Governance that Reflects our Values
As anyone who has worked in the nonprofit sector can likely attest, even the most well-intentioned boards can be a lot of work at best, and destructive to our organizations at worst. If this is a common issue, why are so many of us using the same default board structure rather than experimenting and re-imagining what’s possible? [Check out this post for great insights on the problem and exploring alternatives from sector thought leader (and esteemed board member!) Vu Le on his blog Nonprofit AF.]
When we reviewed our own board structure at Progress Alliance, some of the biggest challenges included a lack of clarity on roles and decision-making power, and lofty one-size-fits-all expectations where every board member is expected to be an expert and contributor to fundraising, financial oversight, program strategy, public relations and legal compliance, while holding the executive director and themselves accountable to meeting all of these needs of the organization. This antiquated structure made it difficult for both staff and board members to feel like we were delivering our best.
More than 15 years after our founding Progress Alliance has begun overhauling our board structure, asking ourselves – what is the right governing structure to best fulfill our mission and vision, and live up to our organizational values? In 2022, we worked with a board development consultant to answer this important question. We determined what changes we want to make to our governing structure and will be working to implement these changes over the next 2-3 years.
1. Clarified roles, responsibilities, and decision-making power among staff, board, and other stakeholders that best meet our needs for governance and hold our organization accountable to communities of color and movements for justice.
In summary, this looks like:
Staff: Power to make decisions about the means of how work is accomplished – the development of strategies, programs, and workplans that achieve our long-term vision. This includes grantmaking, budgeting, fundraising, HR, and organizational development planning that fits within legal requirements and in service to our mission and vision.
Board: Power to hold staff – particularly the executive director – accountable to our vision of success. This means evaluating – with input from our funded partners – whether our work is adding up to our intended impact, and working with staff to course correct when it is not. The board also commits to organizing themselves, driving their own work plan and engagement, and serving as general ambassadors and supporters of PA’s work, including contributing meaningfully to our organization’s vision with the skills, insights, and capacities they bring.
Other stakeholders:
Grantees and partners: PA intends to set up a new BIPOC-led advisory structure – the Political Leadership Table – that includes grantees and other movement leaders to advise on short-term decisions and development of long-term strategies, and hold PA accountable to the goals we set in partnership. This is a formalized version of how staff has long approached our strategy development – by turning to our partners for information and insights before making decisions. While this body won’t have formal decision-making power, our intention is to have overlap of at least two members between this group and the board so this group is represented in a formal decision-making body, and to engage this group heavily in our organizational evaluation process that the board uses to hold staff accountable to our mission and vision.
Donors: PA will also re-establish a fundraising and membership engagement committee to support members in peer to peer fundraising and organizing.
This structure gives staff more freedom and flexibility to make decisions about how we fulfill our mission, while providing more pathways for movement leaders to weigh in on strategy and hold our organization accountable. The board has been removed from blanket fundraising expectations and more granular programmatic and operating decisions, and situated at a 30,000 foot view – providing enough oversight to ensure we’re operating in line with our mission and vision and making sound financial decisions. This structure puts staff and movement partners – those closest to the work – in the driver’s seat of how things get done, while the board fulfills legal responsibilities for oversight and accountability. We see this as both more functional and more equitable.
2. Recruiting a board that reflects the multiracial, cross-class, geographically diverse movement we aim to build.
Our internal recruitment metrics include:
At least 40% of the board is comprised of movement leaders who are actively working in progressive political and social justice spaces
Over 50% of the board identifies as Black, Indigenous, or Person of Color
No more than 50% of the board is considered a high net worth donor
At least two board members who live outside of King County
At least two board members who also serve on the Political Leadership Table advisory board
This is a big departure from our original board make-up – for about the first decade after our founding our board was predominantly high net worth donors, many of whom had played a role in founding the organization. We’re so grateful for the leadership of these founding members in conducting the research and setting the strategy for our organization to exist, and for the leadership of every board member who has followed in helping to grow the organization to where it stands today.
In 2016, we started to recruit movement leaders who didn’t come to the organization as donors first. As the board holds power in the organization, we need to ensure that we’re including a variety of stakeholders that represent the communities we aim to serve. We have decided not to include grantees on the board to avoid perceived and actual conflicts of interest, but will be creating more formal levers for accountability and strategic guidance from this group, including a primary role in evaluating the organization’s work and weighing in on both short-term decisions and long-term strategy development through the Political Leadership Table.
3. Creating an intentional board culture, norms, and practices that align with our values, ensuring how we approach the work is just as important as the work itself.
Given the need for continuous exploration of dynamics around wealth and power as a donor alliance, and PA’s board having both donors and movement leaders share space, the PA Board developed a set of group agreements in 2016 to ensure meetings were grounded in values and relationships, promoted shared learning and understanding, and made space for transparent acknowledgement of power dynamics and hard conversations. These agreements were revised as part of our board development process to continue our pursuit of anti-racist and anti-oppressive modes of working, including identifying actionable approaches for how these agreements show up in practice. These norms and practices will be revisited annually as the board evolves to ensure they continue to meet the needs of the group and ground our approach and culture in racial justice.
4. Flexible expectations that value the different skills and perspectives each board member brings to the organization, and allows board members to contribute meaningfully within their capacity.
In practice, this means right-sizing expectations and finding the right roles for board members. Some individuals may bring the privilege of flexible schedules and can dedicate more time to board tasks, some individuals may bring value in their relationships and networking skills that bolsters PA’s reputation and visibility, and some individuals may bring lived experiences and insights on specific issues, communities, or strategies that are helpful to PA’s work. Part of the board’s work together is to be explicit about what each member is bringing to the organization, what support each member needs from their fellow board members and the organization to succeed in bringing their contributions, and what that means for the collective on how to allocate work amongst the full board. This will ensure that board members are being held accountable to what they’ve committed to rather than an inflexible, one-size-fits-all set of guidelines, and support both individual members and the board as a whole in succeeding. This also includes strong on-boarding practices with attention to mentorship, training and support needs, particularly for first time board members.
As we work to implement this new structure that gives more freedom to staff, more accountability pathways from our movement, and spreads power across the organization, we’re committed to learning and addressing mistakes with good faith and open hearts. Examining our structures is one of the steps in this process, and we’re excited to see what’s possible with our new approach to governance.
