71% of Nonprofit Boards are Invisible

Over the last decade of my career working with nonprofits of various sizes and missions, I have come to the reluctant conclusion that the vast majority are invisible to the consultants and other thought leaders who publish information about "best practices for boards." Further, by overlooking the majority of board members,?we are inadvertently contributing to the very governance problems we seek to address.

Hear me out.

I just finished reading another book?about?nonprofit boards that was not written?for?nonprofit board members. It was how-to-fix-your-board material aimed directly at the pain points of frustrated executive directors exhausted from doing the board's work as well their own. I get it. It is staff who fill seats in workshops and webinars, read blogs, and buy books. They are the ones we see and interact with regularly. Board members, on the other hand, are much harder to reach and coax into a learning opportunity. As a result, we design our workshops, webinars, books and blogs with board members as the?topic?rather than as the?audience. I include myself in this. I like full workshops, too.

Meanwhile, millions of board members out there would be hard pressed to find evidence we experts even know they exist. Yes, I said millions. Have a look at the IRS chart above (published on the?Candid Social Sector Dashboard.) If 71% of registered nonprofits have less than $50,000 in income,?there are millions of board members with no staff?to take any of the action steps we outline as best practices. Millions of board members holding their organizations together and delivering on the mission, often with little understanding of how good governance could be a more solid foundation for their efforts. Millions of board members who need to know what works and what doesn’t – and not reinvent the wheel.

There are places where an enterprising volunteer board member can turn for information about how to improve the board's governance practices. Many national, state, and local organizations offer low-cost or even free training, robust online libraries, and sometimes even direct support. Anyone doing their research on board effectiveness will find mountains of material.?The tricky part is sifting through it all to find the bits that feel truly relevant to board members from very small, unstaffed organizations.

As someone who has worked with hundreds of these board members over the years, I am confident in this assertion: few volunteer board members are likely to pick up and read material that is clearly written with staff in mind. They can tell they are invisible to the author and are taking a hard pass. What we have, then, is a self-perpetuating downward spiral: we don't create content board members see themselves in, board members don't show up or consume our stuff, we respond by creating less content for them...

Another spiral is being exacerbated as well: by creating "best practices for boards" that don't have board members at the center, we are reinforcing the idea that it is staff's job to fix (or maneuver around) the board. But -?responsibility for the well-functioning of the board lies with the board itself, no matter how big or small the budget.?Staff must step up and take on governance tasks when the board has abdicated, of course, but it is always the case that board members themselves need to know what good governance is and why it matters. Board members from unstaffed organizations must do it all - governance, programs, and operations - but they struggle to find material that answers the questions they have.

Now, if you have read this far chances are you are a consultant, work for a capacity-building organization, or are somehow of service to nonprofits. So, here are three suggestions for what we can all do right now to make sure board members - even from very small organizations - gain some visibility:

1. Review any content we've recently created?and ask ourselves: Am I clearly speaking to board members here? Do I suggest strategies for board members themselves to organize their own board development activities? Read it from the perspective of a board member of an unstaffed nonprofit. Would they see themselves in it? If not, make some changes and reissue an amended version with an upfront?mea culpa. Those always get attention. (And don't we all love finding ways to repurpose old content?)
2. Comment on content produced by others?and ask them: How does this apply to small nonprofit boards with no staff? How would this advice be different if you were talking directly to a board member? One tell-tale sign that small nonprofits are invisible to an author is to see the word "organization" used interchangeably with "staff" while the board is portrayed as a separate entity. In small nonprofits, the board?is?the organization. If we all started calling each other out on writing like this, we could begin the kind of dialogue we need for change to take hold.
3. Lead with your knowledge of the board's role. Every time a friend or colleague mentions they've agreed to serve on a nonprofit board, we thought leaders have an opportunity to stand out from the typical "congratulations" responses and reply instead with "thank you." While board service is often an honor, it is always a responsibility, a commitment to give time and energy to a cause, a fiduciary obligation. Celebrate, yes, but we who know what that person has just taken on should lead with appreciation.

Of course, in addition to amending our approach to content, we also must extend our outreach activities to make sure small groups and volunteer board members are invited, welcomed, included. This bit is difficult, and I would be glad to hear suggestions for doing it effectively. Working together, we can put board members back in board development and help these groups achieve more of the good work they've established themselves to do.