SuccessionPlanning

Reversing Traditional Nonprofit Board Barriers

Reversing Traditional Nonprofit Board Barriers

By: Eugene Fram         

Clearly the purpose of a nonprofit board is to serve the constituency that establishes it—be it community, industry, governmental unit and the like. That said, the “how” to best deliver that service is often not so clear. An executive committee, for example, can overstep its authority by assuming powers beyond its scope of responsibility. I encountered this in one executive committee when the group developed a strategic plan in an interim period where there was no permanent ED. The board then refused to share it with the incoming executive. In another instance, an executive committee took it upon itself to appoint members of the audit committee—including outsiders who were unknown to the majority on the board.

The fuzziness of boundaries and lack of defined authority call for an active nonprofit system of checks and balances. For a variety of reasons this is difficult for nonprofits to achieve:

  • A typical nonprofit board member is often recruited from a pool of friends, relatives and colleagues, and will serve, on a median average, for four to six years.   This makes it difficult to achieve rigorous debate at meetings (why risk conflicts with board colleagues?). Directors also are not as eager to thoughtfully plan for change beyond the limits of their terms. Besides discussing day-to-day issues, the board needs to make sure that immediate gains do not hamper long-term sustainability.
  • The culture of micromanagement is frequently a remnant from the early startup years when board members may have performed operational duties. In some boards it becomes embedded in the culture and continues to pervade the governmental environment, allowing the board and executive committee to involve themselves in areas that should be delegated to management.
  • The executive team is a broad partnership of peers –board members, those appointed to the executive committee and the CEO. The executive committee is legally responsible to act for the board between meetings–the board must ratify its decisions. But unchecked, the executive committee can assume dictatorial powers whose conclusions must be rubber-stamped by the board.

Mitigating Oversight Barriers: There is often little individual board members can do to change the course when the DNA has become embedded in the organization. The tradition of micromanagement, for example, is hard to reverse, especially when the culture is continually supported by a succession of like-minded board chairs and CEOs. No single board member can move these barriers given the brevity of the board terms. But there are a few initiatives that three or four directors, working in tandem, can take to move the organization into a high-performance category.

  • Meetings: At the top of every meeting agenda there needs to be listed at least one policy or strategy topic. When the board discussion begins to wander, the chair should remind the group that they are encroaching on an area that is management’s responsibility. One board I observed wasted an hour’s time because the chair had failed to intercept the conversation in this manner. Another board agreed to change its timing of a major development event, then spent valuable meeting time suggesting formats for the new event—clearly a management responsibility to develop.
  • “New Age” Board Members: While millennial directors may be causing consternation in some legacy-bound nonprofit and business organizations, certain changes in nonprofits are noteworthy. Those board members in the 43- and- under age bracket need some targeted nurturing. I encountered a new young person who energized the board with her eagerness to try to innovative development approaches. She was subsequently appointed to the executive committee, deepening her view of the organization and primed her for board chair leadership.

Board members who understand the robust responsibilities of a 21st century board need to accept responsibilities for mentoring these new age board people, despite their addictions to electronic devices.

  • Experienced Board Members: Board members who have served on other high-performance boards have the advantage of being familiar with modern governance processes and are comfortable in supporting change. They are needed to help boards, executive committees and CEOs to move beyond the comfortable bounds of the past. They will be difficult to recruit, but they are required ingredients for successful boards.
  • NEW Projects: Boards and the CEO must be bold and try new approaches to meet client needs. For example instead of going through a complete planning process for a new program the board must ask management to complete a series of small experiments to test the program. When a series of results are positive, the nonprofit can work on a plan to implement the program.

Conclusion: Individual board members working alone will probably become frustrated in trying to contend with the three overview barriers discussed. But working with three or four colleagues, over time, on a tandem basis, they can make inroads on the barriers. Meetings can become more focused on policies/strategies, new age board members can become more quickly productive, experienced board members can become role models and new programs and other projects can be more quickly imitated via the use of small scale experiments.

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

g

By Eugene Fram                          

It’s no secret that some 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.

Engaging between meetings: Nonprofit boards traditionally meet monthly, bimonthly or quarterly. Unless the board is a national one, these meetings range from one to three hours, with the three hours being typical of quarterly meetings. The meeting agendas are usually packed, and they leave little time for individual directors to enhance discussions. ** In addition, a sense of anonymity develops among board members who do not know each other personally, a significant barrier to team building. I have encountered nonprofit boards where disconnect between board colleagues is simply a nod—or less– when passing each other.

Board cohesion based on interpersonal relationships has an important impact on the quality of board discussions. It allows a board member to more fully understand the perspectives and goals of his/her fellow board members or “where they’re coming from.” With this information at hand on both sides of a discussion, it increases the possibility of creating “win-win” impacts for the nonprofit.

Responsibility for promoting between-meeting engagements needs to rest with the board chair. As a staring point, the chair can sponsor a few informal Jefferson dinners. The topic should be a cause which can excite the invitees. It needs to be, a challenge to the directors. ***

Engage with strategy as it’s forming—do not just review & approve it: Traditionally most of what becomes an organization’s strategy will emanate from the management and staff. But the board must proactively help to form strategy or step in to fill gaps when the management refuses to do it.

In forming strategy the board has an obligation to make certain all viewpoints are heard. Staffs as well as management ideas need to be considered. In addition, the board may need to take direct actions when the organization fails to fulfill a mission obligation. Example. A counseling agency only offered services during normal business hours–9 am to 5pm, five days a week. Its board required management to offer services, 24/7 with an emergency line when the office was not open. The management, a creative group, found a way to do it, without increasing costs.

Cultivate talent: The nonprofit board has several responsibilities in regard to talent.   First, it must engage and then evaluate the CEO. This is a complex duty because the vast majority of the board members are not full-time employees and many have only tangential attachments to the organization’s mission field. Second, the board must overview the quality of the staff talent so that it is in line with budget constraints. Third, it must be aware of those within the staff who may be promotable to management. Finally it must be alert to succession opportunities internally and externally in the event the CEO were to leave abruptly. Succession planning for the CEO must also include considerations about the talents that will be needed beyond the current one.

Engage the field: Since nonprofit board members have full-time occupations outside the mission field, it’s important that they receive a flow of information about leading edge changes taking place outside the organization. However, CEOs sometime can operate a “mind the store” nonprofit, by looking at past successes without a visionary component. To help avoid this occurrence, specific directors might be assigned to become more deeply familiar with key projects in order to assess their progress.

Engaging on tough questions: A difficult task on a nonprofit board where politeness is an overriding value. Peers are friends and business associations and generally there are few potential penalties for “going along to get along.” In all my decades as a nonprofit board member, I have yet to see one board member ask that his/h dissenting vote be recorded in the minutes. A necessary action when he/she feels that the vote being passed by the majority may lead to harming the organization.

*http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/organization/our-insights/changing-the-nature-of-board-engagement

** In California, the Brown Act might prohibit such meetings. The Brown Act covered concerns over informal, undisclosed meetings held by local elected officials. City councils, county boards, and other local government bodies that were avoiding public scrutiny by holding secret “workshops and study” sessions.

***For details on the background and planning for Jefferson dinners see: http://jeffersondinner.org/jefferson-dinner/

Moving Toward a High Performance NonProfit

By Eugene Fram

Clearly the purpose of a nonprofit board is to serve the constituency that establishes it—be it community, industry, governmental unit and the like. That said, the “how” to best deliver that service is often not so clear. An executive committee, for example, can overstep its authority by assuming powers beyond its scope of responsibility. I encountered this in one executive committee when the group developed a strategic plan in an interim period where there was no permanent ED. The board then refused to share it with the incoming executive. In another instance, an executive committee took it upon itself to appoint members of the audit committee—including outsiders who were unknown to the majority on the board.

The fuzziness of boundaries and lack of defined authority call for an active nonprofit system of checks and balances. For a variety of reasons this is difficult for nonprofits to achieve:

  • A typical nonprofit board member is often recruited from a pool of friends, relatives and colleagues, and will serve, on a median average, for four to six years.   This makes it difficult to achieve rigorous debate at meetings (why risk conflicts with board colleagues?). Directors also are not as eager to thoughtfully plan for change beyond the limits of their terms. Besides discussing day-to-day issues, the board needs to make sure that immediate gains do not hamper long-term sustainability.
  • The culture of micromanagement is frequently a remnant from the early startup years when board members may have performed operational duties. In some boards it becomes embedded in the culture and continues to pervade the governmental environment, allowing the board and executive committee to involve themselves in areas that should be delegated to management.
  • The executive team is a broad partnership of peers –board members, those appointed to the executive committee and the CEO. The executive committee is legally responsible to act for the board between meetings–the board must ratify its decisions. But unchecked, the executive committee can assume dictatorial powers whose conclusions must be rubber-stamped by the board.

Breaking the Cycle:

There is often little individual board members can do to change the course when the DNA has become embedded in the organization. The tradition of micromanagement, for example, is hard to reverse, especially when the culture is continually supported by a succession of like-minded board chairs and CEOs. No single board member can move these barriers given the brevity of the board terms. But there are a few initiatives that three or four directors, working in tandem, can take to move the organization into a high-performance category.

  • Meetings: At the top of every meeting agenda there needs to be listed at least one policy or strategy topic. When the board discussion begins to wander, the chair should remind the group that they are encroaching on an area that is management’s responsibility. One board I observed wasted an hour’s time because the chair had failed to intercept the conversation in this manner. Another board agreed to change its timing of a major development event, then spent valuable meeting time suggesting formats for the new event—clearly a management responsibility to develop.
  • “New Age” Board Members: While millennial directors may be causing consternation in some legacy-bound nonprofit and business organizations, certain changes in nonprofits are noteworthy. Those board members in the 43- and- under age bracket need some targeted nurturing. I encountered a new young person who energized the board with her eagerness to try to innovative development approaches. She was subsequently appointed to the executive committee, deepening her view of the organization and primed her for board chair leadership.

Board members who understand the robust responsibilities of a 21st century board need to accept responsibilities for mentoring these new age board people, despite their addictions to electronic devices.

  • Experienced Board Members: Board members who have served on other high-performance nonprofit or for-profit boards have the advantage of being familiar with modern governance processes and are comfortable in supporting change. They are needed to help boards, executive committees and CEOs to move beyond the comfortable bounds of the past. They will be difficult to recruit, but they are required ingredients for successful boards.
  • NEW Projects: Boards and the CEO must be bold and try new approaches to meet client needs. For example instead of going through a complete planning process for a new program the board must ask management to complete a series of small experiments to test the program. When a series of results are positive, the nonprofit can work on a plan to implement the program.*

Conclusion

Individual board members working alone will probably become frustrated in trying to contend with the three overview barriers discussed. But working with three or four colleagues, over time, on a tandem basis, they can make inroads on the barriers. Meetings can become more focused on policies/strategies, new age board members can become more quickly productive, experienced board members can become role models and new programs and other projects can be more quickly imitated via the use of small scale experiments.

*https://www.forbes.com/councils/forbesnonprofitcouncil/2023/09/14/lean-mean-nonprofit-machine-an-intro-

Is Your Nonprofit Recruiting & Retaining by Using a Mission-Driven Approach?
Is Your Nonprofit Recruiting & Retaining by Using a Mission-Driven Approach?

By: Eugene Fram     

Recruiting and retaining able people for nonprofit careers has always been a challenge.  Salary levels have not been comparable to business organizations and some government posts. Many small and medium sized nonprofits have frontline personnel organizationally located only two levels below the Board of Directors.  Consequently, career paths can appear stymied.

The employment situation has changed for two population cohorts.  They are: some millennials (born between 1981 and 1996) and those in the Generation Z cohort (born between 1997 and 2012).

(more…)

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.

What Should Nonprofit Board Members Know?

By Eugene Fram       

A blog developed by an internationally known  board expert* raises some pertinent governance questions mainly targeted to for-profit boards. Following are my suggestions how these questions could apply to nonprofit and trustee boards. In addition, field examples show what happened when the questions had to be raised in crises situations.

Does bad news rise in your organization?
“You may be the last to know.” For example, the board of a human services organization knew that the professional staff was not happy with a new ED with an authoritarian management style, but the board felt it needed to give him a chance to modify his style. Board members didn’t know that the staff  professionals had been meeting with a union organizer for nine months.
A labor election resulted, with the professional staff agreeing to work under a trade union contract.

Do your CEO & CFO have integrity?
“If the CEO or CFO holds back, funnel information, manages agendas, is defensive or plays…. cards too close to the, vest, this is a warming sign.” For example, a CFO was delinquent in submitting a supplementary accounts receivable financial report. The board and CEO accepted his excuses, but the data, when submitted, had a significant negative impact on the financials. Both the CEO and CFO lost their positions.  Should the board have also accepted some responsibility for the crisis?  

Do you understand the (mission) and add value?
The board members need to seriously answer this question:
If this organization were to disappear tomorrow, who would care?

Do you know how fraud can occur in your (nonprofit)?
Common wisdom prevails that there is little for-profit or nonprofit boards can do avoid fraud. To review nonprofit boards actions that can be taken, especially for medium and small size nonprofit boards, see; Eugene Fram & Bruce Oliver (2010) “Want to Avoid Fraud? Look to your Board,” Nonprofit World, September/October, pp.18-19.

Do you compensate the right behaviors?
“You are at the helm as board members. Whatever you compensate, management will do.”
Be certain the organization is compensating for outcomes and,more importantly, today impacts. Too often compensation is given for completing processes that are not tied to client impacts

Do you get disconfirming information?
Management is only one source of information. With the agreement of management, visit privately with people below the management level. Set a Google Alert for the name of the organization to see what others on the Internet are saying about your nonprofit’s relationships.

Do you get exposures to key (operational areas) and assurance functions?
“Bring key people into the boardroom, without Power Points. See how they think on their feet. It is good for succession planning and is an excellent source of information.”

Do you get good advice and stay current?
“Bring tailored education into the board room and stay on top of emerging developments. “ This is especially important for the nonprofit directors or trustees who serves on a board that is out of their area of expertise. For example, bankers might serve on a hospital boards.

Do you meet with (stakeholders) – apart from management?
Board members need to join with management in meeting key funders occasionally to determine if their expectations are fully met and what the board might do to foster a continuing relationship. This lets funders know that the board is involved over-viewing the organization’s outcomes and impacts.

*Richard Leblanc, “The Board’s Right to Know and Red Flags To Avoid When You Don’t.” http://www.boardexpert.com/blog, September 14, 2012
Note: Bold & quoted items are from the above blog.

 

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

\

Are Your Board and Staff Ready For Change?

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is id-100259602.jpg
Free Digital Image

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/

The Nonprofit Board’s New Role In An Age of Exponential Change

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is id-100456475.jpeg

The Nonprofit Board’s New Role In An Age of Exponential Change

By Eugene Fram                

Most nonprofit boards are being faced with huge pressures—reduced financial support, challenges in integrating new technologies, recovering from Covid impacts and difficulties in hiring qualified personnel who will consider “nonprofit” wages. To survive long term, board members need to be alert to potential opportunities. These may be far from the comfort zones of current board members, CEOs and staff.

What needs to be done?

Look for scalable opportunities to reformat the nonprofit: This may include merging, partnering or acquiring other organizations, obviously in an attempt to make both organizations more effective and efficient. One nonprofit, operating a sheltered workshop for the blind and visually impaired affiliated with a local Goodwill nonprofit. The change over many years allowed the original service organization to grow from a budget of $5 million with 160 employees to today’s budget of $50 million. Currently it has 800 employees, serving 150,000 clients annually.

To achieve results like these, the board had to move out of its comfort zone, learn about new types of operation that can help fulfill the mission and initiate bold moves. To explore and manage such changes, a “Lean Management”* approach using small-scale experimentation can be helpful.*

Acknowledge the inherent limitations of nonprofit board tenure:

The median tenure for nonprofit board members is from four to six years. With only reputation and/or emotional investment in the organization, this creates a short-term time line horizon for many board members. The CEO, probably the only one with long-term organizational memory, has an obligation to motivate the board to consider long-term actions in this time-compressed tenure environment.

    Led by the Chair & CEO what can be done?

First recognize that not all board members will be interested in developing a future scenario that goes beyond their tenure limits. The argument will be that a three-year strategic plan is sufficient.  The answer  is to have the board chair and CEO form a discussion group, not a committee to highlight longer term opportunities.  It should be composed of board members  who appear to be visionary in the mission field, in their career backgrounds back along with management and staff representation. 

Pose questions like these:

  • What do you see the mission of this organization will be a decade from now?
  • What might shape it now to grow, decline gradually or stay stable over the decade?
  • What can management do now to prepare for the next decade?
  • Are there small-scale experiments that will assist in preparing for these changes?
  • What succession plans are required to make available strong or stronger management abilities available in the next decade?

Once a scenario is developed from the discussions, ask management to develop one or two experimental programs. If successful, it will help guide the nonprofit for the next decade. Hopefully, future board members will see the value of this work, develop an appreciation for longer term planning and continue the process.

This process is all a matter of aligning board members to long-term thinking. It involves using conceptual considerations by board and management. It motivates the CEO to consider managerial abilities that will be required, and it also should be especially helpful for board members whose careers are outside the mission area of the nonprofit.

* https://npengage.com/nonprofit-management/lean-implementation/PostB