Consider bringing minors on board to boost diversity

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/ban.30507
• Published date: 01 August 2017
• Date: 01 August 2017

2 Board & Administrator

DOI 10.1002/ban © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc., A Wiley Company • All rights reserved

Board &

Administrator

Board

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From the Board Doctor

Take time to assess relationships

between board and staff

Nonprofit directors don’t give suf-

ficient thought to the relationships

between their board and staff, ac-

cording to Eugene Fram, professor

emeritus in the Saunders College of

Business at the Rochester Institute

of Technology.

In “Nonprofit Board/Staff Rela-

tionships: An Uncomfortable Part-

nership?” Fram says the problem

lies with the nature of the roles of

each side. While the board might be

responsible for oversight, planning

and the overall strategic direction

of the organization, the staff are in

charge of making sure the nonprofit

actually makes progress toward its

mission—its reason for being.

For staff, this disconnect sur-

faces in concerns such as:

• Do the directors have a robust

understanding of our mission? Are

they truly qualified to judge our

work?

• How well does the board under-

stand the challenges we face daily?

Do they really understand the diffi-

culties of daily contact, for example,

with disadvantaged families?

• When a new CEO is about to

be engaged, will staff concerns be

considered?

• How secure is my position if

the board sees substantial turn-

over? Will a new director be ap-

pointed who will impact my posi-

tion in the organization?

• Will board-directed changes

cause us to lose staff collegiality

or interfere with the organization’s

sense of caring?

“Since these two vital entities

(board, staff) are parts in the non-

profit partnership engine, it is criti-

cal that the parts be well-oiled so

that the organization may smoothly

move forward in meeting its mis-

sion,” Fram writes.

He suggests executive directors

take a moment to assess if their

staff and board are working togeth-

er in harmony, or in an uncomfort-

able or mistrusting manner? If the

latter, he says, “take time to tune

up the partnership. Your nonprofit

will be the beneficiary!”

For more information, visit

http://bit.ly/2sWj0pR. ■

Consider bringing minors on board

to boost diversity

Research shows that nonprofits

continue to struggle with a lack of

diversity on their boards. This has all

sorts of implications—for starters, the

organization might not really reflect the

diversity of the community it serves,

which could limit the appropriateness

and effectiveness of its programming,

and its decisions might be prone to

group-think where only one, homog-

enized worldview is represented—lead-

ing to missed opportunities and limited

ability to “stay ahead of the curve” as

social issues and solutions develop.

While many understand this in

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