On July 11, 2023, Fiscal Sponsor Conversations (“the weekly form for fiscal sponsors”) focused its discussion on governance for fiscal sponsors. What role does your Board of Directors play in your organization’s fiscal sponsorship work? How is it working? What could be improved? As with most things in fiscal sponsorship, there isn’t one single “right” […]
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Ex Officio Director – What? Why? How?
Many nonprofits use the term “ex officio director” (or “ex officio board member”) without a clear understanding of what the term means and how to properly incorporate one or more ex officio directors in their governance structures. Definitions The term director refers to an individual serving as a voting member of the board of directors […]
Duties of the Secretary of a Nonprofit Corporation
The secretary of a nonprofit organization plays a critical role in fostering communication and ensuring proper management and utilization of important organizational records. Generally, an organization’s bylaws will set the duties of the secretary, however, duties may change from time to time as may be assigned by the board. A secretary will be most useful […]
Yale Alumni Nonprofit Alliance – Ask a Nonprofit Lawyer Part II: Governance & Bylaws
Ask a Nonprofit Lawyer Part II: Governance & Bylaws May 10th, 6-7:30pm RSVP Here Are you a nonprofit board member who wants to better understand what your fiduciary duties are? Are you confused about what a nonprofit board’s roles and responsibilities should be versus those of management? Or are you forming a new nonprofit […]
Where Nonprofit Boards Fall Short
A few months ago, Harvard Business Review published a great piece by Dominic Barton and Mark Wiseman titled Where Boards Fall Short. In the piece, the authors examined the ways in which boards of directors are failing their organizations and discussed areas in which we should begin to make changes regarding how we approach board […]
Nonprofit Boards and Change: Center for Excellence in Nonprofits Program
One June 15, I attended Champions for Change: How to Orchestrate Strategic Level Transformations presented by Susan Meier of BoardSource for the Center for Excellence in Nonprofits. Susan began by providing us with three examples of for-profit corporations that either successfully transformed or failed to transform, setting the stage for an examination of nonprofit governance […]
Tweets of the Week – 4/9/10
Here are some of my favorite posts of the week: GTak: The number of charities and private foundations increased by 4.3 percent from 2008 to 2009 (total of > 1.2 million) – Chron of Phil 3/25 GTak: Foundations not embracing PRI: Median amount for program-related investments fell from $898,000 in 2008 to $479,000 in 2009 […]
The 100-Member Board of Directors – Part One
While there seems to be wide agreement that there should be no laws that limit the maximum number of directors on the board of a nonprofit corporation, we all know that there is some number beyond which effective and responsible governance is impractical. That number may vary depending on the particular nonprofit and its directors. […]
10 New Year’s Resolutions for Your Board
The close of one year and start of a new year is a great time for reflection and resolution. Here is a list of 10 resolutions for your nonprofit board of directors to consider: We will review the stated purpose statements in our articles of incorporation and bylaws to make sure they are consistent with […]
Quotes From Seinfeld and Nonprofit Governance
“Was that wrong? Should I not have done that? I’m sorry, I’m gonna have to plead ignorance on this one, because if I had known that sort of thing was frowned upon …” – George (after having sex with the cleaning woman on his desk at work). Negligence is no defense for shoddy governance. Be educated […]
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