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Nonprofit boards are weird

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Re: Nonprofit boards are weird

#61

Post by Adrox »

jessriedel wrote: post #58
frivoal wrote: post #57

The notion that non profit boards are self appointed and answerable to nobody doesn't seem universal. In the model I am familiar with (the French one), non profits typically have broad and open membership, and that membership elects the board. In fact, I find it difficult to find non-profit with self appointed boards to be quite as legitimate. While the board doesn't actually own equity as shareholders would in a for…

Who would be the members of a non-profit that fundraises and awards grants for scientific research? Or a non-profit that runs a food bank?

Usually there is a membership fee for 10/100/1000$ a year, for people that want to regularly contribute.

Re: Nonprofit boards are weird

#62

Post by gmoore »

The Carver Method of Board Governance is one of the best I've found. I"ve implemented it successfully and seen great results with actually focusing a non-profit boadrd. The Board's primary responsibility is not fund raising, not organazation managment - but governance.....

https://www.carvergovernance.com/model.htm

Re: Nonprofit boards are weird

#63

Post by bell-cot »

AlbertCory wrote: post #30
bell-cot wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IANAL, but I was once advised on this by a friend who was. In short, the justice system is very biased in favor of non-profits such as food banks. Nobody needs to tell a jury "if you award $$$$$ to the guy who ate the bulging can of bad tuna, that'll mean a whole lot of needy people going hungry". A lawyer deciding to sue the Food Bank (or a Director of the Food Bank, or ...) knows that "Defend the Food Bank, for Fre…

Well, you have a point. I thought of it as "suing me" but maybe "suing the food bank" is the right formulation. I hang out with one of the "gleaners" (the people who pick up the unused food from the supermarket), a former engineer, and he seems to be the business sense of this operation. They've been inspected by the big, successful food banks, so it's not some fly-by-night operation.

Again IANAL...but I'll speculate that the "sue you" risk is very context-dependent. If you're a local Big Shot, and wealthy enough to target individually, and so hands-off that a jury could be convinced that you're "kinda turning a blind eye to problems you shoulda known about and done something..." - maybe there's some risk. If you look more like a well-intentioned little guy, not savvy about legal & big-picture organizational problems, and are week-to-week involved enough to be aware of stuff like inspections or "systematic issues" - then I'd say you're at very little risk, even before the O&D insurance kicks in.

(And in general - if you aren't a savvy big shot, then you want to be fairly involved with any organization that you're a Director of. If only so that you don't look stupid, if things don't go well.)

Re: Nonprofit boards are weird

#64

Post by mcv »

Whether profit or non-profit, I think it's important that the voard represents the stakeholders of the organisation. And for a for-profit company that means not just the shareholders, but also the employees, the customers, and any other societal interests. For a non-profit, that probaboy means the donors, the employees and people representing whatever problem the organisation is addressing.

Random celebrities with no clear stake or responsibility sounds like a bad idea.

Re: Nonprofit boards are weird

#65

Post by mcv »

yardie wrote: post #6

I'm on a few non-profit boards and one of the things I don't see the author mention at all or specifically is the primary directive of the board is the financials. The CEO/Director is in charge of the day to day operations. The board has very little interest in that. A non-profit will have some or most of it's money from donors and those donors want to make sure that donation is being spent effectively. And that is w…

But how does the board know that the money is spent in an effective way? Doesn't that require more knowledge of the way the organisation operates?

Re: Nonprofit boards are weird

#66

Post by jessriedel »

Adrox wrote: post #61
jessriedel wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who would be the members of a non-profit that fundraises and awards grants for scientific research? Or a non-profit that runs a food bank?

Usually there is a membership fee for 10/100/1000$ a year, for people that want to regularly contribute.

But there are lots of organizations that don’t collect fees from a broad membership base like this. Most scientific research funding comes from a small number of large donors. It wouldn’t make sense to give equal voting rights to all donors if their donations are of very different amounts. Are all these French nonprofits allocating votes proportional to donation size?

Re: Nonprofit boards are weird

#67

Post by Fnoord »

Not weird, different. Its the publicly owned companies which are weird IMO. Schizophrenic when it comes to things like responsibility, public interest, egocentric-ism, short term PoV/profit, and so on and so forth.
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