The Chronicle of Philanthropy (August 1, 2019) After spending two decades working for nonprofits and now in my role as a consultant to them, I keep hearing stories about nonprofit leaders encountering friction with their boards. Most recently, a friend who works as the executive director of a small nonprofit complained to me that the… Read more »
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United Way to make more diversity on nonprofit boards part of funding process
The Columbus Dispatch (July 13, 2019) When it comes to racial and ethnic diversity, the leadership boards of central Ohio nonprofit organizations don’t look like the communities they serve. So the United Way of Central Ohio wants to nudge them a little closer to the local demographic. Starting early in 2020, the United Way plans… Read more »
How to Recruit, Engage, and Retain Millennial Board Members
Philanthropy News Digest (October 3, 2018) Here’s a well-documented fact: in the nonprofit sector, most boards are lacking in diversity, especially when it comes to people of color and women. (We wrote about the former, and how to change it, a couple of months ago.) We also know that more diversity on a board tends… Read more »
Art Museums Open Up to Voices and Visions from Curators of Color
Nonprofit Quarterly (August 8, 2018) As NPQ reported, a 2015 national study published by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation found that 84 percent of art museum curators were white (compared to 62 percent in the US population). Of the remainder, six percent were Asian, four percent were Black, and three percent were Latinx (reported totals… Read more »
Large Environmental Nonprofits Seek to Embrace Equity, Is the Needle Moving Yet?
Nonprofit Quarterly (May 24, 2018) Leadership in the nonprofit sector remains largely white. Perversely, even as we are actively talking about and studying this issue in the sector, the proportion of nonprofits who have all-white boards have risen both in the US and the UK. Conforming to this, the environmental sector is headed in the… Read more »
Moving to Action on Board Diversity
Center for Nonprofit Excellence (March 15, 2018) Thoughtful consideration of the questions in this article can help your board move beyond good intentions to develop an action plan. And action is needed, because decades of evidence show the value of diverse boards and suggests that diversity won’t happen without intentionality. Read the full article.
The Four Questions to Ask When Serving on a Nonprofit Board
McKinsey Quarterly (December 2017) If you know how to probe, nudge, and prod, you can help your board perform better. Doing so starts with courage. Nonprofit board members are often reluctant to contribute actively to discussions for fear that they will appear uninformed or cause an embarrassing ruckus. To be effective, you must overcome that… Read more »
Board Diversity: Continually Seeking the Best and Brightest
Priscilla Rosenwald, Penn LPS (November 6, 2017) What is it about boards that make them so challenging? Is it the frustrating conflict and controversy or the lack of big picture thinking? When there is a lack of experience and expertise on a non-profit board, the range of ideas and information is limited. Large nonprofits, like… Read more »
What Are Nonprofit Boards Concerned About in 2016?
Nonprofit Quarterly (March 11, 2016) On February 4, 2016, NPQ asked our readers to participate in a small “pulse” survey to surface some areas where BoardSource should ask questions in Leading with Intent, its big biennial survey. That is, we wanted to help BoardSource, our frequent collaborator, to tailor its questions to the current concerns… Read more »
What Nonprofits Can Learn From #OscarsSoWhite
Monisha Kapila, The Chronicle of Philanthropy (Feb. 25, 2016) As movie fans around the globe get ready to watch the Academy Awards this weekend, everyone in the nonprofit world should be paying attention to the #OscarsSoWhite campaign. The backlash against the all-white slate of nominees in the four acting categories exemplifies the lack of diversity… Read more »