Imagine having a Board of Directors where board members are clear on their responsibilities, actively engaged in accomplishing shared goals, and committed to holding themselves accountable.
Sounds like the dream, right?
Yet very few nonprofit boards function this way.
Here at Funding for Good, we’ve helped scores of nonprofit boards transform how they work together. And we’ve seen firsthand how, no matter how dysfunctional your board dynamic might feel right now, you CAN change it with the right tools and support.
Let’s dig into how.
The Top 3 Challenges for Nonprofit Boards
While every board might feel dysfunctional in its own way, there are three consistent challenges that we’ve seen hold boards back from achieving their potential:
- Lack of clarity in board roles and responsibilities.
- Lack of shared goals for the board and organization.
- Lack of accountability for board participation and active engagement.
Do any of these challenges sound familiar?
If so, you’re not alone.
Over the past decade, research about nonprofit board governance from Stanford, BoardSource, and Alliance for Nonprofit Management has shown that:
- 69% of organizations report experiencing at least one serious governance problem over a given 10-year period.
- 51% of board chairs report no specific training or preparation before taking on their role.
- 49% of nonprofit chief executives report that they do not have the right board members to “establish trust with the communities they serve.”
- 32% of board members are not satisfied with their boards’ ability to evaluate their organization’s performance.
- 27% of board members report their fellow members lack a strong understanding of their organization’s mission and strategy.
- 20% of nonprofit chief executives report that their boards have an “extremely” or “moderately” negative impact on their personal job satisfaction.
In other words: many nonprofit boards and leaders are struggling in ways both large and small.
One Essential Strategy to Get Your Board Back on Track
In our experience training nonprofit boards, the biggest difference between a high-performing board and a dysfunctional board is clarity on roles and responsibilities.
Multiple research reports from BoardSource back up our analysis, showing hard data that the more a board understands its role, the more positive its impact on the organization.
It sounds simple, right? Of course, nonprofit boards need to understand what they are supposed to do as a governance body. And of course, nonprofit board members should understand their own roles.
Yet this problem of board clarity has plagued the nonprofit sector for decades, with no end in sight.
The very first step in breaking the cycle is surprisingly simple:
Introduce job descriptions for board members.
Board member job descriptions should:
- Provide an overview of the general duties of the board.
- Be role specific (e.g., chair vs. members).
- Include fiduciary roles and responsibilities.
- Spell out engagement expectations.
- Align with bylaws and other governance policies.
- Be reviewed and revised on a consistent schedule.
Even better, asking new and existing board members to review their job descriptions and sign off on them lays the groundwork for a board culture of accountability.
Because job descriptions are SO critical for effective nonprofit boards, we’ve created sample board job descriptions that we use with our clients (also available in our online shop).
Affordable Nonprofit Board Development Tools
If you’re a nonprofit leader or board member struggling to guide your nonprofit board to be more effective, you are not alone. We hope the research we’ve shared here helps put your challenges in context—and demonstrates that your board CAN change.
We’ve worked with so many clients whose boards have experienced incredible transformations. But it all starts with the foundation of clear expectations and mechanisms for accountability. Our Board Template Bundle provides a suite of affordable, effective, and ready-to-use tools to start transforming your board today.
