationships in a nonprofit organization can be important to its success. Do various players fully understand and accept their specific roles? Is there mutual trust between players? Are communications open and civil?

I encountered an association CEO who complained that his board wants to judge him without establishing mutually agreeable goals, outcomes or impacts. He felt what is needed is a partnership arrangement where the board does not judge the CEO and organization based on political or personal biases but overviews performance in terms of mutually accepted achievements. This, he contended, forms a substantial partnership between board and CEO and staff. If the board thinks it can judge management without these measures he stated, it generates a personal political type of evaluation unrelated to performance. As an example he pointed to an unfortunately common nonprofit situation where a CEO is given an excellent review and fired six months later because there has been a change in the internal board dynamics.

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Are Your Board and Staff Ready For Change?
Free Digital Image

Are Your Board and Staff Ready For Change?

By: Eugene Fram               Free Digital Image

“Ideally, change takes place only when is “a critical mass of board and staff want … it. A significant … portion of leadership must realize that the status quo won’t do” * Based on my experiences, this ideal is rarely achieved because:

  • The CEO needs to support the changes being suggested and/or mandated by a majority of the board.   But, if not fully invested in the change, he/s can accede to board wishes for action but move slowly in their implementations. The usual excuse for slow movement is budget constraint.

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