Lions don't tame themselves

• Date: 01 August 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/ban.31137
• Published date: 01 August 2020

August 2020 • Volume 36, Number 12 3

DOI 10.1002/ban© 2020 Wiley Periodicals LLC • All rights reserved

Commit to 5 board rules in 2020

1. Respect and support the ma-

jority decisions of the board.

2. Do not hold “parking lot

meetings” (meetings after the of-

ficial board meeting) with your

board colleagues.

3. Recognize that the authority of

the board is vested in the full board

when it meets in legal session. You

are a member of the board, not an

administrator or supervisor.

4. Refer complaints to the

proper level of the chain of com-

mand within the administration.

Do not try to solve problems for

other parties—it is not a board

member’s role to do so.

5. Never spend a moment on

the board that is not dedicated to

making policy decisions that best

help the people your organization

serves. ■

Give full consideration to the

benets a candidate will bring

Frank Kurre, national manag-

ing partner of Grant Thornton’s

not-for-profit industry practice,

said the board’s screening of

potential new members should

not only include a full discus-

sion of matters like the potential

monetary contribution a member

could bring, or the list of valuable

contacts, but also specialized

areas of knowledge.

“One of the clients we work

with was facing construction

issues but had no one with

construction experience on the

board, so I suggested to the

president that he needed that in a

member,” Kurre said. ■

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Lions don’t tame themselves

Hotline call (515.963.7972)

from a Pennsylvania executive di-

rector: “I just got out of a meeting

with my board chairperson. He

informed me, ‘We’re going to redo

the organizational chart, because

the board thinks you have to su-

pervise too many people.’”

Ouch! This is a prime example

of a board that wants to roll up

its sleeves and take away the

administrator’s management

responsibilities.

This sea change on the board oc-

curred after it recently added some

new members. “One is a guy who’s

never needed to work and has

too much time on his hands, and

another is a retired gentleman with

plenty of time to ‘fix’ things around

here,” the administrator said.What’s

a nonprofit executive to do with a

board that doesn’t understand its

role? Keep Roy Horn in mind. Horn

is the lion tamer whose seemingly

docile big cat mauled him and

nearly ended his life.

No matter how much a lion acts

like a kitten, a lion is always a

lion. That’s the lion tamer’s rule.

When translated to a nonprofit

board, the administrator is Roy

Horn. You are the lion tamer,

standing ready to correct the

board when it intrudes into your

job—managing the organization. ■