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Originally published in the May 2012 issue of Board & Administrator, available electronically to current subscribers at publication.


Like many execs, Executive Director Linda Osmundson (St. Petersburg, Fla.,) and her board officers perform a formal orientation of new members each year in the fall prior to their first board meeting in November.

“The orientation covers the standard topics and we schedule a tour for new board members to see our facilities,” Osmundson said.

Then, however, the board holds a follow-up annual training/bonding session in January or early February, Osmundson said. The event is typically held at a board member’s house, with dinner served, and lasts from 5:30 p.m. until 9 p.m., she said. The training/bonding session serves to reinforce for new members the lessons of orientation.

“Topics for training vary,” Osmundson said. The board uses results from an annual board self- assessment to develop topics, she said.

“Topics of interest, or ignorance, usually rise to the top for training,” she said.

“This year, for instance, one board member is reviewing our website and developing a quiz about it because it became obvious our board wasn’t turning to the web for information about us and some had never even seen our site at all,” Osmundson said.

The plan is to do the website quiz in pairs of board members and give them access to the website to increase the “fun” factor, Osmundson said.

A board member has also developed a quiz for the board on the organization’s bylaws, Osmundson said.

The plan for this year is to also include some training on fundraising by the organization’s new development director, along with a speaker on why board diversity matters, Osmundson said.

“At night, after a full meal, we have learned from experience that the training has to be lively and interactive to keep the board’s attention, Osmundson said.

The trainers Osmundson uses vary from year to year, but the organization tries to use board members to do some of the training, as that is how they learn best, she said.

“We also do a little training at each board meeting,” Osmundson said. “This year, the board decided they wanted to be more knowledgeable about our programs, so pairs of board members are interviewing staff about a specific program and then presenting the program to the full board.”

At these sessions, there may be a staff member present to provide back-up information, Osmundson said.

These meetings pay off big for the organization, Osmundson said.

“At our last board meeting, we were passing our budget and our Peacemaker Prevention program had lost half of its grant funding,” Osmundson said. The program could have been cut by the board, she said.

“Because two board members had just visited the Peacemaker staff and came back with an enthusiastic report about the program, the board voted to raise the money from the community to keep the program,” Osmundson said.

Originally published in the April 2012 issue of Board & Administrator, available electronically to current subscribers at publication.

If you do not think there are lessons for your organization and board in the horrible story about Penn State University and Jerry Sandusky, please think again.

David O. Renz, Ph.D., Midwest Center for Nonprofit Leadership and Department of Public Affairs, Bloch School of Management, University of Missouri—Kansas City said what happened to Penn State because of Jerry Sandusky’s affiliation with the football program and the alleged sexual abuse of boys is not especially uncommon in large institutional boards that lack accountability — and is a concern for all types of organizations.

“Law enforcement officials, attorney generals and the IRS are starting to demand that boards in all cases act like true governing boards with the kind of accountability that goes along with being a true governing board,” Renz said.

How the Penn State board operates is problematic, but not all that unusual, Renz said. Large, institutional boards are often set up to generate political support and fundraising dollars, Renz said. “The fact of the matter is that most times things go well and no one senses a problem,” he said. “But even so, the board still has to maintain a certain level of accountability that the Penn State board didn’t.”

Service-oriented nonprofits should heed the warning of the Penn State board and be aware of certain red flags that indicate the board is not accountable or even engaged. “Do you have any systems in place to provide accountability and connect what is going on at the executive leadership level with what the board is paying attention to?” Renz said.

“If the board doesn’t have sensing mechanisms in place to weigh potential problems, the board will inevitably be startled by problems and wonder where they came from,” Renz said. Even if the board is surprised by a problem, they are still accountable, Renz said.

What accountability mechanisms should the board have in place? Renz recommends at least three:

1. Have an audit performed regularly. Have the organization’s financial statements validated and documented by an auditor who provides a management letter. “That management letter is a source of intelligence that should be the subject of some discussion between the board and the executive leadership of the organization,” Renz said.
2. Create a similar assessment tool for the nonfinancial operations of the organization. A dashboard type performance tool is becoming an increasingly popular tool for monitoring organizational performance, Renz said. The content of a dashboard should be determined by the organization’s board after weighing where it believes it should be paying the most attention based on potential issues, Renz said.
3. Have an annual meeting between the board and the organization’s executive leadership. “If the board is not engaged on a regular basis in a substantive meeting where the group actively discusses the organization’s key issues, the board is not assuring itself it is regularly engaging in oversight,” Renz said. Staff participants in this meeting should include positions like the executive leadership, the president of the organization and possibly the chief financial officer, Renz said.

If the organization is facing issues at the level the Penn State board did, this type of meeting will ensure they get to the board level sooner rather than later, Renz said.

The reddest of the red flags an executive should be concerned with is organizational culture and the board. “If the culture says the board doesn’t get involved in anything we are doing or unless the circumstances are extreme, that is a red flag,” Renz said. “It says the board isn’t actively engaged and looking out for the best interests of the organization, or in the case of the Penn State trustees, not prepared to deal with other issues.”

For information, reach Renz at 816.235.2342.

Originally published in the March 2012 issue of Board & Administrator, available electronically to current subscribers at publication.

With the rough economy and fewer resources for critical nonprofit programs, boards have been put in the undesirable position of making life or death decisions about programs of historical importance to the organization.

When making cuts, the board needs to keep the organization’s mission central in its decision-making. Help your board make sound decisions when it comes to mission-centric programs, said Consultant Carol Weisman of BoardBuilders.com, (St. Louis, Mo.).

“If the board believes in the mission, then the board is responsible for the program,” Weisman said. “They have a moral, legal and fiscal responsibility to put their money where their mouth is.”

For instance, a Texas CEO said his organization has a program that is historic to the organization and central to its mission, but is losing thousands of dollars a month. While the organization makes money overall and the loss in the individual program was planned for in the budget, a couple of board members have floated the idea of terminating the program.

That’s likely the wrong approach, said Weisman. If a program is mission critical, the board needs to find the time and money to keep it viable, she said.

Weisman experienced a similar scenario as board chair of a child abuse agency some years ago. “We couldn’t get the boys sexual abuse program funded — this was before all the sexual abuse scandals,” she said.

The problem was nobody wanted to be associated with the program, Weisman said. “No corporation wants to be linked with the sexual abuse of boys,” she said.

The organization’s development director was spending 80 percent of her time trying to fund one program, Weisman said, and the board wasn’t stepping up either.

But two things forced this board to act to save the program, Weisman said. First, during a board meeting, a 10-year-old female client of the organization spoke of her own sexual abuse story at the hands of her uncle and the help the organization provided her. The child then asked the board where the boy’s group for sexual abuse counseling was as she was in an all-girl group.

“She was told there was only one meeting a week for the boys, and then she pointed out that was ridiculous, saying ‘If my uncle would have had a group, he would not have hurt me,’” Weisman said.

After this meeting, three board members stepped up and said they would find the money to fund the program, Weisman said. “If a program is mission-critical, saving it is a major board issue,” she said.

Second, when a program central to the organization’s mission struggles to attract outside funding, the board needs to step up, the consultant said.

The executive needs to understand this point: If the program is mission-critical — like stopping the cycle of child abuse is to a child abuse agency —and if the board buys into the organization’s mission, don’t let them off the hook, Weisman said.

It’s a vital issue for a nonprofit organization and one that separates the nonprofit from the for-profit mindset, Weisman said. “That’s why I brought in the little girl to talk to a board full of for-profit executives,” she said. Because of who they were, they were thinking of the program like businessmen, when it really needed to be a head and heart decision, Weisman said.

Weisman recommends working through these questions with board members:

• Do I fully understand the issue?
• Is this program mission-critical?
• What do we need to do to fund it?

Then, show the board the program in action. If you work with a land reclamation board and the issue is a dying stream, arrange a visit to see the stream, see the dying fish and smell the water. “If the board is making the decision at 10,000 feet and can’t smell or touch the problem, the board is not necessarily making the best decision,” Weisman said.

And if they say “No” to saving the program in the end, the board understands what it is saying “No” to, Weisman said.

For information, www.BoardBuilders.com.