Establishing Effective Nonprofit Board Committees – What to Do.
Following are ways that many nonprofit boards have established effective board committees using mygovernance model as described in the third edition of Policy vs. Paper Clips. ( https://goo.gl/QEL8x3)
• In the planning effort, focus board personnel and financial resources only on those topics that are germane to the organization at a particular time. For example, financial planning, long-range planning or short-rangeplanning. However the board needs to be open to generative planning if new opportunities present themselves or are developed via board leadership.
• Reduce the number of board standing committees to no more than five, even less if possible
• Use subcommittees, also known as ad hoc committees or task forces, to review a range of board levelt topics, as needed, such as personnel policies, OSHA requirements and long-term space needs.
• Generally the CEO should attend all major committee meeting. He or she may or may not serve on subcommittees, depending on the information and guidance needed by the group.
• Staff input is critical. Professional staffs make major contributions to board policy decisions. It needs to be remembered that nonprofit staff in most organizations are more closely related to the board than they are in for-profit situations. The nonprofit staff are only a few organizational levels below the board.
• The CEO needs to foster an atmosphere in which staff members feel free to express opinions to board members and administrative staff. Such an atmosphere benefits the organization and isn’t just social activity.
• When confronted with a particular difficult issue, an excellent means of communications is the board/staff workshop. The professional interaction between board and staff should enhance the quality of decision-making. There are also secondary benefits, as a workshop enhances professional communications between board and staff and engages board members in meaningful hands-on projects. In addition, the board can assess the capabilities of promotable staff. Many boards have been content to analyze proposals endlessly (i.e., engage in analysis-paralysis). Others to avoid conflict, have tended to rubber-stamp proposals made by vocal or overly aggressive board members or the CEO. Neither of these types of boards truly participates in the challenging act of establishing policy and direction for their nonprofit groups.
The times are currently changing very rapidly due to the introduction of AI. Nonprofit Boards are being held much more personally accountable for their actions by the community and by legal statute. For example, if a volunteer board chair assumes the ED/CEO title or becomes president/CEO, he or she may face increased exposure to liability for not meeting his or her duties to be beinging very current on financials, compliance regulations, organizational limitations, etc.
Here are suggestions to assure the best possible partnership between the board chair and CEO.
Keeping boards focused on strategic issues is a major challenge for nonprofit leaders. This leadership crisis is intensified by the fact that board chairs tend to have short terms (according to BoardSource, 83% stay in office only one or two years). Thus, nonprofit CEOs and board chairs need to bond quickly. For the good of the organization, they must come together swiftly and create a partnership that works. Here are golden rules for the CEO and board chair to follow:
1. Be sure the CEO and board chair share strategic issues with each other—negative as well as positive ones. A failure by either the chair or CEO to share information, such as a potential cash flow issue, can be disastrous for the nonprofit.
2. It’s critical for the CEO to conduct orientation sessions with a new chair, explaining the challenges facing the nonprofit, and reviewing the fundamentals of the mission. The CEO can help the chair keep the board focused on strategic issues, whether they’re programmatic or financial. With many nonprofits electing a new president each year, the CEO needs to prioritize these tasks.
3. Make sure staff know who has the final say. Some employees mistakenly view the board chair as the ultimate authority, even when the organizational table lists the CEO as holding that position. As a result, they may try an end run around the CEO, asking the board to overturn the CEO’s decision about salaries, promotions, or programs, for example. Both the CEO and board chair must emphasize the fact that the CEO is the final authority. If they make this message clear enough, they can probably keep staff from attempting any end runs. If an end run still occurs, the board chair must refer the issue to the CEO for resolution, except if the CEO is being charged with malfeasance.
4. The CEO should arrange for individual board members to meet with management staff on occasion so that the board can gather information about how the organization is operated and obtain an understanding of the promotional abilities of managers. The Sarbanes-Oxley act (a federal statute relating to public corporation boards) recommends this process for for-profit boards, and it’s also a good one for nonprofit board members.
5. Give staff members opportunities to participate in strategic planning and to support board committees. The board chair and CEO should work together to arrange such board-staff interactions, including joint celebrations of organizational success.
6. The CEO and board chair need to agree on the use of ad hoc board committees or task forces and their relationship to standing committees. For example, should the HR/personnel committee be a standing one or only an ad hoc one to address major personnel policies? In the 21st century, a board should only have maximum of five standing committees, many can only have three. If task forces are used to provide provide options for occasional policy issues, for example pension plan changes, there may be little need for a standing board HR/personnel committee.
7. The board chair and CEO should be the active leaders in fundraising efforts, with the CEO as administrative leader. The board chair and other board members must provide the CEO entrée to funding sources. They often need to accompany the CEO on fundraising visits. The CEO should keep the board chair informed of all entrepreneurial development activities being explored.
8. The board has only one major employment decision to make – to recruit and hire the CEO. It’s usually a long and exhausting process. But once it’s completed, the employment of all other staff personnel is the responsibility of the CEO and the CEO’s management team. For senior positions, most CEOs ask their chairs and/or other board members to meet with candidates, but the ultimate responsibility remains with the CEO. The board also has a responsibility to overview staffing to make certain that adequate bench-strength in in place for succession placements, at the CEO and the senior management
9. When hiring a CEO, or soon after employment, the board chair and CEO must face a stark reality—the need for emergency leadership should the CEO become temporarily incapacitated. These plans can either be established informally by the chair-CEO partnership or more formally via board resolution. The following are possible interim CEOs: a senior manager in the organization, a semi-retired experienced CEO living near headquarters, a consultant living in a neighboring city. CEO succession planning is an important issue for the partnership should the CEO decides to leave or retire.
10. The CEO can be helpful to the board chair in recruiting new board members by suggesting possible volunteer candidates or other contacts who have demonstrated an interest in the organization’s mission, vision, and values. Board candidates will want to meet with the CEO as part of the interview process. As a result, the two partners must agree on how to present the organization to board candidates.
11. The chair and CEO need to lead in establishing meeting agendas. The two partners must work together to assure there’s sufficient meeting time to discuss and resolve strategic issue While many nonprofits call their top executive the “executive director,” the term CEO or president/CEO is a more leader-focused.
12. For the current environment, board members should be ready and willing to be ready to involved in a heightened level of board activity. If not, the board chair and board member should determine what constraints the member needs to be in place for his/h activity.
More But Shorter Meetings: Instead of monthly board meetings, schedule meetings every two months.. With the social intensity in the environment, some boards are being required to meet more frequently. In advance of the meetings, ask the Nonprofit CEO to send a list of announcement types items, hopefully limited to one page. (Have it understood that the one page may not meet the requirements of her/h high school English teacher!)
Onboarding New Board Members: A friend joined a nonprofit. As a result of all virtual board and committee meetings she feels adrift of human connection. She might even not recognize some of her new colleagues if she passed them on the street. This problem can be alleviated to some extent by arranging for the new member to have brief individual virtual meetings with other board members and senior managers. It’s a hopefully a quick fix to a problem.
Strategic Planning. It was evident in the pre-corvid period that strategic planning needs to have a longer focus than the traditional three to five-year plan in order to achieve organizational sustainability. There are enough evidences of post-covid changes to continue strategic planning with small committees. This involves more frequent, but shorter, virtual meetings for the planning committee and updates to the board.
Building Trust: Having trust among board colleagues is critical to having a fully functioning board. Talking directly to them, listening carefully and even watching body language or face colorings. Some people, for example, when agitated develop a flushed face. None of this appears when meetings are virtual! There are several actions Board Chairs and/or CEOs can take to help members to be better acquainted, hoping to lead to trusting relationships.
· Good & Welfare Periods: At the beginning or end of the virtual meeting ask members to share personal or professional events—promotions, marriages, children or grandchildren, etc.
· Outside Presentation: At a virtual meeting, arrange for a local or national authority to briefly talk about a mission related topic
· Invite the board members’/managements’ spouses or significant others to also be involved.
· Other Interests: Invite board members/management persons to discuss unusual skills they have or other groups to which they belong that promotes the public interest.
· Board Education: Where possible continue board education via a virtual approach. If staff persons participate, be certain presentations are rehearsed and that time restrictions are carefully followed.
Focusing on any of these four areas in a time-compressed nonprofit environment can be difficult. In my opinion, nonprofit boards should review them to determine if they can help alleviate the obvious deficits inherent with virtual meetings.
Whenever the time is ripe to select a new nonprofit CEO, I think of the old joke that says “…every person looks for the perfect spouse… meanwhile, they get married.” By the same token, nonprofit directors seek perfection in a new ED or CEO– and find that they must “settle” for less. But there are certain defined attributes that are essential to his/her success in managing the organization.
With the 21st century pressures of increasingly slim budgets, fund development challenges and the difficulty of recruiting high quality employees the ED/CEO must be action oriented and come equipped with at least a modicum of the following abilities:
Visionary: It’s all about the organization’s future.
The ED/elect should bring or at least begin tocultivate a deep concept of where the nonprofit is, should be and what the trajectory should looklike. He/she can do that by immersing himself in the mission field—reading widely and remainingin contact with regional and national leaders in the field. A state-of-the-art CEO should beavailable for consultation with colleagues with similar issues. Included in his span of vision arepotential disruptions that might affect the organization– and how to help the board focus on andimplement appropriate change.
Board Enabler:
The new chief understands the limits of his/h operational responsibilities and the governance overview role required by the board. To build trusting relationships with the board, she/h realizes that transparency is key.
Fundraiser:
The optimal fundraising relationship is a partnership between the CEO and theboard. Board members must be alert to outside funding opportunities and the CEO, alert tofunding opportunities from sources related to the mission field. Once an opportunity is identified, the CEO and the board work closely together to develop a proposal and to meet with the donor(s).If the organization has a development director, the person filling the position must be brought intothe discussion at an early stage.
Communicator:
To be organizationally successful, the Board and CEO must be in a position to interact with a variety of stakeholders: government officials, donors, vendors, clients and theirs surrogates, foundations, etc. One area in which many nonprofit CEOs need improvement in communications is with the business community. It goes beyond simply joining the Rotary or Chamber of Commerce groups. Nonprofit CEOs must have rudimentary knowledge of many businesses so they can interact intelligently with business leaders they encounter in development efforts. This information can be about specific organizations they are approaching or general knowledge acquired from perusing publications like Business Week or The Wall Street Journal.
Spokesperson:
Although some suggest that the volunteer president must be the spokesperson for the nonprofit, I suggest that the Executive Director/CEO must hold this position for several reasons
1. If a volunteer becomes a president/CEO, he/s may acquire some liabilities that other board directors don’t have. Some nonprofits have given the chief operating the title of president/ceo and the senior board person, board chair. This eliminates confusion that often surrounds the ED title when contacting business or government officials.
2.The volunteer president typically does not work in the organization daily and does not understand its nuances as well as the CEO.
3.In a crisis situation, the media may contact board members. It should be clearly understood that the CEO is the only person to comment to the media.
4. In ceremonial situations, it may be appropriate for the president to be a spokesperson.
5. The CEO needs to become the “face” of the organization because volunteer presidents come and go, some annually.
Team Builder:
She/h needs to build a strong management team, some of whom, over time, may become capable of becoming an Executive Director. The CEO, as head of the management team, needs to be sure all staff are performing well with some being bench strength to move to higher positions.
Tone Setter:
The CEO needs to set an ethical tone where everybody feels free to express their suggestions for improving the organization. This tone, in various ways, must also be communicated to all stakeholders by the Executive Director.
Performance Monitor:
Hopefully the board has a rigorous and fair system for evaluating the CEO and the organization, and the values of this system that are embedded in staff evaluations.
Frequently, I encounter nonprofit case stories surface related to inadequate oversight by nonprofit boards of directors. Some of the cases result in substantial dollar losses to the nonprofits. Following is my personal list of what reasonable board oversight means to attempt to help nonprofit boards of directors to avoid such losses.
At least half the board should be able to analyze the monthly or quarterly financial statements. Have voluntary information sessions available for those who do not have the skills.
Make certain that an external audit is conducted at least every two years, and the board is involved in the selection of the external auditor from a list of two or three suggested by board members and/or management. [i]
Be alert to the system used for developing new programs. Be wary when new programs are described such as “mindboggling.”
Be certain the organization has either a comprehensive assessment committee, finance committee, and/or audit committee. (Some states require nonprofits to have an audit committee once the organization has a certain annual revenue.)
Be alert to the development process for filing critical reports –Examples: 990s, employee tax withholdings and both state and federal tax reports.[ii]
Make certain the board has developed or is developing a current strategic plan.
Make certain that the organization has a knowledgeable CFO. No board member should have to worry about the safety of the organization’s assets.
Be especially alert when financial reports are frequently late or one or more directors perceive financial personnel are inadequately skilled.
If you don’t understand something, be ready to raise questions, even if the question appears to be innocuous
Nonprofit transparency is critical in the 21st century. “Trust But Verify.”
[i] For guidance in this process see: Eugene Fram & Bruce Oliver, (2010)“Want to Avoid Fraud? Look to Your Board,” Nonprofit World, pp.18-19.
Identify Nonprofit Staff Groups To Help Drive Organizational Change.
By Eugene Fram
Nonprofit executive directors Board Members tend to think of the staff professionals as individual contributors. These individuals are persons who mainly work on their own and increasingly also have to contribute as team players – for instance, counselors, health care professionals, curators and university faculty. However, many executive directors fail to recognize that these individual contributors can be grouped according to identifiable types, with differing work-value outlooks. Each group needs to be motivated differently to drive change in today’s fast moving social, political and technological environments. Nonprofit board members can use these groupings in their responsibilities for overseeing promotable staff members.
From years of observation of a variety of nonprofits the late Robert Pearse, a psychologist, and I have identified four major groups that have been labeled “Nostalgics,” “Maintainers,” “Producers’ and “Builders.” Executive directors and board directors who do not recognize the existence of such groups and the special needs to motivate and evaluate them differently may not achieve the forward motion or the performance goals that are required in the 21st century.
An identifiable group may dominate a department or it may have members in different departments. In many cases, a single group may include professionals with disparate personalities but whose work-value systems are similar.
Meet, for example, Sarah Thomas, a congenial department head who has spent the past decade in a nonprofit trade association, and Jack Engels, a brusque cost accountant in the association’s financial division. Sarah is well liked by the members of her department, while Jack is largely left alone in his work.
On the surface, Sarah and Jack appear to have little in common. Closer observation, however, shows that they are alike in one important aspect. Sarah’s department, which she has headed for the past six years, performs at a satisfactory level. Over the years, Sarah has tended to hire staff professionals who have work-values like her own. They are good – but not outstanding – performers. The group gets regular work done but rarely exhibits creative efforts or critical thinking. A recurring complaint from Sarah and her people is, “The department has too much to do.”
Jack Engels, the brusque accountant, also gets his work done, even though he shows little enthusiasm for his work. It is just a job, and he is averse to any change, except that mandated by accounting requirements.
Both Sarah and Jack are Maintainers, for both are comfortable with the status quo. If the executive director and/or board members were to allow the Maintainers standards to pervade the entire organization’s performance, it would likely stagnate and eventually decline.
Nostalgics are generally easy to recognize because they identify so strongly with the organization’s past history and culture. Many of them tend to be long tenured professionals whose performance has leveled off over time. They tend to take pride in being dedicated to the nonprofit but are uncomfortable with changes they perceive as breaking sharply with tradition.
The following strategies are helpful in working with Nostalgics: • Respond to their need to revere and emotionally relive the past. • Encourage the “willing worker” value system of group members. • Show how proposed changes will perpetuate past glory by contributing to organizational longevity and prominence. • Recognize that Nostalgics lack vision and prefer to avoid direct confrontation about the future direction of the organization.
Maintainers constitute the largest group in virtually all organizations, as illustrated by Jack and Sarah, they are average performers who typically have less tenure but also possess more currently useful skills than Nostalgics. They do only what is required by a job description or implied contract. Although they appreciate having a professional position, they have not internally accepted the self-directed performance behavior one typically associates with being a professional.
Several guidelines are helpful in working with Maintainers. • Be alert to the strong “legacy” value system at work in this professional group-all established processes can be successful in the future. • Depend on group members for low to average productivity but be aware that requests for increased productivity or increased self-management are likely to generate resentment and hostility. • Emphasize the pressures in the organization’s external environment that require professional performance improvement. Indicate how such improvements are important to long-term job security. • Set modest but attainable performance improvement goals on an annual basis. (Note: If a complete turnaround is essential, for the organizational survival, this slow improvement will not be adequate.) • Expect some continuing hostility whenever Maintainers feel new standards put pressure on them for sustained higher performance and commitment.
Producers are a varied collection of highly individual “type-A” workaholics who are motivated by their own goals. They tend to work on their own, but can be useful as team leaders if required for time limited projects. Because work output is the core of their existence, they see few differences between their personal and professional lives, sometimes leading to an unhealthy work-life balance. This can be a larger challenge if work forces are increasingly working from home. Producers will support changes initiated by the executive director that they perceive will enable them to produce more efficiently as individuals.
The executive director can try to motivate Producers’ effectiveness in the following ways:
Channel Producers’ vigorous efforts into organizational priorities by linking Producers’ special interests to the mission and goals of the nonprofit. • To the extent possible, provide Producers with the resources needed to be self-managing and productive. • Wherever possible, remove bureaucratic roadblocks to their productivity. • Agree annually on goals, and let Producers achieve them with a minimum of supervision and with appropriate rewards .
Builders, unlike Producers, are committed to furthering the goals of the organization, even at the expense of his or own personal goals. A senior nurse, who agrees to become an administrator, even though he or she prefers to care for patients, is an example of a Builder. Builders fall into two categories: vague visionaries and organized progressives. The former group’s attention span shifts rapidly from one detail of a proposed change to another. They lack sustained capacity for completing long-term performance improvement. The members of the latter group, organized progressives, are systematic thinkers who think quickly. Once they have a picture in mind, they can provide the executive director with knowledgeable and strong support.
An executive director can motivate the Builder group in the following ways: • Use the vague visionary Builders to help sell others when launching new performance programs. • Explain to organized progressives how their Builder values can contribute to a long-term systematic improvement plan. • Give organized progressives strategic follow-up assignments to ensure the new program will move forward. • Provide Builders with superior performance rewards..
If nonprofits are to continue to serve the nation in the current turbulent difficult time, executive directors and volunteer board members will need to provide strong support to their Builders and Producers and their work-value systems. In addition, they must also motivate the Nostalgic and Maintainer groups, using the suggestions cited above.
We hope this blog will spur board members, executive directors and president/CEOs to identify these four groups in their own organizations. Sources Eugene Fram & Robert Pearse (1991) “The High Performance Nonprofit: A Management Guide for Boards and Executives,” Families International, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Judith Gordon (1991), “Organizational Behavior: A Diagnostic Approach,” Allyn & Bacon, Boston, pp. 205-207, 742.
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.
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.
A Nonprofit Board Has A Problem With A Recently Hired CEO – What To Do? By: Eugene Fram.
With some possible variations, is the following scenario one that is frequently repeated elsewhere?
• The nonprofit board had engaged, Joe, an experienced ED. The prior ED had been in place for 25 years, and was evidently unwilling to move to meet changing client needs. For example, the agency only offered counseling services five days a week, 9 am to 5pm, with hours extended to 8 pm on Thursday night. There were no client options for emergency calls during nights or during weekends.
• Joe had been in place for about 6 months making some changes, evidently in an authoritarian manner. The board heard about the staff’s dissatisfaction with Joe’s management style, met with Joe and the staff together and decided to leave Joe in place. It was assumed that he and the staff were capable of healing the rift. • However, three outside forces then came in to play. First, a trade union heard about the staff’s dissatisfaction and assigned a recruiter to enroll the professional staff as a chapter of the union to bargain for wages, benefits and working conditions. (The union already had a local governmentally supported human services unit as a member chapter.) Second, the agency was a very old one, and a group of community leaders, fearing this problem would cause the demise of the agency formed an unrequested advisory group called, “Friends of ABC.” Third, the United Way gave the agency 6 months to provide evidence that the problems were subsiding, or it was going to substantially reduce, the large portion of the agency’s budget it provided. • Joe’s management style did not change. He was terminated with a six-month pay package in order to avoid a legal suit. A ED/CEO then was fortunately hired, who was well known in the community, was an experienced social worker, and had union negotiating experience. • The professional staff decided to join the union. • The new ED/CEO remained at the helm of the agency for 25 year, bringing innovation and change. However, the professional staff remained in a union chapter. Mistrust was hard to breach.
This is a case with which I was involved as a board member. Based on your nonprofit board experiences, to what extent have you noted a similar pattern?
• A nonprofit board misjudges the requirements for filling the chief executive position. • Organizational discord becomes a problem. • The board is slow in taking action, by trying to give the new ED time to resolve the problem. • The board then terminates the chief executive for failing to meet objectives or because there is still substantial organizational discord. • Groups in the community become involved in the organization’s internal problems. • The ED/CEO is fired. • A ED brings change, but there is still a feeling of mistrust that permeates the communications of the agency for decades. The union continues to be the bargaining spokesperson for the professional staff, long after most staff members involved with the situation have retired or taken other positions
21st Century Nonprofit Boards Need to be Proactive in Strategy Development
By: Eugene Fram
Most Boards do not excel at strategy planning. In fact, when the subject is included on a meeting agenda, it usually produces a general lack of enthusiasm. A McKinsey study * cited weakness in for-profit boards dealing with the topic. And in my opinion, similar deficits are endemic to nonprofit boards whose response to strategic proposals is often simply– “ to review and approve.”
What causes these vital governing bodies to be passive when the future of the organization is obviously at stake? First, most nonprofit boards meet between 8 and 12 times a year, for what averages to about 1.5 hours monthly. With an agenda crammed with compliance issues and staff reports, there is little time left for board members to dive deeply into a discussion of future transformative efforts on behalf of the organization. When a new strategic plan is developed (that may only occur once every 3-5 years, with a limited perspective), its implementation is not as rigorous as it should be—even in high performing boards.
According to the McKinsey study, only 21% of business board members claim to fully understand the firm’s total strategy. Because of their diverse backgrounds, the percentage of uninitiated nonprofit board members is probably similar or even higher!
Next, the study also reports: “…there is often a mismatch between the time horizons of board members and that of top management.” Since the median tenure for a nonprofit board member is between four and six years, it follows that management‘s experience with the mission environment exceeds the vast majority of board members. Since the outset of the 2009 recession, it becomes critical that a dialogue between board and management brings focus to economic priorities. When the economic environment remains more dynamic, it requires much more discussion.
Questions that board and management need to consider to overcome these issues.
• How well do board members understand the mission dynamics? In terms of nonprofit experience, management has a better understanding of the mission’s environment. As a result, management needs to be proactive in educating board members about the dynamics involved. This can take place at meetings, retreats or engaging outside experts to interact with board members. Where it is possible and appropriate, management should invite board members to join them at local or regional conferences.
• Has there been enough board-management debate before a specific strategy is discussed? “Board members should approach these discussions with an owner’s mind-set and with the goal of helping management to broaden its thinking by considering new, even unexpected, perspectives.” During these debates management should provide information on key external trends affecting the mission. It also needs to review: strengths and weaknesses of staff talent to achieve the mission, the abilities of the nonprofit to differentiate itself and to increase services to its clientele. All of this can keep the organization from perpetuating the status quo—providing small budget increments and keeping current clients satisfied, not seeking growth.
• Have the board and management discussed all strategic options and wrestled them to the ground? Nonprofit board members and their managers may not be used to having high-quality discussion like these. To provide bases for these types of conversations the board must view management as a set of peers with different responsibilities. “Creating a participative, collaborative dynamic while maintaining a healthy tension is critical.”
“Developing strategy has always been complex—and becomes more so with a board’s increased involvement, which introduces new voices and expertise to the debate and puts pressure on management teams and board members alike to find the best answers.”
Nonprofit Management 