The Nonprofit Board’s New Role In An Age of Exponential Change
By Eugene Fram Free Digital Image
Most nonprofit boards are being faced with huge pressures—reduced financial support, challenges in integrating new technologies, and difficulties in hiring qualified personnel at what are considered “nonprofit” wages. To survive long term, directors need to be alert to potential opportunities. These may be far from the comfort zones of current board members, CEOs and staff. (more…)
6 Approaches to Innovation for Nonprofit Boards
By Eugene Fram Free Digital Image
The Bridgespan Group, supported by The Rockefeller Foundation, recently 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. (more…)
When a CEO Exits (or should)—what are the Board’s Succession Options?
By Eugene Fram Free Digital Image
CEOs of for-profit and nonprofit organizations typically come and go. Those executives that for an extended period may be highly valued for their demonstrated skills and accomplishments. One CEO I know has reached a 30 year anniversary and is still innovating. Other CEOs, including organization founders, may remain on the job past the point of growth. The nonprofit environment can be a comfortable workplace—a board member I once interviewed remarked that his long-serving CEO had a great “deal.” He meant the nonprofit wasn’t even close to its potential I’ve even encountered CEOs who admit that they can run the organization on automatic, convinced that new challenges will be similar to those of the past. (more…)
Raising the Bar for Nonprofit Board Engagement
By Eugene Fram Free Digital Image
It’s no secret that some nonprofit board members cruise through their term of board service with minimal involvement. McKinsey Company, a well-known consulting firm, has suggested five steps that can be used to counteract this passivity in for-profit boards. * With a few tweaks, McKinsey suggestions (in bold) are relevant to the nonprofit board environment where director engagement is often a challenge.
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 22 million listings recorded in 0.96 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. (more…)
Nonprofit Boardroom Elephants and the ‘Nice Guy’ Syndrome: A Complex Problem
By: Eugene Fram Free Digital Image
At coffee a friend serving on a nonprofit board reported plans to resign from the board shortly. His complaints centered on the board’s unwillingness to take critical actions necessary to help the organization grow.
In specific, the board failed to take any action to remove a director who wasn’t attending meetings, but he refused to resign. His three-year term had another 18 months to go, and the board had a bylaws obligation to summarily remove him from the board. However, a majority of directors decided such action would hurt the director’s feelings. They were unwittingly accepting the “nice-guy” approach in place of taking professional action. (more…)
Nonprofit Managers: Be Careful Who to Invite to a Meeting!
By: Eugene Fram Free Digital Image
Most nonprofit CEOs would agree with the findings of a recent McKinsey survey that attempts to gauge the productivity of business organizations’ meetings. * The results of the probe showed that 61% of the respondents thought that at least half of the time spent around the table was non-productive.
Nonprofits can benefit from the study by considering the various roles played by the participants while attending operational (not board) meetings. They advise the committee nonprofit chair to think twice before inviting people to attend. Following in italics are the roles recommended in the survey. After each, I project how these can be useful in identifying who should be present at nonprofit meetings. (more…)
How Can Nonprofit Boards Overcome the Inertia of Certain Directors?
By: Eugene Fram
Making major changes in mission, board structure, management or other significant matters are difficult. The typical nonprofit board will be divided into several groups on the issue: 1) directors who want change, 2) directors opposed to change, some strongly opposed and 3) what I call “process directors,” persons uncomfortable with major decisions who always want more data or information before voting. (more…)
What are the most productive types of relationships between board & staff?
By: Eugene Fram Free Digital Image by Stuart Miles
In the 21st century, building transparency and trust are two critical elements for good governance. In nonprofit organizations, these elements take on additional importance because organizationally staff members may only be or two levels below the board. Consequently, nonprofit staffs are probably more attuned to board changes and directives than their counterparts in a business setting. With more frequent rotations of nonprofit board members, many staff members can feel insecure. They have observed some nonprofits at which new board members sometimes can quickly bring about detrimental changes–it is not unusual for community boards to limit vetting new board members to friends and family. (more…)
Big Data Are Great—But Imperfect Metrics Work for Nonprofit Boards!
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. (more…)
