How to Build an Effective Board from Scratch (or from One that's not Effective)

It is rare that one finds an effective nonprofit organization that has ineffective volunteer leadership: Officers and Board of Directors. In this Chapter we examine the characteristics of effective Boards, including the importance of volunteer leadership and senior staff working well together as a team, and what is takes to achieve this kind of a Board. We also ponder the twin challenges of identifying the likely signs and causes of underperforming Boards and then turning them around.

I bring to the topic many years of both legal and practical operational knowledge and experience, serving as legal counsel to, or in leadership capacities of, a wide variety of local, regional and national nonprofits – public charities, umbrella funding organizations, religious bodies, professional associations, community associations, and public policy advocacy groups. I think that my experience in the last ten years or so mediating disputes within nonprofit organizations has provided some insight into their internal dynamics, particularly when intergroup or interpersonal conflicts arise, as they inevitably do.