What is the value and appropriate role of nonprofit boards… really?
This question came up recently when I had the opportunity to meet Marek Sedivy, the Director of Greenlights’ equivalent in Prague, who is in the United States on a Fulbright Fellowship. Nonprofits, or NGOs (non-governmental organizations) as they are called in much of the rest of the world, are a relatively new concept in the post-Communist / Socialist Czech Republic. Marek is in the United States to learn about nonprofit best practices, and specifically best practices as relates to nonprofit boards.
In the Czech Republic, the government requires NGOs to have 3, 6, 9 or 12 board members; an odd rule, but like here in the U.S., the requirement to have a board overseeing the use of the public’s funds makes sense. No problem there.
After this, however, the conversation got a bit stickier. There are commonly accepted best practices for nonprofit boards in the United States. Greenlights, in fact, includes the Ten Basic Responsibilities of Nonprofit Boards (from BoardSource) in our Board Primer handouts. But as frequently happens when talking with someone who comes from a different culture / point of view, questions are asked, and basic assumptions are tested. I found myself at one point saying, “You are right. It doesn’t make sense. Sometimes I wonder whether our model of nonprofit boards is broken.” Yikes.
What transpired….
Marek said that because of the government’s requirement to have a multiple of 3 board members, and the fact that there is not a culture of giving or of volunteering in the Czech Republic, his board is an entity that brings no value to him. So we visited the Ten Basic Responsibilities of Nonprofit Boards as a framework for talking about how his board could be a group that provided him value. Unfortunately, this promptly brought up the question of… “but why should a group of volunteers who don’t have specialized knowledge of NGO needs, be given the responsibility of determining mission, purpose, goals and services for the organization?“ Good question, and I didn’t have an answer.
Other questions that came up:
1. Do boards really fulfill their responsibility of financial oversight? One would hope so, but that presumes that board members have the know-how to interpret nonprofit financial statements, see red flags, and will demand that they be addressed. The same is true for the legal and ethical oversight responsibility.
2. Does your board really help with fundraising, and how do you get them to do so? I was happy (as Greenlights’ fundraiser) to be able to say that, yes, in fact our board DOES get involved with our fundraising efforts. Our goal is that 100% of our board helps in some way, and we are at 72% YTD. That said, it’s not easy; there’s a ton of follow-up required and the need to meet people where they are at in terms of comfort level with fundraising. And, broadly speaking, if you have people with the right experiential backgrounds to provide value in planning and program development, for most NGOs, they are not the best people to provide a ton of value in terms of fundraising. This is a common issue for nonprofits everywhere – walking the tightrope between having a board that represents the community you serve and having one that can access the resources of other communities in order to fund your programs and services.
3. How do you get your board engaged enough to WANT to talk about the organization publicly, to recruit others, and to help fundraise? My one idea (thank god, I had an idea!) for him here was something we do here at Greenlights, which is to invite one of our clients to attend the beginning of our board meetings to talk with our board about how our work has impacted his/her organization. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve heard our board members repeating the stories they’ve heard in conversations with prospective supporters.
This last question was clearly a key issue for Marek. Coming from a culture where there isn’t an understanding of the value of volunteerism and “giving back,” he was struggling with how to get his board engaged in the work of the organization to the point where they wanted to help.
What advice would you have given him had you been in the room?
And what are your thoughts about the real value of nonprofit boards?
Filed under: Board Service
Greenlights
Tara Kirkland
Ann Starr
Kim Wilson
Tara Levy
Matt Kouri
Taylor Overstreet
Haila Yates
These are great questions. I think nonprofit boards can do a much better job of all of the things you talk about in this blog: setting strategic direction, shaping policy, and helping with fundraising. In general, they haven’t done these things well in the past, but that doesn’t mean that this shouldn’t be their role. Part of the problem is that Board members join boards for prestige or out of some personal interest, but don’t come on the board with a full understanding of what is needed from them.
I think the way to get board members engaged is to ask them for help. Make them partners with staff in strategic planning, financial planning, and policy making. Don’t just report to them, as many nonprofits do. Bring them into the process. Learn together. Over time they will learn enough to feel comfortable being active members of a board. Of course, you have to keep talking about the fine line between setting policy and micro-managing.
I think nonprofits have a responsibility to teach their board members about their roles. The most important thing board members can do is ask naive questions. This holds the nonprofit accountable. Nonprofit managers have to be able to explain and justify themselves. Sometimes expert board members tend to make assumptions about what and why and fail to get an explanation from the viewpoint of the manager.
Stephen,
I agree with your comments, largely – although even when people join boards out of a desire to help and be involved (i.e. vs. for prestige or personal interest), they are not necessarily equipped to fulfill the role that is needed. Board training does help (which is likely why our monthly Board Primers fill up, I’m guessing), but it’s also important that the NGO have a concrete set of needs mapped out – expertise, resources, connections – for its board and recruit based on those needs.
Interesting perspective on “experts” making assumptions and, therefore, not asking questions. I can see how that might be useful, but would love to see boards filled with members who have valuable expertise and knowledge AND feel a sense of ownership in the organization’s success. Think how much further a NPO/NGO could go if its board was out front of the issues it works on and bringing valuable insight and guidance to the organization, rather than having to be brought up to speed on the issues…. Similar to the role a venture-backed private company’s board plays; of course, in this instance, the sense of ownership is generally guided by an actual ownership stake in the company, not a tool NPOs have at their disposal.