The violence against and dehumanization of Black lives in our society is an ongoing evil that must be stopped. The recent killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery — along with countless others — underscores the terrible effects of both interpersonal and systemic racism that exists in our society. Black lives matter.
CauseKit Blog
Never Waste a Good Crisis: Step Up!
One of Cause Strategy Partners‘ Advisory Board Members asked a great question: “Is there a possibility that interest in board service generally will decrease because of the risk of nonprofits going under?” She added, “I’m getting a lot of questions about the state of the sector and most folks are very pessimistic about any but the largest nonprofits making it through this time.”
The Four Markers of a Healthy Board
A few weeks ago, I shared the Five Symptoms of an Unhealthy Board that I’ve observed over the course of my career working with nonprofit boards. As a reminder: The Silent Start: Board members sit in awkward silence as they wait for the Board Chair to call the meeting to order. They don’t seem to know (or even like) each another. […]
Seizing the Moment
BoardLead, the signature program of Cause Strategy Partners, was recently featured in the NY Daily News! The op-ed piece, written by leaders at the New York Community Trust, calls on both philanthropy and the arts community to seize the ‘Black Panther’ moment by doubling down on our collective commitment to greater diversity, equity, and inclusion in the arts. We couldn’t […]
5 Symptoms of an Unhealthy Board
By Robert Acton, Principal & Founder at Cause Strategy Partners, LLC I had the distinct honor last Fall of presenting to a roomful of 250 nonprofit CEOs and board members at the BoardSource Leadership Forum in Seattle. In the middle of my talk, I asked participants to exercise their creative muscles by turning to a neighbor and responding to the following discussion […]
Mind if we pat ourselves on the back a little?
We are so proud to announce that Cause Strategy Partners, LLC was just re-certified as a Certified Benefit Corp. We are proud to be a purpose-driven enterprise that believes in harnessing the power of business for social good. As a Certified B-Corp, we are part of a global community of more than 2,000 companies across 60 industries that […]
5 Archetypes of Great Board Members
By Robert B. Acton, Principal & Founder at Cause Strategy Partners, LLC What makes a great nonprofit board member? We spend a lot of time mulling over this question at Cause Strategy Partners – a consulting social enterprise that recruits, places, trains, and supports board members from top companies for the Boards of Directors of nonprofits in NYC, Chicago, and […]
Be the Leader They Need You To Be: The 5 Leadership Essentials
“The greatness of an organization will be directly proportional to the greatness of its leader.” – Henry Blackaby Leadership — as authors James Kouzes and Barry Posner point out — is the art of mobilizing others “to want to get extraordinary things done” in an organization. Great leadership starts with the personal attributes of the person at the helm and […]
4 Keys to Engaging Millennials in Board Service
I’m always leery to paint an entire people group – for example, Millennials born between 1980 and 2000 – with a broad-brush stroke. I look at my four nieces and nephews, for example, all of whom fall into the Millennial generation, and often see more differences than similarities. Yet it’s clear that generational commonalities have emerged. I’m confident we could […]
NextGen Board Members: An Untapped (But Potent) Resource
Few will have the greatness to bend history itself; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation. – Robert F. Kennedy
According to a 2015 national survey of nonprofit boards conducted byBoardSource, board chairs across the country assign, on average, a C+ to their board’s overall composition. Perhaps more concerning, just 20% of nonprofit chief executives indicate they have the right board members in place to accomplish mission. The majority of chief executives (58%) indicate that it is difficult to find new board members.
The picture seems bleak, doesn’t it? Nonprofits lack the governing boards they need to accomplish mission while, at the same time, nonprofit leaders feel stymied in their effort to recruit talented, fresh, energized new board members.