Governance as Leadership:

Reframing the Work of Nonprofit Boards

Richard P. Chait, William P. Ryan, Barbara E. Taylor

Doing Good, Doing Better – I’ve served on nonprofit boards of directors for 20 years. Back in June 2002, I joined the Community Media Workshop board. I was an enthusiastic customer of the Workshop’s communications trainings and networking gatherings. Plus, my friend and former co-worker Mike Roach promised we’d have fun when he recruited me to join him on the board to help guide the organization, which was being run by Thom Clark. Mike was right. We did have fun. Nicole Gothelf was chair then and seeing her in action at my very first board meeting left me thinking, “I’ve got to up my game.” There is an art to chairing a board of volunteers let alone serving on a board of volunteers. I learned much from Nicole, Thom, Mike and so many others over the years. Under Susy Schultz, the Workshop changed its name to Public Narrative. It’s now run by Jhmira Alexander. Robert Charles and I remain staunch supporters, though I rotated off the Board in 2013. (Do I now recommend staying on a nonprofit board for 11 years? No. But did I tell you I was having fun? Yes.) Through my work at a foundation in the early childhood field, I’ve subsequently served at least one term on 12 boards for Educare schools; I’ve either boomeranged or been a long-term member on about eight of these boards overseeing high-performing early childhood centers. I also now serve on the board of the Alliance for Early Success, a 50-state strategy for improving public policies affecting young children and their families. Along the way, “Governance as Leadership” has provided essential guidance and many sound tips to help me navigate what can often be the choppy waters of nonprofit oversight. All of this adds up to countless minutes approved, audits reviewed, balance sheets analyzed, committee reports read, and strategies planned. Does that sound like fun? (For some of us, it is fun; someday I’ll tell you about the independent auditor in California who keeps a collection of his favorite Top 100 audits.) The work involves much more than that, of course, and the rewards are even richer. You see lives changed, improved. You see people learning how to use their voices. You learn to use your own. You work with talented agents of change called Executive Directors. And you become friends with strangers from a variety of walks of life who share the joys and sorrows, the advances and setbacks, of trying to make the world a better place. Serving on boards also reminds me that I need to always – always – up my game.