During the overwhelming and frightening days of April 2020 — exactly a month after the World Health Organization formally declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic — I was asked by one of Cause Strategy Partners‘ Advisory Board Members if I thought interest in nonprofit board service was likely to decrease because of the risk of nonprofits going under.
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.”
Show Up: Your Role as a Board Member During a Pandemic
After a week of rapidly changing responses to COVID-19 across the country, nonprofits are feeling the effects and having to make quick decisions on how to manage their organizations in light of social distancing.
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 […]
BoardLeaders Talk Tips for High-Impact Nonprofit Board Service
By Erin Connell, Consultant at Cause Strategy Partners, LLC Our BoardLeaders have proven their capabilities and drive in sheer numbers, with 56 BoardLeaders serving as high-impact nonprofit board members on 120 boards in New York and Chicago. As we prepare to launch our next round of BoardLead in both cities, our team wondered: what qualitative impact and growth have our […]
BoardLead 2016: Look How Far We’ve Come in Just Two Years
By Alexandra Hallock, Consultant at Cause Strategy Partners, LLC Cause Strategy Partners, LLC is approaching its two-year anniversary this February 2017. As we reflect on 2016 and look to 2017, we have a lot to celebrate! Join us as we review this year’s highlights and read on to see what’s coming. We designed, built, and launched our signature BoardLead Program in […]
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 […]
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.