How to Build a Nonprofit Board of Directors

What it is

This is not a criticism and it is not unusual. You needed three names quickly, and the people who agreed did so out of goodwill. The difficulty arrives later, and by then the board cannot easily become something else.

The book is about constructing a board deliberately. What a board is for, and what yours currently does. The founding board and the point at which it should change. Recruiting for the expertise you lack rather than the company you enjoy. The relationship with the chair, which determines how difficult everything else becomes. Meetings that reach decisions. Committees that do work.

Then the three fiduciary duties every director accepts and few have had explained. Executive session. Evaluating the executive director, which is the board’s central obligation and the one small organizations most often omit. Board giving, conflict, and the removal of a director. And succession, begun early rather than at the point of departure.