While speaking at a conference of Northern Ireland’s nonprofit chief executives last month, I noted that a small but growing number of people are questioning whether the current model of nonprofit governance—a volunteer board drawn from the community (however broadly defined), working in partnership with the chief executive—is so broken that it needs to be scrapped in favor of something better.

I should have known that someone in the audience would then ask a perfectly logical follow-up question: If we got rid of the current model, what would take its place?

Caught off-guard, I sputtered.

I eventually mentioned the author and consultant John Carver’s Policy Governance Model, which has been around for more than 20 years and is more a refinement and clarification of the current model than an alternative to it. Policy Governance encourages boards to focus on organizational…

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Last month’s abrupt closure of Hull House, a venerable organization that provided an array of social services to thousands of low-income Chicago residents, is a pointed reminder that many nonprofits operate with precarious finances. The organization’s collapse also provides a sobering lesson for nonprofit boards and chief executives.

Hull House was started by Nobel laureate Jane Addams in 1889 to help Chicago’s immigrants build “responsible, self-sufficient lives.” Until last month, Hull House had continued Addams’s legacy by offering foster-care services, job training, counseling, and literacy and other education programs at more than 40 sites throughout Chicago.

On January 27, its 300 employees received layoff notices and final paychecks, and Hull House shut its doors.

On the day the organization closed, a blogger for Crain’s Chicago Business asked a question she said she’d be…

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Recently I presented the findings of Daring to Lead 2011, a national study of nonprofit executives that I co-authored, to more than 150 executive directors and board chairs.

As I prepared that presentation, I found myself wishing we had done more analysis of executives’ responses about their relationship with their board chairs and examined more closely how those responses correlated with executives’ happiness in their jobs and satisfaction with the performance of the entire board.

CompassPoint’s Marla Cornelius, one of my co-authors, came to my rescue with some additional analysis, and the correlations are striking.

Among the 3,000 executive directors surveyed, a majority (52 percent) characterized their relationship with their board chair as functional. A large minority (39 percent) described the relationship as exceptional, and just 9 percent called it dysfunctional….

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In my most recent post, I invited readers to weigh in on who is ultimately responsible for the performance of a board: the executive director or the board members themselves.

A majority of those who commented (11 of 19, or about 58 percent) said the executive was ultimately responsible for board performance. But it was hardly a ringing endorsement (even though I agree).

As I re-read the comments, two things stood out.

First, this is a complicated issue. Many comments acknowledged the murkiness and complexity of the question—so much so that in some comments, it was hard to tell which viewpoint the comment supported.

One reader wrote that the executive director had the responsibility for sustaining board performance but that the board must first step up and accept its responsibility to perform. Another noted that boards depend on executive directors to “guide them to…

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Ask people in the nonprofit world who is to blame for poor board performance, and you won’t get agreement. Some people say it’s the board’s fault. Others say it’s the CEO’s.

Rarely do these conflicting ideas get argued in public. But at the annual meeting of BoardSource, I had the opportunity to debate the point in front of an audience. Two-person teams argued opposing points of view on that and other controversial topics. At the conclusion of our comments, the audience voted.

I was teamed with the author and nonprofit management expert Jan Masoaka. We attempted to convince our audience that the executive director is ultimately accountable and responsible for board performance.

Our opponents, Karen Beavor of the Georgia Center for Nonprofits and Dave Sternberg, a fund-raising consultant from Indianapolis, made several compelling points.

Jan and I conceded that boards are…

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Holly Hall, an editor at The Chronicle, is contributing guest posts based on her reporting from the annual meeting of BoardSource, an organization that seeks to help trustees to do their jobs better. The conference took place in Atlanta.

Trustees have many reasons to lobby against cuts in government support to charities and the people they support.

While the altruistic reasons usually get all the attention, one national nonprofit leader is blunt about the direct hit board members themselves will suffer if governments continue to slash spending to deal with deficit woes.

Proposed cuts in government support to charities are “a notice to nonprofit board members” that they must raise or donate more money for the charities they serve, Tim Delaney, head of the National Council of Nonprofits, an advocacy group that represents charities, told the conference here.

“You are in the…

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Holly Hall, an editor at The Chronicle, is contributing guest posts based on her reporting from the annual meeting of BoardSource, an organization that seeks to help trustees to do their jobs better. The conference took place last week in Atlanta.

As charities face money woes and increases in requests for help, some groups have decided to merge with other organizations. But mergers aren’t the only way to reduce overhead and grow more efficient, said Jean Butzen, an Evanston, Ill., consultant.

Ms. Butzen, who has worked with many groups on what she called “strategic restructuring,” said that charities must carefully evaluate alliances because the risks are high—but so are the potential returns.

She outlined four types of collaboration that are helping charities across the country deliver services more efficiently, often at lower cost:

Joint-venture partnerships. Two or…

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Holly Hall, an editor at The Chronicle, is contributing guest posts based on her reporting from the annual meeting of BoardSource, an organization that seeks to help trustees to do their jobs better. The conference took place last week in Atlanta.

Why do we need you?

That’s what anybody recruiting a board member should address before making a pitch. But nearly nobody does.

Most people neglect to say which skills matter and instead assure potential board members that the job won’t be much work. What they should say, says Susan Decker, a senior consultant at BoardSource, is exactly what talents and connections the charity wants to tap in a potential board member.

Ms. Decker offered that tip as part of a two-day course in Atlanta for trustees and staff leaders that covered nonprofit boards’ responsibilities and how to train new trustees.

While the course was not inexpensive…

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In two recent posts, I asked if foundations should be doing more to strengthen boards and whether we expect too much from boards. More than 50 readers provided thoughtful comments, with a range of perspectives, that are well worth reading.

Much to my surprise, most readers who commented thought foundations should indeed do more to strengthen boards. A third suggested more grants to support board development. A handful requested more foundation-sponsored training for boards, and one practical soul suggested that foundation staff members roll up their sleeves and help grantees find board members.

Your comments helped overcome my initial skepticism about whether boards need more intervention from foundations. Most of you think boards need the help. And the comments from my colleagues at other foundations indicate that a growing number of grant makers agree—and are tackling the…

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The more effort nonprofit leaders put into supporting their boards, the happier they are with the board’s performance—but few leaders spend enough hours working with trustees to make a difference.

That insight comes from a report called The Board Paradox, by CompassPoint and the Meyer Foundation, where I work. It’s the last in a series of three briefs that report on a national study of more than 3,000 nonprofit executive directors.

The briefs present survey results that were not included in the recent Daring to Lead 2011 report, which was released last month. (I am a co-author of the main report and the sole author of the brief on executives and boards.)

The online survey for Daring to Lead asked executives a series of questions about their boards. We asked about their relationships with their board chairs, how much time they spent working with and supporting their boards, …

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