Posts Tagged ‘nonprofit governance’
Posted by Gayle Gifford on October 24, 2011 in Better Boards
I was trolling through some old files today when I came upon this 2007 memo:
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TO: Board of Directors
FROM: Gayle L. Gifford, Chair
RE: Board Meeting
Thank you to A… for graciously sharing his home for what promises to be a delectable board meeting.
The meeting postprandial will be a lively humanities conversation with our special guest, Christopher Lydon, former host of WBUR’s The Connection and Radio Open Source, now live from the Watson Institute at Brown U. Chris is very eager to learn more about our Council and connect with board members. Personally, I can’t wait to pump him for his vast experience in “curating [humanities] conversations” over the airwaves and now in cyberspace.
Of course, before we can get to Chris and refreshments, we’ve got a board meeting to devour.
- Our main course is a discussion, feedback and approval of the goals and programming direction for FY 2008 which RKA, our Executive Director, will be presenting followed by approval of a working budget for FY 2008 that reflects those priorities and outcomes. (Alas, it remains a working budget until Congress finalizes the budget).
- Side dishes include a proposed bylaws change on the residency requirement for Board members and feedback from the Governance Committee on Board self-assessments.
- Of course, no meeting would be complete without THE CONSENT AGENDA which includes the thoughtful recommendation of grant awards from the Grants Committee, receipt of staff and board committee reports, and final approval of the FY 2008 Board & Board Committee Objectives.
Please arrive so that we can start on time (no excuses, we are back in Providence!) and preserve ample time to savor the planned conversations.
Bon Appétit
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Okay, so the memo may be a little cutesy.
But the reason I wanted to share this with you is that I think it is good practice for the board chair to frame the upcoming meeting for the board. This memo was sent out in advance along with the packet of materials for that upcoming meeting.
My memo also illustrates some of the practices that make for a better board meeting:
- Use of the consent agenda to quickly dispose of noncontroversial items, items where the authority for action has been delegated to a committee, or items discussed at a previous meeting that just need a final vote. Of course, any member can ask that an item be taken off the consent agenda for a more complete discussion.
- Most of the meeting spent on a few substantive issues.
- A conversation with someone really interesting from outside the organization but very relevant to the mission.
- And what you can’t see in the memo, good food and social time.
And a few practices that make for a better board and organization:
- Clarity on goals and objectives for the coming year
- A budget that reflects those priorities
- Intentional board practice, including deployment of a governance committee, board self-evaluation, and learning from that feedback.
What does your board meeting look like?
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Posted by Gayle Gifford on January 17, 2011 in Better Boards
I am not a big fan of a board chairperson serving as the direct supervisor of a nonprofit’s executive director.
I’ve seen too much that can go wrong:
- An overbearing, micro-managing board chair can make a CEO absolutely miserable, driving many a CEO out of his or her organization.
- It’s too tempting for a Board chair to make decisions when asked by the CEO that are rightly those for the full board’s deliberation.
- There is something about the elevation of the position that enables a board chair, when asked by the CEO, to offer advice on issues that he or she isn’t really sufficiently qualified to answer.
- Executive directors can skillfully use their relationships with board chairs to bypass consultation with the full board.
- Board chairs are too willing to set the priorities for the Executive Director, instead of consulting with the full board on where it would like the focus to be.
- Executive directors can avoid responsibility for tough management decisions, passing them off to the board chair to make.
It’s hard to get strong board member engagement when important issues come to the board already decided. Or even worse, when the board is kept in the dark on important issues — only to unearth them at a later date.
In my board playbook, the full board and only the full board is the boss of the executive director. But then I’m a big advocate of many aspects of John Carver’s policy governance ® model where the board instructs the CEO only through the creation of policies that outline priorities and frame management decision boundaries.
I believe that we would have much stronger boards if the board chair spent more of her or his time mentoring and engaging the other board Read More >>
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Posted by Gayle Gifford on September 15, 2010 in Better Boards
Here’s my challenge to you:
In one minute or less, explain to a complete stranger what a nonprofit board does.
Now make it sound interesting enough that they’d want to serve on it.
A few years ago I came upon a report on nonprofit governance with the following statistic:
- 90% of nonprofits find it ‘somewhat difficult’ or ‘very difficult’ to find qualified board members (1)
In the last sentences of the report, the author made this observation:
“Additional research is needed to better understand the barriers to obtaining board members.”
I might be going way out on a limb here 
, but here are six based on my own experiences.
Six barriers to recruiting board members for nonprofits
1. We don’t have great “word of mouth” working for us on the rewards of board service, mainly because most board members don’t experience any. Instead of engaging board members in the exciting, strategic work of community change making, we stick them in meetings where they fuss over ministrivia or get reported at. Read More >>
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Posted by Gayle Gifford on April 2, 2010 in Better Boards
- Only choose board service if you are willing to carry the moral obligation of societal betterment on your shoulders.
- Serve organizations whose vision and values you are passionate about (or will quickly grow to be).
- Limit your board service – two boards at one time is usually enough.
- Know what you are getting into. Vet the organization as it vets you.
- There are many organizations of many sizes that need your help. Choose the one where your talents and passion align with its needs and vision.
- Generously leverage your wisdom, strategic sensibility, connections and expertise on behalf of the organization you serve.
- Value service, collaborative and consultation.
- Keep your eye on community outcomes, insist on high standards of performance and legal and ethical behavior regardless of organization size.
- Hold fast to a philanthropic moral compass.
- Study the nonprofit sector and the issues you serve.
- Observe and respect the boundaries between board roles and staff roles.
- Donate at your leadership level (make this organization the top 1 or 2 in your giving).
5 Comments »
Posted by Gayle Gifford on June 30, 2009 in 100 Things We've Learned, Better Boards
Vision matters. It inspires. It enables. It overcomes. It achieves.
Your founders most likely shared powerful dreams…
They saw people who were hungry and set out to feed them.
They saw people stricken by disease and were compelled to heal them.
They were outraged by the burning river and resolved to make it clean.
They saw a community without spirit and promised it art and music.
They saw their heritage at risk and vowed to preserve it.
Imagine those founding days of your organization.
Can you picture the founders, conspiring around a kitchen table? Can you hear them talking? Passionate, outraged, inspirational? Can you see them working tirelessly, day and night, in service to their cause, despite overwhelming obstacles, hungry to make a difference?
If you polled your board members today and asked why they serve, would they echo the passion of your founding vision?
Or would they describe their purpose in more mundane terms — attending meetings, monitoring finances, raising money, creating policies, supervising the CEO?
While these routine tasks are important components of the Board’s duties, they only have value as they enable the means to achieving the greater vision.
It’s not enough to outfit and command a tight little ship. That ship has to deliver its passengers to their desired destination or you’ve failed your mission.
Ultimately, your performance as a board isn’t judged by the health of your balance sheet, or the sparkle of your facility, no matter how important these may be.
The real measure is the difference you make in the lives you save, the natural resources you protect, the beauty you create, or the spiritual comfort you provide.
Whether you describe it as a vision, a mission, or just your promise to your community, achieving that vision is what truly matters.
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Adapted from the opening chapter of Gayle’s book How Are We Doing? A 1 Hour Guide to Evaluating Your Performance as a Nonprofit Board
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Posted by Gayle Gifford on May 26, 2009 in 100 Things We've Learned, Better Boards
What enables change in a nonprofit board of directors?
- A critical mass of directors, including key leadership, perceive a need for change.
- The rest of the board is willing to go along.
- Directors find an inspiring new vision to rally around.
- Directors are actively involved in and agree with the “diagnosis.”
- Directors believe that the change is possible and will make life significantly better.
- Directors are open to trying new ways of acting.
- Directors believe that the benefits of change outweigh the costs.
- Directors are willing to, and learn, the new skills needed to perform the new behaviors.
- Directors believe that they personally can do it differently.
- The Board itself supports and reinforces the change over time.
- Directors are willing to commit the time to working on the change and to changing over time.
- Directors trust each other (and the change agent).
- Directors are willing to commit resources to support new ways of behaving.
What else have you found necessary to enable major improvements in your nonprofit board of directors?
And if you are thinking about launching board development, you might want to start by assessing just how many conditions for successful change are already in place.
For more about behavioral change and organization development, check out this helpful summary of Change Theory courtesy of University of Twente, Netherlands.
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Posted by Gayle Gifford on May 13, 2009 in Better Boards, Communicating, Tidbits, Upcoming Events, Speaking and Training
Purpose. Vision. Wisdom. Humor. Joy. Passion. Shared Values. Dedication. Generosity. Insight. Productive. Patience. Flexibility. Common Ground. Perseverance. Investment. Struggle. Eye-opening. Community-building. Caring. Deep Caring. Collaboration. Diversity. Gratitude. Leadership. Creative. Integrity. Teamwork. Unity. Heaven. Rewarding. Brainstorming. Listening. Support. Respect. Commitment. Interactive. Different. Communication.
These words emerged from a workshop I facilitated this morning called “boards that lead.” To get us started I asked everyone to think of a great board experience they have had and then to share one word that characterized that experience.
In just a few minutes, the 40+ board members, executive directors and staff who attended shared the words above. Together, they described the perfect board experience. What a gift. Thank you.
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Posted by Gayle Gifford on March 27, 2009 in 100 Things We've Learned, Better Boards, Communicating, Little ideas
Most people say they hate role playing. But it can be really helpful.
I spent this morning rehearsing interview questions with a few board members and staff of one of my clients. This small nonprofit came to me looking for help building its board. In that initial discussion, it became clear to me that the organization was running a few programs but was pretty unclear as to how relevant and valuable it was to the community it had traditionally served.
Board members agreed to get out and interview about 20 community members face to face over the next month or so. As we talked about who they might interview, I was impressed by their connections within their community … and curious as to when they had stopped having ongoing conversations with all of these people. Unfortunately, I no longer find this unusual among groups that come seeking my help.
So we practiced interviewing each other to test our questions. This helped us structure a nice flow as well as highlighting missing questions or confusing ones.
AND, even though this was just practice with each other, I think we learned a lot about the two people who were interviewed this morning… and a lot about each other’s perceptions of the community and their own organization’s role in it. Just by role playing.
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Posted by Gayle Gifford on January 12, 2009 in 100 Things We've Learned, Better Boards
We have such high expectations for our board members. (see my previous post “Can mere mortals be successful board members?” ) Of course, they have a unique legal responsibility for your organization, so their responsibility and accountabiity is significantly higher than other volunteers. (Though I can think of volunteers whose actions immediately affect the life or death of clients.)
But as a board member myself, I find that life’s other demands — family, work — usually come first. While I’m pretty self-motivated as a board member, I still need nudging from time to time.
Here are just a few of the things I’ve found very helpful to keep me engaged: Read More >>
1 Comment »
Posted by Gayle Gifford on November 5, 2008 in Upcoming Events, Speaking and Training
I frequently consult with and have occasionally served on the board of a lot of very small nonprofit organizations. By very small, I mean organizations that have no staff or just a tiny handful of staff, often part-time.
These tiny organizations often need to rely on their board members to serve staff functions. That’s clearly obvious for organizations that have no staff at all… but may not be so clear once you’ve hired an executive director or one or two more staff positions.
It takes a lot of human-power to make our organizations run. One or two people, while they can do a lot, can’t do everything that needs to be done to be a thriving nonprofit. It’s pretty near 
impossible for one person to run quality programs, raise all the revenues, reach out to the larger community, and manage the operations and finances.
Board members in small nonprofits usually need to wear two hats… the hat they wear to govern the organization and? the hat they wear to serve a staff function… that is, to take on one of the many jobs that fall under the “staff” side of the organization and get them done.? Other non-board members can also be recruited to get the work accomplished.
How do you do this? You can start by making a comprehensive list of all that you hope to achieve this year. Then break those objectives down into the tasks that are needed to get them accomplished. Think about what skills and knowledge are essential to get this work done.
Knowing what needs to happen, recruit board members (or other volunteers) with the expectation that they will produce one of those desired outcomes.
Here’s an example. My local chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals runs a series of educational workshops, an annual conference on fundraising, and a huge celebration for National Philanthropy Day, among others. With just one part time administrator, the chapter relies on its board members and volunteer to get things done. When board members are recruited, they are asked at the time of recruitment to chair a committee that is charged with the responsibility of achieving one of these very large tasks. ? I myself have served as chair of the Annual Conference, the scholarship committee, and the mentoring committee (not at the same time!)
So, to make a working? board work, every board member should have a job and outcome that he or she is responsible for achieving.
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