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Nonprofit Boards and Governance Review
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About Nonprofit Boards and Governance Review™
If a nonprofit organization is to prosper, it must have great clarity about best practices in governance -- and have the courage and determination to follow such practices. The original articles contributed to Nonprofit Boards and Governance Review address the very real challenges faced by nonprofit organizations and their boards, and collectively comprise a remarkable collection of wisdom and best practices.
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Theory of Change
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
by Mike Burns
The intensity and passion that’s intrinsic to serving in the nonprofit sector can lead to burnout: that overwhelming feeling that a problem is too big or the obstacles to solving a problem are not resolvable. That same intensity can lead to conflict within the board if people aren’t operating under similar assumptions. The solution is to take some time to think about what you’re doing and why, through a Theory of Change process. This article presents the Theory of Change as one tool for developing and expressing a collective “terms-of-agreement.”
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What Happens if We Just Talk?
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
by Brian Hayman
When I reflect on my experience in and around governing boards, both as a member of and a consultant to them, I’d have to say that transactional conversations are the order of the day. In other words, the domain of action is pretty much confined to the domain of the known. But boards must provide direction for the future because how else are they to judge the appropriateness of management’s decisions in the present? In doing so, however, they cross the border between the known and the unknown and move from the domain of relative certainty into that of uncertainty. And it is here that the mode of conversation has to change from the relative tidiness of the transactional to the messiness of the transformational; from the exchange of information to, in Berthoff’s terms, the creation of meaning.
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Crisis Governance
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
by Caroline Oliver
Everyone has heard of crisis management, but is there such a thing as crisis governance? I would suggest there is. I would also suggest that there is a significant difference between the two, and that boards need to understand the difference if they are going to add real value through bad times.
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Reviewing Governance Part 2 - The Process
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
by Jane Garthson
Part 1 of this article was about the when and why of governance reviews in community, public and mutual benefit organizations. It mentioned some warning signs that indicate a governance review might be warranted, noted some times when such a review should be deferred, and spoke to the benefits. So let’s now help you get on with carrying out a governance review. What is the process? Who does what? What happens afterwards?
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Reviewing Governance Part 1 - When and Why
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
by Jane Garthson
How do you know if your organization’s governance is good enough? If you haven’t reviewed it in the last few years, you simply do not know. More and more organizations are conducting governance reviews, and finding the reviews worthwhile even if they decide against major change. The discussions about why you lead as you do will still be worthwhile, and you are certain to find some change, however small, that really makes a difference.
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Are Your Board Members N.I.C.E.?
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
by Lynne T. Dean, CFRE
While the idea of fundraising can send shivers up the spine of some of the most experienced board members and a few executive directors as well, I contend that the real dilemma for many of those most fearful is that they don’t understand that fundraising is much, much more than asking for the gift. And that yes, they can succeed at fundraising.
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You’re Strategically Aware and Ready for the Strategic Plan
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
by Steven Bowman
You’ve taken the concept of strategic awareness to heart and you are making better decisions. You still want – or are perhaps required to have – a “plan,” but you’ve held back because the idea of creating a strategic plan seems a bit intimidating. What if strategic planning was the opposite of everything that most people think it is? What if it was neither rigid nor fixed, but rather continual, generative, informative, exciting and vision driven? What if it was quick, enjoyable, truly strategic, and provided a focus for all the organization, from the Board to staff to stakeholders? This article shows you how to make it so.
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Hold Off on Your Strategic Plan (and Build Strategic Awareness Instead)
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
by Steven Bowman
Strategic planning has such a bad reputation out there. Why do so many nonprofits shudder when the strategic plan cycle comes around again? Why do so many never complete or follow their strategic plan? Why do so many not have a strategic plan? In our experience of over 35 years in the nonprofit sector at senior leadership levels and advisory positions, over 85% of strategic plans we have seen are useless and the CEOs and boards readily agree these plans are useless.
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A Need to Rethink the Paradigm: What Research Tells Us About Your Board and the Way It Governs - Part 2
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
by Terrie Temkin, Ph.D., Co-Editor
In Part 1 of this article (Nonprofit Boards and Governance Review, October 21, 2009), I shared several research studies that had, in my mind, implications that suggest we should be rethinking the way business is typically done in our sector. In Part 2, I’m sharing studies that suggest if we truly want to be more successful we should be doing more of what we already know we should be doing.
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A Need to Rethink the Paradigm: What Research Tells Us About Your Board and the Way It Governs - Part 1
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
by Terrie Temkin, Ph.D., Co-Editor
Years ago boards governed by the seat of their pants, basing their actions on what – for better or for worse – they had seen modeled either by their predecessors or other organizations. There really wasn’t an option. It’s only been in the last 15-20 years that the field has generated sufficient research to provide some objective guidelines as to what might be truly effective practices.
Today we are blessed with a plethora of studies, many of which are available in mainline journals – no wading through academic journals – or on the Internet. This makes them relatively accessible. Despite this, I see a lot of boards still governing by the seat of their pants.
So, I decided to make more accessible yet a few of the studies that I believe have major implications for the ways boards should at least consider functioning today. Initially, this will be in two parts. Maybe I’ll get ambitious and highlight additional studies in the future. Better yet, I’ll inspire others to write up the studies that they find provide guidance to their organizations....
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Govern Like a Jazz Group: A Core Chart for Optimal Flow in Nonprofit Governance
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
by Brian Fraser
Think of the last board meeting you participated in at one of the nonprofits in which you are involved. On a scale of 1-10 (with 10 being highest), rate the flow of the meeting. Think of flow as a process in which the achievement of purpose progresses unimpeded. It’s something like a stream with no debris in it flowing smoothly to its destination. It’s also like a jazz performance in which all the musicians are in sync and their instruments blend harmoniously into a toe-tapping, body-swaying performance.
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Is Your Organization Ready to be Rated On Its Performance?
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
by Gayle Gifford, ACFRE
There is a snowball already gathering momentum and mass on its way down the hill in the USA and your board needs to pay attention to it now.
That snowball is the growing movement by independent intermediaries to develop simple rating systems for the very complex world of nonprofit performance and social impact. The goal of these intermediaries, spurred on by funders, is to provide accessible, online rating systems to steer philanthropic dollars to the “best performing” nonprofits.
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Board Governance of Nonprofits
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
by Ken Berger, President & Chief Executive Officer, Charity Navigator
After many years of working in the trenches of the nonprofit sector, in June of last year something extraordinary happened to me. It was as if I was grabbed by the collar and lifted up to a high mountain, where for the first time, I got to see all the nonprofit “trenches” people work in. So here let me speak plainly about some of the dirty little secrets about many nonprofit Boards and how they govern – they often do it badly and in some cases they do not govern at all.
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The Key Ingredients to Organizational Effectiveness and High Impact Results, Part 2
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
by Cassandra O'Neill
Part 1 of this article covered the key findings from the books Built to Last and Good to Great on organizational effectiveness. Part 2 summarizes the findings from Forces for Good by Leslie R. Crutchfield and Heather McLeod Grant, reviews key findings from the article "The Networked Nonprofit" by Jane Wei-Skillern and Sonia Marciano, and synthesizes the collective findings. These findings inform best practice for Executive Directors and Boards of Directors in the social sector.
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The Key Ingredients to Organizational Effectiveness and High Impact Results, Part 1
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
by Cassandra O'Neill
The following article is the first part of a two-part article. These articles synthesize the research findings on best practices which lead to organizational effectiveness and exceptional results. This research is widely read in the social sector. Their findings when examined together provide a recipe for organizational effectiveness and high impact results, and thus the key ingredients for the leaders of organizations in the social sector.
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Terrie Temkin of CoreStrategies for Nonprofits, Inc. Joins as Co-Editor of CharityChannel's Nonprofit Boards and Governance Review
Thursday, August 6, 2009
by Stephen C. Nill, CEO, CharityChannel
Rancho Santa Margarita, CA – August 6, 2009 – Longtime CharityChannel colleague and contributor Terrie Temkin, Ph.D. of CoreStrategies for Nonprofits, Inc. has joined with veteran editor Jane Garthson to serve as co-editor of CharityChannel’s Nonprofit Boards and Governance Review (“NBGR”).
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Nonprofit Boards as Teams Part 3: Using Team Models to Improve Board Performance
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
by Tim Lannan
Team development models provide great lenses through which to view what is happening with a board. Following are just a few examples of what you might see in nonprofit boards and how the Tuckman and Drexler/Sibbet models can be used to understand and address them.
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Nonprofit Boards as Teams, Part 2: Models of Team/Board Development
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
by Tim Lannan
Models of team development are simply tools to help understand how teams – and, thus, boards – develop and grow. These models help explain board behavior and make it clear that creating a high-performing board takes work as well as time. Because teams like nonprofit boards are formed to achieve more than individual members can do on their own, models provide a way to understand what it will take for a group of strangers to become a team united around a shared purpose. A team development model provides a simple framework for discussing what might be going on in a board and what it will take to get it to the next level. While there are many team development models, I will outline two that I have found helpful in my work with nonprofit boards.
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Boards as Teams, Part 1 - Nonprofit Boards Are Teams
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
by Tim Lannan
What is a board if not a small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, performance goals, and approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable? That is the classic definition of teams proposed by Katzenbach and Smith in Wisdom of Teams. Similarly, William Dyer’s characteristics of effective teams could just as easily describe effective nonprofit boards.
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Seven Pillars of Democratic Governance
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
by Mel Gill
Most discussions about governance assume that everyone involved has the same notion of just what "governance" means. In fact, there may be substantial differences in understanding of what it does mean. So the best starting point in any discussion is a common definition, to ensure that everyone is on the same page. The definition offered here is based on an extensive review of governance literature and validation through my research, teaching and consulting experience.
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Following the Floundering Founder - Three Leadership Recommendations for the Continuing Voyage - Part 2
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
by Reid Zimmerman
This is a two-part article on the challenges of taking the organizational reigns from a charismatic founding director and supporting it to reach an improved level of performance. Part two now adds the issues of organizational structure and the challenges of governance and leadership.
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Following the Floundering Founder - Three Leadership Recommendations for the Continuing Voyage - Part 1
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
by Reid Zimmerman
This is a two-part article on the challenges of taking the organizational reigns from a charismatic founding director and supporting it to reach an improved level of performance. Part one below introduces the situation and addresses making sense of the financials.
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Corporations that need YOU right now - Part 2
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
by Patricia Birgen-Redwolf
In Part 1 published March 11 we explored why corporations need you right now and began the process of preparing your nonprofit to seek out mutually beneficial relationships within the business sector. You have reviewed your strategic plan and organization’s values, searched your database for current business affiliations, and begun making a list of potential business partners. Today we will build on this by addressing the final seven steps required to ensure the success of your campaign.
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The Good Samaritan Embezzler
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
by Tammy Vega
No one is immune from temptations involving money, but most of us resist the urge to take what does not belong to us. As they say, you can’t judge a book by its cover. For if you could identify a thief by his appearance, white collar crime would be non-existent. In our case, the thief who stole every dime in our bank account was cleverly disguised as a middle-aged, outstanding community leader. Carol, a pseudonym given for the purpose of sharing this sad tale, faithfully served as a board member or officer on several civic clubs. Our organization was devoted to serving troubled children, making this saga all the more despicable. While this may never be considered one of those situations that you can laugh at in retrospect, there are several lessons that can be gleaned from the ordeal.
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Corporations that need YOU right now - Part 1
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
by Patricia Birgen-Redwolf
This is a two-part article on how to align with the business sector during this economic crisis to increase charitable donations and gain new resources for your nonprofit. Part 1 below addresses a few reasons why corporations need you right now, provides examples of successful partnerships, and prepares you for success by providing the first three of 10 steps to secure these abundant resources.
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Would You Like to Write for CharityChannel?
CharityChannel was created in 1992 as a community of nonprofit-sector colleagues who shared a vision to create a professional community where members can help each other by sharing their expertise with each other. One of the most important avenues for the exchange of expertise is the opportunity to write original, down-to-earth articles. CharityChannel contributors have penned thousands of articles over the years, and they're just warming up – in the next weeks and months, we're going to expand the article subject areas.
If you have at least several years of experience in the sector and a specific expertise, as evidenced by a demonstrable record of accomplishment, in any of the topic areas listed to the left, you are invited to raise your hand to join one of our Contributors Panels organized around each topic area.
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Jane Garthson, Co-Editor
 Jane is President of the Garthson Leadership Centre, dedicated to strengthening communities through enhanced leadership and ethics in nonprofit and government organizations. Since 1992, Jane has worked with community, public and mutual benefit organizations in the areas of governance, integrity, strategic planning, risk management, board-staff relations, ethics oversight and assurance and organizational reviews.
She holds an honours certificate in Voluntary Management and Leadership from York University. Jane is:
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Co-Editor of Nonprofit Boards and Governance Review for CharityChannel
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Contributing Editor, Governance, of Canadian Fundraiser
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Author of the monthly ethics column for Charity Village
Jane is an active member of the Canadian Society of Association Executives, the Alliance for Nonprofit Management (and its Governance Affinity Group), the Community Development Institutethe Ethics Practitioners Association of Canada, EthicsCentre CA and the Association of Cultural Executives of Canada. She has served in various officer and director roles, mostly recently on the governing board of the Ontario Racing Commission, where she also adjudicated appeals under administrative law.
She was the Executive Director of the Ontario Equestrian Federation for almost three years and, with key volunteers, led a very successful turnaround as well as extensive changes to governance, programs, revenues and operations. Prior to starting her consulting firm, Jane served in six Ontario ministries. A key role was managing the accountability and financial relationships with major government agencies such as The Trillium Foundation and the Ontario Lottery Corporation.
She consults, trains, writes and speaks on strategic planning, governance, ethical leadership, board-staff relations and ethical decision-making.
Jane is a Past Chair and founding member of the Ethics Practitioners’ Association of Canada (EPAC). She is also a past member of the Ethics Review Committee of the Canadian Council for International Co-operation.
She is currently on the Board of an annual music festival, and active in music, horseback riding, photography and gardening.
Terrie Temkin, Ph.D., Co-Editor
 Dr. Terrie Temkin is an acknowledged thought leader in the areas of governance, board development and planning. An award-winning speaker and an engaging group facilitator, she brings more than 30 years of nonprofit management, organizational communication and adult education experience to her work.
Terrie, who has been a full-time consultant since 1994, is a founding principal of CoreStrategies for Nonprofits, Inc. with CFRE Gail Meltzer and Robyn Perlman. The international consulting firm fully integrates governance, planning, fund development, PR, marketing and public policy. Previously, Terrie was president of the respected firm NonProfit Management Solutions, Inc. However, a growing desire to provide her clients with the most unique capacity-building consulting services available to community-benefit organizations led her in 2002 to create the synergeristic entity that is CoreStrategies.
Terrie is a prolific writer. For five years she authored the biweekly “On Nonprofits” column in the Miami Herald – a column she continues to write for Philanthropy Journal, the CoreStrategies on Nonprofits Blog, a couple dozen chapters of the Association for Fundraising Professionals and numerous community foundations. She is a contributing blogger to Advancing the Nonprofit Sector, has written four books, has chapters in three others, and has written and presented numerous papers. Her articles are found in publications all over the world, including Across the Board, Advancing Philanthropy, Board Member, Bottom Line Personal, Community Jobs, Consulting Today, Enhance, e-Volunteerism, Journal of Voluntary Action Research, NCVO Website (England), Nonprofit Boards and Governance Review, Nonprofit World, and Not-for-Profit News (Australia). And, she is frequently cited in publications such as Board & Administrator, Major Gifts Report, Nonprofit Board Report and Volunteer Management Report. She is currently co-editor of Nonprofit Boards and Governance Review.
Besides working with her own clients, Terrie regularly works with various nonprofit management support organizations throughout the country. She is an active member of the CharityChannel community, who has shared her knowledge with her colleagues since the beginning. And, she is an adjunct faculty member for Florida Atlantic University, teaching governance in its master-level program in Nonprofit Management. A member in good standing of the Society for Advancement of ConsultingSM (SAC), she has completed a certification process that speaks to her ethics and professionalism.
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