Boards That Make a Difference: A New Design for Leadership in Nonprofit and Public Organizations [Hardcover]

As a first time board member at our church (and now board president), I'm relying heavily on a few books on the subject of non-profit and church governance. I wish I had read this one first. It shows with painful clarity how we're doing everything wrong, and that doing things right would be both a tremendous gift to our community and a fairly reasonable achievement to pull off in a few years. Some tweaks are needed to make this model work for a church, but those tweaks aren't a big deal and are described elsewhere (Hotchkiss is good). This is written so those brand new to governance work can go out and implement the model.

If you want to spark some healthy conflict in your next conversation with nonprofit CEOs or senior pastors, throw this verbal grenade into the discussion: "Hey! What do you all think about policy governance?"

According to Policy Governance Guru John Carver, "Governing by policy means governing out of policy in the sense that no board activity takes place without reference to policies. Most resolutions in board meetings will be motions to amend the policy structure in some way. Consequently, policy development is not an occasional board chore but its chief occupation."

I mention this because I consult frequently with nonprofit boards--and conduct governance webinars and workshops in North America and overseas. And even though the majority of boards I work with say they function as "policy governance" boards, I don't believe them--because their micro-managing practices are so blatant.

For example, consider John Carver's insight on what he calls the flaws of "The Approval Syndrome." They include: reactivity, sheer volume of material, mental misdirection, letting staff off the hook, unfairly putting staff on the hook, short-term bias, lack of clarity in the board's contribution, and fragmentation ("a sequence of disconnected and unmanageably voluminous vertical slices of the whole...instead of a holistic, manageable fabric of horizontally connected policies").

He adds, "We all profess that boards should deal with the big picture, but it is difficult to picture the forest by inspecting one tree at a time."

One of my favorite Carver counter-intuitive commentaries describes what happens when a board delivers a "vote of confidence" for the CEO during a crisis situation.

In this excellent policy governance bible, he writes, "Curiously, there are times when the board goes through the approval process not intending to withhold authority from the CEO but to confirm it. A board might declare its supports for the CEO by cloaking some controversial executive decision with the prestige of the boardroom. Board motivation is usually expressed thus: `We want the staff (or others) to know the board is really behind the CEO on this.' As long as the board and CEO understand that the decision is truly the CEO's, this approval not only seems harmless but appears to be a healthy show of solidarity."

Then Carver adds this zinger. "However, such a gesture of board support is called for only if the board has been sending weak signals about the nature of delegation. This kind of support is rarely warranted if the board has made it clear to all that all CEO decisions that are within board-stated bounds are always supported by the board. Official support of a specific action implies that such sporadic backup is necessary, or conversely, that the general philosophy of delegation is weak."

Carver notes--in his massive 340-page hardback, with another 80 pages of resources and references--that "Board approvals are an unnecessary and dysfunctional method of board control, then, regardless of the ubiquity of the practice." He goes on--in succeeding chapters--to build the case for "a more proactive, fair, and detrivializing approach to fulfilling the board's moral and legal obligation to control the organization."

If no one on the senior team or board of your nonprofit organization or church is familiar with Carver's brand of policy governance (he invented the term), this is the starting point. Whether you agree or disagree that this board approach is right for your organization, it's important to understand the continuum of choices available--and to seek consensus on defining your current reality and where your preferred governance future lies. Interestingly, the book includes an excellent "ends" policy (a big Carver term) from Lancaster County Bible Church.

Note: If 340 pages are a tad too much for you, Carver has a series of booklets, focusing on niche policy governance issues. Another option is to check out the "lean and mean" approach, favored by many including myself, of a 10- to 15-page Board Policies Manual, as described in the book, Good Governance for Nonprofits: Developing Principles and Policies for an Effective Board, by Frederic L. Laughlin and Robert C. Andringa.

This book is one of those books that has so much valuable material... that if you've checked it out of the library... you are likely to go out and purchase a copy so you'll have it around permanently to refer to.
If you are interested in re-inventing your board, want to focus on vision and get away from administrivia.. this book offers the direction on how to do it. Carver is the major player is making boards effective contributors to organizations, of defining what governance is and how to get there.

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