The demise of previously well-functioning organizations can be exacerbated by fleeing board members.  While it is OK to preserve their own well-being, it is not OK to do that when trustees have not done all that they could have reasonably done in their role as mission stewards for the community.  I continue to observe that many trustees wait too long to act and engage in excessive debilitating hand wringing before throwing up their hands and seeking the exits.  But what really makes a difference rarely happens:  trying something different to obtain a different result.

When the going gets tough, great boards get going.  THIS is the time when trustees may figure out what governance is really about and why they are there:  to insure that community value of continued quality operations are maintained and doing whatever it takes (ethically and legally, of course) to maintain this continuity.  Bailing out is easy but that is not acceptable behavior according to “the oath,” so to speak, that trustees took when they signed on for their term of office.  Required action may include narrowing focus, arranging strategic alliances, replacing staff members, replacing themselves, or, gulp, even doing the ambassador and fund raising work that they should have been doing all along!!!

I want to salute board members who don't cut and run in difficult times.  Those who stay to insure continuity when it benefits the community, sharing painful decisions and actions with committed staff leaders:  these trustees are the real heroes of the nonprofit world.  After saving  services for the sake of the community, it is OK to step away and move on, but only after care is taken to insure that trustees appropriate to govern in the new phase of organizational life have been recruited and installed. 

May 2009 be truly fine for all those organizations for which we care!!!

I believe that groups of experts outside of the board of trustees/directors can have great value for an organization.  However, these other groups require similar treatment to policy making boards to be effective:  thoughtful recruiting, adequate staff support, and well defined purpose.

The most intriguing tendency, shared with commercial and government entities, is that of picking name over capability.  That is, going for star power rather than work effort in selecting members.  Name recognition lends prestige and many organizations use famous names as primary reasons to attract community support in outreach messaging. 

The ability of name recognition to jolt a reader into a pause before deletion or round-filing of a message can't be denied but I would ask name droppers three questions.  1)  Does your organization's performance in pursuit of its mission rise to the level of expectation associated with that big name?  2)  If asked, would the named celebrity speak in an informed and supportive way about your organization's work?  3)  Are there other people serving on the affiliated advisory body who actually bring the organization useful advice?

The U.S. Thanksgiving holiday gives many of us the prompt to count our blessings for what is working in our board lives.  In this forum, I usually rant or preach about some ideal way for board members and their staff supporters to behave.  As an advance holiday present, I would like to offer my readers a couple of reflective questions that help to accentuate the positive aspects of their boards, looking forward to the arbitrary renewal point of the new calendar year.

1)  What are the tangible significant accomplishments your board has made this past year?  What has been the positive impact on the organization, staff members and the community served by the organization?  2)  What has the board become better at doing?  3)  How has the relationship between board and staff improved?   4)  What stakeholders are now better connected to the organization because of board efforts than a year ago?  5)  How has the board itself been strengthened - new members, new leaders, structures, procedures, etc. than a year ago?

Please do yourself a favor.  After counting these blessings, be thankful, not just within your soul but outwardly with other board members.  Be glad that you ARE moving forward, that you have a fantastic foundation to build upon for further growth in 2009.  Take a deep breath, feel the warmth of camaraderie in accomplishment, bask in the glow of each other's smiles of satisfaction.  Hug each other.  You are all alive and mostly well and so is the mission that you dutifully care for that means so much to the community.  The world is indeed a better place because of what you do.

A periodic plea must again be made to those we know starting a nonprofit:  PLEASE, if you are trying to establish a sustainable community institution, don't start the easy way, the way of the family.  All too often, people establishing 501(c)(3)'s think about the requirement to have officers as a simple bureaucratic hurdle.  They don't understand that they are creating the foundation for governance and community responsiveness capacity that is dangerously fragile.  

The song of the stakeholder must be sung yet again.  Please tell all of the well-intentioned organization founders that you run across that they should think about whom will be benefited by the success or failure of the organization AND put representatives of those impacted parties on the board of trustees.  It never ceases to amaze me how people put only people they know, beginning with their own family.  Even more amazing, is how these same people have immense difficulty grasping why it is that they experience such great difficulty in gaining community awareness, credibility, advocacy and funding support.  By choosing the easy route, the path of least resistance and least consideration, founders frequently doom the organizational manifestation of their greatest passion to a life of struggle, if not an early demise.