Nonprofit Arts Board Members: What’s Your Fourth Most Important Responsibility?

Now that you know why you’re there, what’s expected of you, and to whom you report, find others—especially if they’re not like you at all.

Thankfully, by now, as a board member of a nonprofit arts organization (or one who knows a board member), you’ve read the three most responsibilities of a nonprofit arts board member. You may agree with them. You may be infuriated by them. These responsibilities set up your charity to do its best work for the community (and not to insist that the community do its best work for you, which is the current model).

You now have to put yourself out there to connect to, recruit, and persuade others to become board members.

Even when you have nothing in common with them, except a love for the community.

Even though some may turn their backs on you and walk in the other direction when you approach them.

Even when there is no quid pro quo involved—“I’ll join your board if you join mine.”

And especially when the time has come for you to rotate off or permanently leave the board.

I get it. No one likes to spend personal capital. Politically speaking, it puts you in a position of weakness. If you want someone to do something, even if it’s for the community in which both of you live, the leverage is with that person and not you.

Interestingly, the most underserved in your community would agree with you. Except that they’re likelier to die because of the lack of leverage. Not die of embarrassment, as you may believe you will by putting yourself out there. Just die.

As you search, keep a few things in mind, in no particular order.

A major donor is not necessarily a good board member.

Often, people will try to buy themselves a board seat by making a large donation to the arts organization. Just as often, people will show their support by writing a big check, causing members of the board to whinny in anticipation of bringing them on as a new board member. But just because someone loves your organization’s work does not make them a board member. It doesn’t disqualify them, of course, but try to look beyond the dollar signs to the intent of the donation. If the donor is toxic—not many are, but too many are—and wants to use their power to set up an exclusive party room for themselves and their friends inside your venue, for example, then their donation is tainted by the grasp for control, disqualifying them from collegial membership.

And that’s okay. Not everyone is qualified to be a board member for your organization, right?

Find people who do not look like you, especially when you’re leaving.

This is generally a tough ask. After all, most of your friends and family, largely speaking, look like you.

If your board is unwieldy (I once headed an organization with 88 board members; that was unwieldy) and you haven’t already pared it down, it is still important to find new board members to sit with you and serve the community. More nonprofit arts boards are having trouble with keeping their size intact (perhaps it’s the same issues that plague the sector: elitism, failure to thrive, adversarial silos, and financial implosion). You’ll always be looking for new members who can make a difference for the community you serve.

No board appointment is permanent. Indeed, if you’re smart, you’ll not only have term limits to membership, but you’ll insert a rule that once someone has served one term as the president of the board, their board service is complete. No one wants to the be the president of a board that has a whole bunch of ex-presidents kibbitzing about how things were better in the old days.

Also, an emeritus board—compromise intended to keep key people involved—is a bad idea, even if their name might mean something in your community. Remember: you don’t have to be a board member to serve on a committee or place a phone call on your behalf. Keep it unofficial.

In any case, if you are leaving the board for any reason, it is your responsibility to find a replacement of equal value.

Find people who know how to serve as well as lead.

In a nonprofit arts board, there is often an undercurrent of well-meaning (but ill-advised) tension toward the company’s business practices. In short, some folks believe the nonprofit is “not being run like a business.”

If someone believes that and chooses to serve, it is almost always a case of wanting to “fix the problem.” Disabuse them of that notion. The answer to all business practices comes down to one thing and one thing only: the mission. Mitigate a problem in the community and your nonprofit is successful. Don’t and it’s not.

To wit: if 90% of expenses go to the programs but the community has not reaped any measurable benefit (e.g., mitigating homelessness), the company has failed. Similarly, if 50% of expenses go to the programs and a measurable benefit does occur, the company has succeeded.

I wish funders would get that. Too many don’t, even when this “overhead myth” was exposed as such by the major charity evaluators (Charity Navigator, Guidestar, the BBB Wise Giving Alliance).

With the executive director piloting the organization, it is imperative that the board members not only know how to lead the charge in the community, but serve the organization’s plans to do so. No one board member is more important than others in that cause.

When you bring someone onto the board, you have to listen to them.

A board is not a club. It’s not a clique. It’s an organism of change and support.

Think of it this way. Let’s say your nonprofit arts board looks like this:

And your community generally looks like this:

Or this:

Will each new board member have the same power, rights, control, and freedom to make decisions as you do? Can you live with the changes they make for the sake of the community?

Or will they just check a box on your DEI program?

And then, if they become too powerful for your taste, all for the sake of the community, will you resign your board membership because the company isn’t what it once was?

You have to listen to new members more than they have to listen to you.

New members are not required to play by your rules. Otherwise, why would they want to help?

There are myriad resources available about how to enhance your nonprofit arts board. When you read them—and you should—remember these important ideas. It won’t all go swimmingly. Sometimes you’ll choose the wrong person; sometimes the wrong person chooses you. That’s life. Make sure you’ve made arrangements—a quasi-Pre-nup, perhaps—to protect the community.

Based in Kirkland, Washington, Alan Harrison is a writer and speaker specializing in nonprofit organizations, strategy, the arts, and life politics. His columns appear regularly in major publications. Contact him directly at [email protected].

If you’re feeling generous or inspired, just click on the coffee cup above. You don’t have to, of course, but if you can afford it and find some value here, please provide the desperate need for caffeine.

Alan is always looking for good opportunities to write and consult for nonprofits that need a hand. And, of course, that elusive Perfect Opportunity?.

BIG NEWS: Alan’s new book, “Scene Change: Why Today’s Nonprofit Arts Organizations Have to Stop Producing Art and Start Producing Impact” will be published in January by Changemakers Books. Pre-orders in the fall. A few copies may be available as early as May for those booking conferences, reading engagements, and speaking engagements. Just let Alan know if you want him to visit your bookstore or your boardroom!