Crain’s Chicago Business looks at efforts by the city’s major nonprofit and cultural groups to bring more minority and female members onto boards still dominated by Caucasian men.

Nonprofit leaders and consultants say such efforts are hampered by the tendency of such boards to look to corporate boardrooms and to people who “look like themselves” to replenish their ranks, but some organizations are using alternative tools, such as auxiliary boards and databases of minority and women professionals, to improve recruitment.