Nonprofit Interpersonal communications

How Do Nonprofits Determine CEOs’ Productivity?

By: Eugene Fram

Nonprofit organizations can’t have bottom line profits. If they did, CEO productivity determination could be less complicated. Determining a fair CEO benefit, based on productivity, can be a complex issue for a nonprofit board. Providing too little or too much can be dangerous for the organization and possibly the board members. Although the spadework for benefits needs to be done by a small committee, the entire board needs to fully agree on the rationale for the final decision. (more…)

Enlarging the Nonprofit Recruitment Matrix: The art of selecting new board members—Part II

By: Eugene Fram Free Digital Image

There’s never enough to say about the selection of nonprofit board members. Following my last post on board behaviors and cultures I ran across a guide fo desirable skills/abilities for “for-profit” directors. From this list, I suggest the following additions to the recruitment matrices of 21st century nonprofit board candidates to improve board productivity. * Those included will have:

• Executive and Non-Executive Experiences: These include planners with broad perspectives needed to have visionary outlooks, a well as persons with unusually strong dedication to the organization’s mission. It may include a senior executive from a business organization and a person who has had extensive client level experience. Examples for an association for the blind could be the human resources VP for a Fortune 500 corporation and/or a visually impaired professor at a local university.

• Industry Experience or Knowledge: An active or retired executive who has or is working in the same or allied field. However, those who can be competitive with the nonprofit for fund development could then present a significant conflict of interest.

• Leadership: Several directors should be selected on the bases of their leadership skills/abilities in business or other nonprofit organizations. Having too many with these qualifications may lead to internal board conflict, especially if they have strong personalities.

• Governance: Every board member should have a detailed understanding of the role of governance, their overview, financial/due diligence responsibilities and the potential personal liabilities if they fail to exercise due care. In practice, nonprofits draw from such a wide range of board backgrounds, one can only expect about one-quarter of most boards to have the requisite knowledge. But there are many nonprofit boards that I have encountered that even lack one person with the optimal board/management governance knowledge. Some become so involved with mission activities that they do what the leadership tells them when governance issues are raised. Example: One nonprofit the author encountered, with responsibilities for millions of dollars of assets, operated for 17 years without D&O insurance coverage because the board leadership considered it too costly.

• Strategic Thinking & Other Desirable Behavioral Competencies: Not every board member can be capable of or interested in strategic thinking. Their job experiences and educations require them to excel in operations, not envisioning the future. Consequently, every board needs several persons who have visionary experiences and high Emotional
Quotients (EQs.) Those with high EQs can be good team players because they are able to empathize with the emotion of others in the group. Finding board candidates with these abilities takes detailed interpersonal vetting because they do not appear on a resume.

• Subject Matter Expertise: Nonprofit Boards have had decades of experience in selecting board candidates by professional affiliations like businessperson, marketing expert, accountant, etc.

• Other Factors Relevant to the Particular Nonprofit: Examples: A nonprofit dedicated to improve the lives of children needs to seek a child psychology candidate. One focusing on seniors should seek a geriatric specialist.

* http://eganassociates.com.au/disclosing-the-board-skills-matrix/

Resolution for 2017—Focus on Long-Term Nonprofit Sustainability

By: Eugene Fram Free Digital Photo

Nonprofit boards, like their business counter-parts, can become complacent and lose their vitality. This sets the stage for nonprofit disruptions by the social and technical environments that surround them. Following are some crucial priority questions (listed in bold) that have been raised for business boards. * They easily can be modified to drive the thinking of nonprofit directors and help them keep nonprofits sustainable and productive. (more…)

Pressure Test Your Nonprofit’s Fund Development Efforts

By: Eugene Fram

It’s no secret that nonprofits do not excel in the craft of fundraising. A 2015 study reported that 65% of CEOs gave their boards academic grades of “C” or below for efficacy on this front. Yet most will agree that without the continuous influx of financial support, the mission to which the directors have committed themselves will fail!

I clearly remember examples of this deficit from my own board experience—one in which I served on the fund development committee for a small nonprofit which met monthly for about a year. A sincere and hardworking board chair headed it, but the meetings took place without the presence of the CEO. Many ideas with merit were exchanged such as developing a reserve fund, “get or give” board requirements etc. There was a lot of talk but no implementation, and after a year of pure discussion, a new president, who convened a new committee, disbanded the group.

A review of the pressure points in key fundraising activities would have taken the group from talk to action and further implementation. Here are three activities and their variations that I consider most critical to nonprofit development processes:
(more…)

What are the most productive types of relationships between board & staff?

By: Eugene Fram

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…)

Carnegie Hall Board Dissonance–What Lessons For Nonprofits?

By: Eugene H. Fram

Ronald O. Perelman (Carnegie Hall Board Chair) …was critical of trustees for placing “a premium on avoiding tensions and disagreement” and said he will leave (the board) in a month. The Problem: Clive Gillinson (Executive Director & Artistic Director) signed a $100,000 contract that might include a conflict of interest…to which Perelman (and two other directors) objected. The board agreed to engage an independent lawyer to investigate the situation, but Perelman, in apparent anger, reported progress has been too slow. *

Ronald Perelman’s abrupt resignation sounds a “clarion call” for all nonprofit board members. When an executive director appears to overstep his/h authority and/or when the board has not vetted a significant contract, nonprofit board members need to take proactive stands. Although the Carnegie Hall board is about 78 strong and tends to glitter with “star quality,” there are obvious parallels with nonprofit reactions to similar disruptions. How should directors of smaller nonprofits react to morale crises of this nature? (more…)

How Do Nonprofits Determine CEOs’ Productivity?

By: Eugene Fram

Can Nonprofit Management Usurp Board Responsibilities?

By Eugene H. Fram

On balance management will always have more information about the organization than volunteer board members. As a result, directors must be proactive in seeking information from management and a variety of other sources, even if they must involve employees other than senior management. Following are three field examples showing what has happened when boards failed to be proactive (more…)

Nonprofit Boardroom Elephants and the ‘Nice Guy’ Syndrome: A Complex Problem

By: Eugene Fram

An updated and revised viewer favorite post

At coffee recently 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 term had another year 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 Policy Development & Operations Management – Crossing Boundaries?

By: Eugene Fram

“Nose in- fingers out,” is the commonly used guide for nonprofit directors’ relationships to operations. Translated into terms of governance-management relations, it means that boards have an obligation to overview management impacts and outcomes, but they need to avoid micromanaging the operations of the nonprofit. This is a particular danger with nonprofits because micromanagement often seems to be in the DNAs of nonprofit boards.

On the operations side, strong experienced nonprofit CEOs can tend to be overly impatient and can easily make strategic or policy decisions that are the responsibilities of the board. In fact, I have seen a few CEOs step over the boundary and develop and execute board style policies. (more…)

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