A Governance Deep Dive

We’re holding a governance event later this month, which got us thinking about best practices. According to the authors of a Harvard Business Review article titled “The New Work of the Nonprofit Board,” “Effective governance by most nonprofit boards is rare and unnatural. Seldom do they … harness the collective efforts of accomplished individuals to advance the institution’s mission and long-term welfare.”

Below are some articles we’ve published in the past few years to help your organization become one of the rare and unnatural nonprofits employing effective governance.

Recruit the Right Board

In this article, author Megan Toal has a conversation with two experts in nonprofit governance: Will Brown, PhD, director of the Center for Nonprofits and Philanthropy at Texas A&M’s Bush School of Government and Public Service; and Mark Engle, DM, FASAE, CAE, principal and board governance consultant at Association Management Center. They created a resource by the same name of this article and break down the basics in their conversation with Toal. Read the article now –>

Organizational Agility is Born Out of Good Governance

Association Forum’s former CEO, Michelle Mason, FASAE, CAE, wrote this piece at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. She offers three concrete tips for utilizing technology to streamline governance practices. Finally, she urges leaders to adopt a growth mindset in order to stay agile and relevant in today’s world. Read the article now –>

20/20 Board Health Checkup

In the March 2020 issue of FORUM Magazine, the Association Management Center provided a checklist to help organizations navigate governance reform. This incredible resource is still relevant today. Click here to view and download this checklist.

A Problem-Based Approach to Governance

Reaching further back into the archives, this article from January 2019 provides a field-validated, data-driven, process for associations to identify problems with their current governance structure and also to develop their own solutions to those problems. Authors Michael E. Gallery, PhD, FASAE, and Colin C. Rorrie, Jr., PhD, FASAE dig into governance structure, evaluation, key pitfalls to avoid, and more. Read the article now –>