Strategic planning

Director Independence: a Nonprofit Board Issue?

 

Director Independence: a Nonprofit Board Issue?

By: Eugene Fram.        Free Digital Image

In the best of all nonprofit worlds, every board member is an independent agent whose ability to make critical decisions on behalf of the organization is regularly uncompromised by outside pressures. This, unfortunately, is not always the case. Based on field observation I have concluded that questionable practices can plague nonprofit boards when social or political pressures are brought to bear on a board member. In governance terms nonprofit decision-makers should be “outside directors,” not overtly or covertly susceptible to management or board colleague personal pressures. (more…)

A Special Relationship: Nurturing the CEO-Board Chair Bond

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A Special Relationship: Nurturing the CEO-Board Chair Bond

By Eugene Fram              Free Digital Photo

Viewer Favorite – Updated & Revised

Here are tips 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.

 

 

Unwritten Protocols for Directors Can Boost Nonprofits’ Effectiveness
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Unwritten Protocols for Directors Can Boost Nonprofits’ Effectiveness

By:  Eugene Fram                                        Free Digital Photo

Nonprofit boards are governed by a series of obligations —some are clearly defined as legal responsibilities such as financial actions. Others, however, are less clearly defined and relate to people who are, in some way, associated with the organization. Guidelines to these diverse interactions are not typically archived in policies but are important to the overall professionalism of the board. They include consideration of its: board structure, internal operations, recruitment methods and leadership style.

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When Nonprofit Missions Get Muddled

 

 

When Nonprofit Missions Get Muddled

By: Eugene Fram   Free Digital Image

It happens over time. A passionately conceived mission starts to drift from its original intentions. Stakeholders begin to view a nonprofit’s purposes from a different angle. There is a discrepancy between how the organization is committed to act and external perceptions of its current actions. Nonprofit boards need to be on the alert to such misalignments that can go unnoticed in the perceptual “fog” of daily challenges. It can limp along for years without acknowledging the impact of the client reality by which the nonprofit is being judged.   

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Should Nonprofit Boards Be A Boot Camp for Corporate Executives?

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Should Nonprofit Boards Be A Boot Camp for Corporate Executives?

By: Eugene Fram

Alice Korngold, President of Korngold Consulting, suggests, “Nonprofit board service is the ultimate leadership opportunity, giving business executives the personal and professional skills they need… .“ * She suggests that the following abilities can be developed from such experiences. But will the neophyte board member become attuned to some inappropriate nonprofit practices, such as micromanagement,  and promote them on subsequent nonprofit board assignments?  Following are some of the different experiences the business executive might encounter on a nonprofit board. 

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Business Governance Principles Make Sense For Nonprofits?

 

 

Business Governance Principles Make Sense for Nonprofits? 

By: Eugene Fram            Free Digital Image

Both for-profit and nonprofit boards can learn for the practices of the other. For decades,as an example, nonprofits have separated the duties of the board chair from those of the CEO.  This is still a major discussion for a large portion of business boards.*

A blue-ribbon group of public directors, including Warren Buffett, has developed a nine page “manifesto” that presents  their commonsense operating principles for boards of publicly traded companies.  (No group of national nonprofits has the financial resources or prestige to be able to issue a “manifesto.”)   

Their objective is, “To provide a basic framework for sound, long-term oriented governance.” ** My immediate response to the document was that about half of the guidelines can be easily translated into useful advice and/or caveats for nonprofit boards. The benefits as suggested by a Chinese proverb are, “A wise man learns from his own experiences, a wiser man learns from the experiences of others.”

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A Nonprofit Paradox: Weak Leadership Pool, Positive Organizational Outcomes?

A Nonprofit Paradox: Weak Leadership Pool, Positive Organizational Outcomes?

By:  Eugene Fram                   Free Digital Image

It happens: one or both of the two nonprofit engines—governance and/or management — sputters out, yet the organization continues to meet its goals and deliver adequate service to its constituents. Some examples: a child placement agency manages to maintain the quality of its oversight while struggling to deal with an admittedly inept board and CEO. Another example: An ineffective volunteer board at a youth center, meeting quarterly for a couple of hours, allows the CEO to really manage the board and to motivate the staff. The CEO realized she and the agency were in dangerous positions without an innovative board providing standard oversight, although client services were positive. (more…)

Wanted: Nonprofit CEOs with Entrepreneurial People Skills

 

Wanted: Nonprofit CEOs with Entrepreneurial People Skills

By: Eugene Fram      Free Digital Image

 

The need for superior leadership skills is as critical to CEOs in nonprofits as it is in the entrepreneurial world. Following are four such skills and the unique challenges they bring when employed in the nonprofit environment. *

  • The CEO’s Power of Persuasion

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How Do Nonprofit Leaders Manage Unsolicited “Great Ideas?”

How Do Nonprofit Leaders Manage Unsolicited “Great Ideas?”id-100134015

By: Eugene Fram                                                                                  Free  Digital Photo

What does a board member or CEO do when a donor or valued volunteer approaches him/h with a great idea that needs to be implemented at once? Since most of these ideas are what a Stanford professor terms bad ideas, the board chair and CEO are often between a hypothetical rock and a hard place!  To agree to a proposed project that is impractical or irrelevant to the mission will put the nonprofit at risk. But to reject an eager volunteer or potential donor could have serious donor related financial or interpersonal consequences.

When bad ideas are suggested, nonprofit directors and CEOs traditionally have hastily reviewed them—then prolonged the evaluation process hoping the presenter will lose interest in it. When an immediate reply is called for, a full review of the project will involve board and management time and effort to provide a fair assessment. If the verdict is negative, everyone hopes for the best!

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What Role Should Board Members Play in Overviewing Nonprofit Management/Staff Talent?

 

NonprofitWhat Role Should Board Members Play in Overviewing Management /Staff Talent?

By: Eugene Fram    Free Digital Image

Nonprofit boards rarely develop an in-depth strategy for assessing its organization’s human capital. Some will keep informal tabs on the CEO’s direct reports to prepare for the possibility of his/her sudden departure or is incapacitated. Others –smaller organizations with fewer than 20 employees—need only a basic plan for such an occurrence.

Need for Strategy: In my view, maintaining a viable talent strategy to assess staff and management personnel is a board responsibility, albeit one that is often ignored. The latter stems from the constant turnover of nonprofit directors whose median term of service is 4-6 years—hardly a lifetime commitment. Like for-profit board members whose focus is on quarterly earning results, their nonprofit counterparts are likely more interested in resolving current problems than in building sufficient bench strength for the organization’s long-term sustainability.

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