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May 1, 2007: The Magic Dust PDF Print E-mail

Participation in a recent board governance conference convinced me more than ever about an obvious truth: a board can only be as great as its members.

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April 16, 2007: Bending the Hourglass? PDF Print E-mail

Should non-managerial staff attend routine meetings of a board of trustees?

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National Evaluation and Utah Proliferation of Board Fellows Program PDF Print E-mail

In response to Mary's post.  Board Fellows is a Net Impact chapter run program in about 15 cities nationwide involving perhaps several hundred fellows and a corresponding number of nonprofit organizations.  There is an effort underway to understand these programs as a whole and begin to profile demographic features and the effectiveness of these efforts.  In Utah, the Marriott Chapter at BYU could establish this model but have not to date.  The other most likely candidates for Net Impact chapters and programs such as Board Fellows would be at Westminster College in Salt Lake City, Weber State University in Ogden and Southern Utah University in Cedar City.  Without the infrastructure of a Net Impact Chapter, it is difficult to see how the board fellows model could be implemented and sustained.

 
February 14, 2007: The Miracle of the Elephant PDF Print E-mail

 

As a skilled meeting and retreat facilitator, I pride myself on being able to adjust agendas to accommodate the flow of discussion (or lack thereof) in an extended meeting setting. One trend that I have recently observed is that many organizations desire to hold retreat and strategic planning discussions in an increasingly short time frame. Many annual retreat/planning sessions are taking place in only one half day. In almost every session lasting three hours or more, I have noticed that at least one "elephant-in-the-room" issue (something not on the agenda and not surfaced in preparation and preceding discussion during the event) will emerge, but not usually in the first 90-120 minutes. At a recent event, after the first four hours of discussion, it appeared that no truly strategic issues had emerged to move the organization forward in a fundamental way. I was ready to give up an suggested that the group consider early adjournment as this was in the evening. After some stumbling with alternative ideas to spend the last hour, a strategic issue and a new solution emerged that greatly energized the group. The miracle of the elephant had occurred once again and a breakthrough in generating new momentum was made by the group. I am suggesting that, in terms of special meetings, sometimes longer is actually better than shorter.

 

 
February 2, 2007 - Tapping into Young Business Blood PDF Print E-mail
I have been participating as an advisor to the University of Utah Eccles School of Business Net Impact Board Fellows program. The first group of two dozen second year MBA students are halfway through their nine month experience serving on a nonprofit board of trustees. At our check-in meeting, the experience seemed to vary dramatically between the participants. Some are involved with committees and have individual assignments and some have been to very few full board meetings. Many were not sure if they were making a difference. Most felt that they were being treated the same as regular trustees. However, all but one of those present said they would continue to serve as permanent trustees if nominated and all thought the experience was worthwhile. I think this experiment in placing younger (primarily under 40) people with business acumen on a wide range of nonprofit boards is working. We still need to perform more thorough evaluation at the end of the academic year AND solicit input from leaders of participating boards of trustees.
 
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