Articles
Board Development
August 23, 2023
Splitting the Atom? The Nature of Strategy and Governance
Some things just seem to go together naturally. Peanut butter and jelly; chips and guacamole; Taylor Swift and breakup songs. When two things are complementary by nature, pulling them apart feels like an affront to the way things are supposed to be. Such is the case with nonprofit strategy and board governance. While peanut butter […]
January 28, 2022
What are Board Meetings For?
I have led board meetings as a chair. I have participated in board meetings as a member. And I have observed board meetings as a consultant. And it is, as they say, a mixed bag of nuts. Nonprofit boards, often at the urging of consultants, will address board development through structure: Is our board the […]
July 20, 2021
Strategy as Governance
“Tell me and I will forget. Teach me and I will remember. Involve me and I will understand.” Typically, board training focuses on the first two parts of this ancient wisdom. We tell board members what they should do, which they are likely to forget. Or we teach them best practices that they are likely […]
October 13, 2020
Crisis Governance: the Ten Basic Responsibilities
The Ten Basic Responsibilities of Nonprofit Boards created by BoardSource is considered the gold standard in benchmarking board performance. The responsibilities are clear, concrete, and specific. Whether your organization is a startup or has achieved organizational maturity, the ten responsibilities provide a starting point for setting board expectations and for assessing the quality of your […]
April 13, 2016
The Sociological Imagination: How to Build a Culture of Board Governance
Sometimes, we need a wider lens to get a fuller view of the landscape. If we want to capture the vastness of the forest, for example, a close-up image of a single tree will not provide the proper perspective. Whatever the object, if we zoom in too tightly, we have no context for understanding the […]
March 27, 2012
If You’ve Seen One Good Board…
I have been asked numerous times by clients to describe what a “good board” looks like. I understand the point of the question – what is the right size, what are the right committees, etc. But asking what a board should look like misses the more important point, which is this: a good board is […]
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