Board Cafe • By Jan Masaoka • January 26, 2013 • Email Print

"To err is human," and as we all ruefully know, nonprofit board members and executive directors are typically human. Here are some of the biggest mistakes we make:

1. Falling in love with the executive director and letting love diminish critical thinking: Even if you have the world's greatest CEO, that CEO will benefit from your bringing your scrutiny and thinking to the organization's work and to his or her performance. Being in love is great, but bring up the issue of getting the dishes done.

2. Neglecting the . . .

Board Cafe • By Jan Masaoka • December 8, 2012 • Email Print

"Conflict of loyalty" is a useful concept and term that gives us another dimension to work with than simply conflict of interest:

In our legitimate desire to avoid conflicts of interest in nonprofits, we typically make two oddly opposite mistakes:

1. We narrow "conflict of interest" to a strict legal definition and focus only on matters that involve personal financial gain, and
2. At the same time we are too quick to label any kind of relationship at all as a conflict of interest.

But often, the "conflicts of interest" in nonprofits do not involve personal financial gain. Consider the board member whose commitment to rights for people with disabilities leads her to serve on the boards of two such organizations. At Board A she hears about a new grant opportunity that is opening up at a local foundation. Should she tell Board B about it, or is she obligated not to mention it?

Or what about the deputy director of a nonprofit theater who sits on the board of a battered women's shelter: two very different fields. He's just met someone he thinks would be a great board member for either organization. Should he suggest this person to both, or to which one?

In another example,

Board Cafe • By Jan Masaoka • October 1, 2012 • Email Print

Dear Blue Avocado: I'm the chair of a nonprofit board and I have a problem. We recently voted to support a local measure that would change some zoning regulations in our county. This board member -- I'll call him "Joe" -- was outvoted (he was the only one to vote against it). The staff wrote up our position and put it on our website. Now Joe won't stop emailing the staff and telling them to change a sentence or add something or even to take it down. The staff is spending hours talking with him on the phone about it. What do I do?

Dear Board Chair:

You already know that you have to stop his behavior. The question is how.

You need to send two clear messages: one to Joe and one to the staff:

Board Cafe • By Tim Wolfred & Jan Masaoka • July 10, 2012 • Email Print

When a new executive is hired, the board usually breathes a huge sigh of relief. They have likely been working extra hard for weeks or months interviewing candidates or taking on additional tasks, such as managing a fundraising event or overseeing the audit. If you're on a board, before you turn over the reins to a new leader, consider these fast ideas to help get the executive get started on a path to success:

• Hang in there just a bit longer. It's understandable that board members want to relax once the new executive director is in place, but stay in there at continued intensity for a while longer, and make sure the executive has the support she needs to get off to a great start. A new executive may be reluctant to ask board members to do something, or may be new to the community or field as well. Tip: Assign a committee or an officer to take on the job of monitoring the needs of the new ED.

Board Cafe • By Jan Masaoka • July 3, 2012 • Email Print

This booklet was originally published jointly by Boardsource and CompassPoint Nonprofit Services. Click here to download the PDF free.

Board Cafe • By Jan Masaoka • June 11, 2012 • Email Print

You know the board matrix: it has a list of skills and competencies that are "supposed" to be on the board, such as legal, marketing, HR, fundraising, finance. And typically there are also demographic qualities, such as gender, race, age. The board matrix then shows what boxes you presumably need to fill.

What's wrong here is that these board composition matrices focus our attention on what people are, rather than on what the organization needs board members to do.

Let's look at the three failures of board matrix approaches:

1. The skills trap: By identifying skills such as legal or finance, we often end up with the wrong kind of legal or financial professional . . .

Board Cafe • By Jan Masaoka • April 1, 2012 • Email Print

Dear Blue Avocado: We have 18 board members, but we are wondering if we should try to keep such a large board.

At our upcoming board and senior staff retreat we will be discussing what size our board should be to be most effective. Help!!

By the way, we share credit with you for our great success in recruiting six new dynamic board members using your "Blue Ribbon Committee" method outlined at a session you led at a California Wellness conference a couple of years ago. Thank you! Signed, Nina Dooley, LINC Housing, Long Beach, California

Dear Nina and LINC Housing: You've hit upon the single most common question asked of experts on nonprofit boards: What's the right number of people to have on the board?

We're tempted to answer: "17. That's the average board size in the United States so it must be right."

Actually, the real answer is . . .

Board Cafe • Finance & Strategy • By Jan Masaoka • February 9, 2012 • Email Print

Instead of focusing only on how board members can raise individual donations (or not!), think more broadly (and effectively) about how board members can support the key aspects of your organization's business/revenue strategy:

In the quest for funds, there is no shortage of advice given to nonprofits. Start a social enterprise! Get corporate donations! Raffle a house! Perhaps the most frequent and consistent advice: focus the board on getting major gifts; in fact, recruit a strong fundraising board that can get major gifts.

But pursuing a new funding stream for which you may not have the right people and competencies already is often not the best place to start. Instead, we recommend that you see how you can boost and leverage the funding streams and people you already have in place.

Let’s imagine a community center with five areas of . . .