As demands for Board effectiveness and accountability continue to grow, research and discussions about how Boards might operate differently, continue to grow, as well. There are a variety of new ideas for Board models.
Networked Governance
David Renz suggests that the effectiveness of governance could be enhanced when we realize that governance can include organizations and activities that go beyond the role of the Board in an organization. Nowadays, many nonprofit services to a community are often delivered across a network of organizations and, thus, the distributed governance of that network is a key point in the effectiveness of those services. Renz mentions the advantages of the perspective on networked governance and also mentions the difficult challenges inherent in that perspective, for example, how can individual nonprofits and Boards influence the overall network and how can we ensure that individual Boards are doing their fiduciary responsibilities.
System-Wide Governance
Judy Freiwirth asserts that the traditional “top down,” “command and control” paradigm of Boards actually gets in the way of the nonprofit’s successfully working toward its mission. She suggests that the governance responsibility to be shared among constituents, including members, staff and Board. In System-Wide Governance, Board members are from the community and constituency. Although, governance is very democratic in nature, Board members do perform some legal and fiduciary responsibilities. She mentions the Whole Scale Change methodology as an example of how constituency-based planning and operations can be successful.
Community-Driven Governance: Governing for What Matters
Community-Driven Governance is a framework that defines a Board’s primary purpose as leadership towards making a significant, visionary difference in the community the organization serves. The Board’s work centers around an annual plan that aims first and foremost at the difference the organization will make in the community. The plan then addresses the organizational infrastructure needed to implement that plans. The approach is intended to be simple enough for any Board to put into practice, while comprehensively addressing first the ends, and then the means for which a Board will hold itself accountable. The approach also aims to avoid a typical problem in Boards when they attend primarily to internal operations, rather than truly representing the needs of stakeholders.
See Governing for What Matters by Hildy Gottlieb
Relationship Model
Steven Block proposes a model that, instead of having a rigid, top-down structure of roles and hierarchy of the traditional policy model, provides for Board and staff members to work together with great priority on generating relationships and value from those relationships. The Executive Director and staff play an important role in bringing matters to the group (a group of Board members and staff) and their opinions are greatly valued. Board and staff share experiences together, for example, rituals and meals, to develop relationships. Board members are not expected to take part in activities outside Board meetings. They can be there to assist staff. Committees are not used.
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Carter McNamara, MBA, PhD – Authenticity Consulting, LLC – 800-971-2250
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Carter McNamara of Authenticity Consulting, LLC, provides organization development and consultant training services, and is developer of the Free Management Library.
Julie Garland-McLellan uses her experience and depth of knowledge in corporate governance to show boards with limited resources how to be more effective through practical governance innovation and know-how.
Nick Lindsay of Elemental CoSec, provides corporate governance, legal and company secretarial advice to a wide range of companies in the UK.
It’s impossible to be brief in commenting on all of the points mentioned under the models. But one common recommendation seems to be for boards to adopt a wider perspective or scope, and to make board membership more inclusive of staff or members. In my experience the concepts are not so very new — perhaps they’re being recycled under new names or nuances. Many nonprofits long ago adopted such approaches where it made sense.
It’s also important to evaluate the premises asserted for each of these new models. If the premises apply, then it’s appropriate to consider possible ways of addressing the shortcomings identified.
But there are likely to be a number of tradeoffs in changing to pursue any of the listed models, including dilution of focus, additional time required of board members, enlargement of the board, diversion of scarce financial resources, etc., which militate against such changes. Most nonprofit board members already give all the time and resources they can to the organization, while receiving no pay for their time and commitments. Often, they are large donors. A board quickly becomes unwieldy with too many members, too many reports, too many areas of operation, too many goals and ambitions, too many chiefs, etc. Similarly, funds simply may not allow such changes.
While there may be need for improvement in those nonprofits that suffer under the leadership problems specified as premises for the new approaches, it is not likely that all nonprofits are actually suffering under their current models. Thus, “new” is not necessarily “better.” Any of these proposed “model” must be evaluated in the real world context of a particular nonprofit’s operations.
In the abstract, it’s not clear that any one of them would guarantee delivery of greater good to its community.