Board Recuitment

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

Once Again! How Can Nonprofit Boards 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.

    • Respect Management & Staff: The Board needs to accept the CEO as professional manager, not as a person dedicated to a field specialty—police officer, physician, attorney, etc.—with part-time management efforts. * He/s should know how to hire well, interrelate with staff, board and other stakeholders and make certain day-to-day operations are effective and efficient. It is possible, however, to have a mediocre board and an effective management and staff that is devoted to the nonprofit’s mission. Hopefully, a few board members recognize the situation and are able to build a culture of respect for the management and staff, often a difficult task when the board is micromanaging the nonprofit.
    • The Importance of Long-Term Goals: Currently nonprofits tend to plan on a three-year to five-year cycle because the environments in which they operate change so quickly. With nonprofit board members having 4-6 median terms, this suggests many will have one short-term outlooks. But, in my opinion, much longer-term planning needs to be considered, perhaps for as long as ten years. This way current planning can influence longer-term planning. This generative thinking will also provide some benchmarks for the types of abilities and skills that future CEOs will need to possess.
    • Understand Psychological & Non-Monetary Benefits: Flexible benefits are required by nonprofits to compete with business and other nonprofits paying higher wages. For example, in many areas, hospital chains compete with human service agencies for people with social-work abilities. They must also compete with businesses for computer specialists. One way is to offer flexible scheduling to all personnel needing it. Another way is for the board to formally honor staff for successes and make certain that management provides appropriate praise frequently, a requirement for millennial, and possibly generation Z age staffs.
    • Empower the CEO and staff: Boards need to be sure that the CEO is fully empowered to make tactical operating decisions without board interference. On an overview basis, the board needs to request management to ask small staff teams to work on projects that can yield tangible results. This will encourage groups and teams to become more responsible.

Within its overview responsibilities, nonprofit board members can be quite proactive in assisting management and staff when they meet routine operational challenges. The above discussions demonstrate ways this can be accomplished. Nonprofit boards can add to them to meet local challenges.

* Some growing nonprofits unfortunately elect the CEO from the staff and allow him/h to continue to have some staff responsibilities.

Are Nonprofit Boards Capable of Evaluating Themselves?

A study of business boards by Stanford University yielded the following results:

  • Only one-third (36%) of board members surveyed believe their company does a very good job of accurately assessing the performance of individual directors.
  • Almost half (46%) believe their boards tolerate dissent.
  • Nearly three quarters of directors (74%) agree that board directors allow personal or past experiences to dominate their perspective.
  • And, perhaps most significant, the typical director believes that at least one fellow director should be removed from the board because the individual is not effective. *

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?

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The “Compliant” Nonprofit Board—A CEO Takes Charge Like a Founder!

The “Compliant” Nonprofit Board—A CEO Takes Charge Like a Founder!

By Eugene Fram             

According to BoardSource, “ ‘Founderitis’ and ‘founder’s syndrome’ are terms often used to describe a founder’s resistance to change. When founderitis surfaces, the source of the dilemma often is a founder’s misunderstanding of his or her role in an evolving organization.” * I would like to suggest that a nonprofit CEO also might suffer from the “founderitis illness,” sometimes with the board only being mildly or completely unaware of it.

Board Member Tenure versus CEO

The average board member tenure is six years (e.g., two three year terms) as compared with the average almost 13-year CEO tenure. ** The CEO has twice as longer period to influence polices and strategies. More importantly, she/h has more opportunity and time to acquire background knowledge and influence the organization’s culture.

“CEO Founderitis”—Typical Board Members & CEO Behaviors

  • The board is a dependent one, cancels or reschedules major committee/board meeting when the CEO can’t attend.
  • The CEO is overly verbose in presenting background information at meetings.
  • Concurrently, the number of board member comments is limited at most meetings.
  • The CEO places limits on the types of contacts the staff can have with board members, in the name of avoiding staff “end runs. “
  • The CEO carefully covets outside relationships and donor relationships. Board members are only marginally involved in fund development.
  • The Executive Committee does not challenge the CEO when setting the agenda.
  • The nonprofit board is satisfied with marginal gains each year, without seeking broader challenges to provide enhanced client services.
  • The CEO’s performance isn’t rigorously assessed.
  • The board rarely, if ever, overviews CEO and staff talent successions.
  • Board actions and activities are not rigorously reviewed or discussed.
  • Led by the CEO, Board resistance to change is substantial.

What should the board do if the CEO takes charge like a founder?

Three Options:

Does Nothing: This assumes the CEO is performing reasonably well in developing positive program impacts, not outcomes. (i.e, Program objectives can be achieved, but they can have little impacts on clients.)

The CEO and Board are satisfied with program outcomes as performance measures. As a result, the organization inadvertently may not be innovative. In addition, long-term organizational sustainability may be compromised. There may be long-term challenges on the horizon that go beyond the typical three to five year planning cycles.

A majority of board members may feel comfortable with this option because the CEO acts strongly, even though he/s occasionally may encroach on a board’s perogrative.

Makes Changes: This will probably require the CEO & Board to change, modifying some of the behaviors listed above. The CEO then forms a partnership with a changing independent board.

Some board members will be satisfied the status quo, little is required of them. But others may want to remove a CEO who leads like a founder. Internal conflict will likely arise on both sides to delay or abort change.

A Solution? Don’t rock the boat. Only when the CEO, especially one with long tenure, suffering from “founderitis” makes a graceful exit will there be opportunity for change. Hopefully, the new CEO will develop a partnership culture with the board.

* https://boardsource.org/resources/founders-syndrome/

** See: “Average tenure of nonprofit CEO Nonprofit Times”

For-Profit Boards Versus Nonprofit Boards: Similar Challenges?

   

By: Eugene Fram  

For-Profit Boards Versux Nonprofit Boards: Similar Challenges?                               

The wise person learns from his/h own experiences. The wiser person learns from the experiences of others. Chinese Proverb

The CEO Forum published an article covering the governance views of five business board members, known for their wisdom and vision.   Following are some of topics in the article that relate to nonprofit boards. *

Good governance is dependent upon well-curated boards. This means that nonprofit boards must look beyond the functional competencies (e.g. accounting, marketing, law, etc.) for candidates. Within these groupings, they need to seek candidates who have strategic outlooks, are comfortable with critical thinking and have documented leadership skills.   This requires recruiting and vetting efforts that go well beyond the friends, neighbors and colleagues who traditionally have been the sources for board positions. Also related is the issue of board succession, since that many will leave the board after a four to six year period. The current board(s) has an obligation to make rigorous recruiting and vetting become part of the nonprofit’s culture.

Assessing long-term sustainability. In the past, nonprofits have projected longevity because there will always be a need for the services or products they provide. This is no longer an assured proposition. Nonprofit day care centers now must compete with those that are for-profit. Improvements in medication have decreased the need for individual counseling and many new technologies can quickly solve problems that are embedded in the nonprofit’s mission.

Review governance best practices carefully! Know who is suggesting them and make certain they are appropriate for a specific organization. For example, some experts suggest that executive committees should be eliminated. However an executive committee that is responsible for a slim board committee structure can be effective in driving change and promoting better communications throughout the organization. **

Changing public accounting firms. Nonprofit accounting practice suggests changing public accounting firms about every five years. However one expert suggests, “It is important to ensure that judgment areas such as nonGAAP disclosures are well-defined, supporting calculations are well-documented and that the definitions and calculations are consistent across reporting periods.” At times of accounting firm change, nonprofit board members need to be able to add these issues to their question that they pose to management.

Ethics & Compliance. Like business organizations, nonprofits are subject to significant lapses in ethics and compliance. One study of  nonprofit fraud found that it 46% involved multiple perpetrators.  ***  As shown in the recent Wells Fargo debacle, establishing the tone for rigorous applications of a standard needs to start with the board and flow through all management levels. In the current environment, audit committees have to be especially alert and take immediate actions when red flags arise in either the ethics and/or compliance areas.   In my opinion, a nonprofit audit committee that meets only once or twice a year is not doing the necessary job.

Strategy. The nonprofit board has an obligation to help management see “around the next corner.” This involves board members assessing coming trends and sparking civil and meaningful board and committee discussions.

Board member comfort zones. Like their business counterparts, few nonprofit board members are “comfortable testing how to rock the norms.” It is easier to acculturate new directors to the current norms, a process that is inward bound and self-defeating. But a start can be initiated with questions such as, “If we were to start a new nonprofit across the street, what would it look like and who of the present board and a staff members would we ask to join us?

*https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertreiss/2017/05/22/americas-five-governance-experts-share-perspective-on-boards/#2a2ee326659a   

**For documentation see: https://goo.gl/QEL8x3

***https://nonprofitquarterly.org/nonprofit-fraud-its-a-people-problem-so-combat-it-with-governance/P

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Is Your Nonprofit Forward-Focused or a Prisoner of the Past?

Is Your Nonprofit Forward-Focused or a Prisoner of the Past?

By: Eugene Fram           

Governance arguably suffers most … when boards spend too much time looking in the rear view mirror and not enough scanning the road ahead. *

It has been my experience that nonprofits rarely address the possibilities and perils of “…the road ahead.” An endless stream of current and pressing issues can cause both Board and CEO to take a myopic view of their nonprofit responsibilities — either totally ignoring strategic issues or procrastinating a discussion of the subject. The results can be damaging to the organization. Here are some “prompts” that might guide nonprofit board members and CEOs as they attempt to provide leadership in this important but neglected area:

Balanced Agendas — Include and highlight strategic issues on every board meeting agenda (not just when a committee report is presented) until they are resolved with action plans, policy development or thoroughly discussed and removed. This constant emphasis on planning can go a long way towards achieving concrete actions on topics of future concern. A discussion of immediate issues juxtaposed with ongoing strategic concerns will provide a balanced meeting format that may possibly discourage board member’s attempts to micromanage, a very common tendency in nonprofit boards!

Short Term Focus — In a BoardSource report,  “…only 33 percent of nonprofits report that their board members are actively involved in advocating for their missions, and many organizations aren’t advocating at all.”** To inspire and challenge board leaders to actively serve as ambassadors.  The explanation for weak performance in this area is often attributed to the fact that the directors’ terms of service on the board are usually three to six years during which time people’s interest in the long-term future of the organization may be compromised. Some boards may be disproportionately represented by “millennials” whose participation comes with heavy time constraints. Problems of this type can be mitigated by seeking board members who are partially or fully retired. They are likely to be better equipped to focus on the important governance functions and the fundamentals in which the nonprofit operates. Boards need to look to look further out than anyone else in the organization… There are times when CEOs (those operationally concerned with strategy) are the last ones to see (environmental) changes coming.

Board Recruiting — Nonprofit recruiting can be a hit-or-miss process, often producing candidates who are readily available and familiar to the current board. Rarely will the committee seek out people who have strong track records as strategists and/or competent visionaries. This is a real challenge, but a forward focused board should make every effort to identify potential directors who have these types of experience and skills. The topic of recruitment is a challenging one and the process should have continual annual evaluation.

Can Nonprofit Boards Work Smarter Not Harder?
As noted earlier, nonprofit board people are often limited in the amount of time they can devote to board participation. Given these constraints, the board chair and CEO can choose from a range of options that will help orient directors to better understand the external landscape in which the organization operates. These initiatives can include visits to comparable facilities, opportunities to attend field related conferences or inviting experts in the same or similar organizations to interact with board members. The purpose is to infuse each member of the board with an informed view of the organization’s long-term future and prepare them to take the appropriate action. The CEO and board chair must address this question with a viable plan: What actually helps… (to develop) a board environment that encourages participation and allows board members to derive meaning, inspiration and satisfaction from their (board) work?

Talent: The Key to Nonprofit Success — A nonprofit board has one hiring decision to make: the engagement of the CEO. But it also has a significant responsibility to overview long-term talent development in the staff and management. The board of a family service agency needs to assure that its counselors are up to date on current modalities of counseling. A recreational organization must be operating in the context of accepted fitness practices. Annual talent reviews need to be scheduled with CEOs and the appropriate staff. In addition, individual board members, with the concurrence of the CEO, may want to have occasional professional contact with key people below the senior management.

Make strategy part of the board’s DNA — (Many nonprofit) … CEOs present their strategic vision once a year, the directors discuss and tweak it at a single board meeting (or a short retreat), and the plan is then adopted. The board’s input is minimal and there’s not enough in-depth information to underpin proper consideration of the alternatives.

An educated nonprofit board will have the depth of understanding to be alert to the future needs and problems of its organization. Typically there is usually an unanticipated “fork” in the road ahead. Status quo, “minding the store,” participation by rote are all too easy mindsets that will only hobble the progress of an organization. Board chairs and CEOs are key actors in turning an existing board environment into one that is focused on moving forward.

*Christian Casa and Christian Caspar (2014) “Building a forward-looking board,” McKinsey Quarterly, February. Note: Quotations from this article are presented in italics.

**https://boardsource.org/research-critical-issues/

 

How Can A Chief Operating Officer (COO) Advance Your Nonprofit Organization?

By: Eugene Fram               

In my decades of involvement with nonprofit boards, I have encountered several instances in which the CEO has failed to engage the services of a COO–when this addition to the staff was clearly needed. In each case and for whatever reasons, this reluctance to act left the nonprofit organizationally starved.

This means that the CEO continues to handle responsibilities that should have been delegated, some of which a predecessor may had assumed during the start-up stage. I once observed a nonprofit CEO with an annual $30 million budget personally organize and implement the annual board retreat, including physically rearranging tables/materials and cleaning the room after the retreat! When top leadership is deflected in situations at this level, client services and the general health of the organization is likely being negatively impacted.

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Nonprofit Board Discourse: a Meeting of the Minds??
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Nonprofit Board Discourse: a Meeting of the Minds??

By: Eugene Fram       

Several years ago, a nonprofit board member complained to me that there was too little “conflict” at board meetings. Too few hands were raised to challenge or simply question the efficacy of certain important agenda items. Having participated in hundreds of nonprofit meetings, I have observed that this laissez-faire response still typifies a significant number of board member’s attitudes, especially for items that deserve vigorous discussion. Why is that? And why can the term conflict be  perceived as an asset to an organization that is determined to move forward?

Below are some answers based on my own experience in the nonprofit environment.

  • Major Focus is on Operations: As I have commented in other posts, focusing on operations seems to be a default option for many nonprofits. Unlike members of business boards who have substantial financial investments in their organizations, nonprofit board members are volunteers with little personal risk and with insufficient motivation to challenge the status quo. Since the median nonprofit director’s term of service is seldom greater than 6 years, a board member can lack significant interest in the nonprofit’s long-term future. In addition operational items are more concrete and inherently more interesting because many center on people related decisions. Then there’s the “nice guy” impulse—directors’ meetings are usually brief (1 to 1.5 hours) and board member are often reluctant to voice dissenting views that may offend colleagues and extend meeting times.

Encouraging “Constructive Conflict”

  • Preparation Is Critical: Review of governance agenda materials leads the way to more rigorous discussions.   This requires nonprofits to provide meeting materials at least one week in advance to facilitate fact- based discussions. Some may argue that busy board members will ignore materials well in advance of the meetings. But isn’t it a solid advantage to have some of the most interested board members well briefed for the meeting?
  • The importance of mission: As much as possible, the board chair needs to frame each agenda item in light of its impact the nonprofit’s mission.   This helps eliminate frivolous comments and questions, e.g., voting on the color of the menu at the annual diner. These distractions, like responding to tweets, detract from discussing substantive issues. Chairs can diplomatically eliminate them by simply suggesting the distraction  issue can be handled “off line.”
  • Recruitment: Nominating candidates for the board who have the abilities to interact effectively at meetings are important to improving the quality and quantity of meeting discussions.   While nonprofits often need a diversity of board members from different fields and backgrounds, they also must have a core of directors who know the differences between governance and operational activities, who understand what is involved in critical thinking, have demonstrated leadership elsewhere and have broad understandings of what constitutes strategic planning.   Otherwise the board, like the one I encountered, had many very busy middle level managers types who did well on time-constrained specific projects, but they had no interest in governance or strategic planning.   The de facto result was that the Board Chair authoritatively operated the board.
  • Getting Together: Currently, most nonprofit board members live time-compressed lifestyles and only connect with others at formal board or committee meetings. To build an effective team decision-making, board members need to know each other personally and professionally.   Board chairs and CEOs must take steps to provide social or professional occasions for the board at which directors can interact.   Sometimes a simple 10-minute agenda item at a meeting asking each member to briefly review personal or professional events can help—as proven by organizations like Rotary.

Passion vs. Passivity: The nonprofit board member who lamented the absence of “conflict” in the boardroom recognizes that an engaged and often challenging governing body is in the best interest of a healthy and forward moving organization.

Are Your Board and Staff Ready For Change?

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Are Your Board and Staff Ready For Change?

By: Eugene Fram               

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, the CEO can accede to board wishes for action but move slowly in their implementations. The usual excuse for slow movement is budget constraint.

Complicating the situation is the fact that most nonprofit boards are hesitant to remove a CEO who has a nice personality but lacks vision, makes modest revisions each year and keeps budgets
in  balance. As volunteers, board members know that removing a “status quo” CEO can cause board and staff conflict. These events require more meeting times and can cause board members
to turn against one another. Volunteers accept board positions to promote positive outcomes, not to become involved with the stresses that accompany conflict.

  • Changing a CEO, board members or the governance model, etc., can easily send negative signals to the staff because they may view it as leading to disruption in their jobs and working environments. Most nonprofit staffs are only one or two organizational levels away from the board and may become concerned that new influential board members can have significant impact.

For example, two professors persuaded their board colleagues that the agency needed a “management by objectives program.”  The staff became so involved in establishing and measuring
objectives that they neglected client services .

Critical actions that boards can take to overcome these barriers.

  • Agreement about what “change” means. Perhaps it is increasing clients served and/or simultaneously having to increase donations to maximize the mission’s service? These changes can be readily measured. However, nonprofits often have revisions that can only be measured approximately in the short-term because of the significant costs involved. These include such items as improving public awareness or community influence. They require use of more qualitative measures over time to assess trends and improve the measures. *

Those responsible for change need to be reminded that words have meaning, and the words used to describe revisions can create negative attitudes from board members and staff. Those with
negative connotations include “profit, efficiency and restructuring.” Positive words include “mission, serving and compassion.”

  • Radical honesty about the hurdles standing in you way. It’s important to be upfront about the “bandwidth” in staff and board resources needed to implement any major modifications. This involves having three or four board members who are experienced with implementing change, willing to assume leadership of the process and have the interpersonal skills necessary to “sell” other board members on the benefits of the new plan. In one situation, where a governance model was changed and the ED’s title revised to President/CEO, a traditional board member was dissatisfied.  He complained about the new title “What do we call the ED now, Presco?”   The implication was that the new title was satisfactory for the head of a business organization but too sophisticated for the operating head of a nonprofit organization.
  • Commitment to do whatever it takes. Driving changed from a nonprofit board position isn’t for the person or team that gives up easily. A realistic plan is to anticipate the bumps in the road along the way. For example, if some board members agreed to a revision with limitations, it’s the responsibility of the CEO and board members to make certain they are consulted as the change progresses, helping them, if they can, to be more comfortable with it. If the change has substantial impact on the staff, the CEO and board members need to be certain that false rumors are handled appropriately when they appear. This also applies to rumors circulating in the community or in an industry, if the nonprofit is an association.

When boards fail to take the types of actions cited above, the impact can affect the nonprofit’s culture for decades. For example, a nonprofit engaged a new executive director with an authoritarian leadership style.  His long-term predecessor developed a relaxed culture, often casually taking staff meeting time to read poetry. The Board concluded major changes were necessary.

As a first step to solve the problem, the board made a mistake by demanding the new ED modifies his authoritative management style. But concurrently, a union organizer heard about the dissatisfaction and persuaded the social workers on the staff to form a union. Results: the problematic ED was finally terminated, and an experienced ED, who had worked previously at the agency, was engaged. But the social work staff is still unionized. Trust between management and the professional staff was never restored.

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

Do Nonprofit Boards Face Cyber Security Risk?
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Do Nonprofit Boards Face Cyber Security Risk?

By: Eugene Fram     

Solarwinds and Target and others may seem far afield from the concerns of nonprofit directors, except for the giants in the area, like AARP. However, think about this hypothetical scenario.

A group of high school students hacked into the computer system of a local nonprofit offering mental health services and gain access to records of clients, perhaps even placing some of the records of other teenagers on the internet.  Considering the recent introductions of new AI tools, the power of immature teenagers and adults to initiate Cyber Security (CS) problems seems unlimited.  

What due care obligations did the board need to forestall the above situation? A move to recruit directors with special expertise in information technology or cyber security would be nonproductive. A nonprofit director has broader responsibilities such as the overview of management, approval of budgets, fostering management and staff growth etc. Similarly, when social media became a prominent issue a few years ago, boards debated the advisability of seeking directors with that specific kind of background. Today, a consultant with management is likely to provide guidance to directors on these issues.

After listening to a group of cyber security experts discuss for-profit challenges in this area, I have the following suggestions on how nonprofit boards might respond to similar types of challenges.

1. Carefully “wall off” all confidential information – Have management be certain that private information such as health records, are encrypted and separated from operating data that may be considered public in a nonprofit environment.
2. Review D&O and other liability policies – Determine whether or not the D&O policy protects directors and managers from CS intrusions. (It likely does not, but I understand that some carriers may offer some protection along with smaller policies.) It is clear that most general liability policies do not protect the organization against CS.
3. Board Encouragement – Devote some meeting time, perhaps 10 minutes, to a discussion of the CS topics so that management and staff are aware of the board’s concerns on the subject and will take action when necessary. Appropriate due care actions like frequent password changes should become routine. Some checklists are available online, suggesting questions directors might pose to raise awareness on the topic and avoid potential CS breaches.
4. Can third party payer help? – Many nonprofits deal with third party payers with sophisticated CS systems and may offer the nonprofit some advice or assistance.
5. Education and training of employers – Many CS crimes have been successful because employees have violated or forget to effectively protect their working accounts and information. Proper education and training can help reduce these types of lapses.
6. Finance & Audit Committees – Recent data indicate that only 20% of nonprofits have a CS vulnerability assessment in place and only about the same proportion have a plan  in place should a CS breach take place . *  Due care responsibilities seem to be missing among a large portion of nonprofits.

If a nonprofit, like the one described, is attacked, not only will records be compromised, but also the reputation of the agency will be destroyed, probably along with the nonprofit organization itself. SolarWinds and Target may be able to survive such an attack, but the typical nonprofit may not.

*https://communityit.com/nonprofit-cybersecurity/

Is Your Nonprofit Strategically Deprived?

By: Eugene Fram   

A vital concern to the future of any nonprofit organization is frequently neglected. Responsibility for the lack of strategic planning must reside with the chief executive, board members and the tactical challenges that inevitably flow to the board.

Before a nonprofit board can begin successful strategic planning, it must:
• fully understand the difference between strategic and tactical planning.*
• have a fully engaged chief executive involved with the board in the leadership of the strategic planning process.
• have a proportion of board directors with some specific types of strategic oriented experiences.

For example, one faith based organization recreational facility I know built a modern new building. However, the leadership was unaware of the quietly growing demand for preschool education in the area. As soon as the new building was opened, several parts of the structure had to be remodeled to accommodate a growing preschool population.

While I admit that planning for coming societal and behavioral, changes is difficult, like the one in the example, I suggest that any nonprofit board needs to take “inventory” of the following backgrounds of the current chief executive and board members.

How strategically capable is the organization’s chief executive? Does he or she stay at the leading edge of the field? Has the board recruited the chief executive for a strategic acumen or for just keeping the organization on a stable course?

How successful has an organization been in recruiting some of the following types of board members?
1. Those with enough time to become thoroughly acquainted with field related to the mission, visions of the organization’s operations. After all, many nonprofit directors serve on boards whose fields of focus are quite different from those in which they have working experience.
2. Those who can distinguish between a strategic plan and a tactical plan?
3. Those capable of critical thinking, questioning past assumptions as they relate to the future.
4. Those who have had successful strategic planning experiences at a high (not tactical) levels on other FP or NFP boards.
5. Those who have innate visionary abilities to assess future opportunities or roadblocks.
6. Those who have failed with past unsuccessful strategic plans but learned from their mistakes.
7. Those who can realistically project the financial challenges a strategic plan will develop.
8. Those with significant prior NFP or FP experience who can be models for younger directors with time restrictions who contribute via time limited task force assignments. But they need much more seasoning with understanding governance functions because they often rubber stamp board chair or CEO suggestions.

Addressing these recruitment issues in a forthright manner should enable nonprofit organizations to determine if they are strategically deprived. This move also might improve nonprofits’ records for strategic planning.

*  “strategy is the action plan that takes you where you want to go, the tactics are the individual steps and actions that will get you there”.