Cultivating a Liberatory Board

Nonprofit boards often uphold outdated power structures, prioritizing elite control over true community accountability. In Reimagining Nonprofit Boards, a three-part series based on the NPQ webinar, “A New Framework for Boards,” Ananda Valenzuela challenges traditional governance models and offers a new vision for boards that empower rather than constrain. By shifting from power-hoarding to power-sharing, nonprofits can create governance structures that truly align with their mission.

If history has taught us anything, it’s that little has changed in the governance structures of the charitable sector since its creation. Boards are unequal, inequitable models of governance, in which the wealthiest often impose their interests onto the nonprofits they oversee. In turn, this shifts nonprofits’ focus away from addressing underlying systemic problems like poverty and racism to superficial solutions that are more palatable to the rich.

We can ask ourselves: What board structure best serves our nonprofit’s mission?

There is a real need for high-level policy changes that weave a stronger government social safety net, so that we stop outsourcing community care to the whims of the wealthy. In the meantime, though, we can make changes at the organizational level. There are alternative pathways we can walk, where boards partner with staff to be healthy and impactful.

Rethinking the Container

Zen priest, author, and movement strategist Norma Wong Roshi reminds us to “be mindful to not be led by your container. Instead, lead towards purpose.” It’s easy to focus on the structure of your organization—its “container”—and make decisions in rigid alignment with that structure instead of considering what structure best serves your nonprofit’s mission and desired impact. In the case of the board, rather than assuming that its current structure is the “right way” to govern, we can ask ourselves: What board structure best serves our nonprofit’s mission?

This [collective governance] framing inherently challenges the top-down “board knows best” assumption.

An organizational structure is not inherently good or bad, equitable or inequitable. The exact same structure can be twisted into something harmful or be incredibly effective. What makes the difference between the two is the people: their values and the culture they build together. We can look to nature for inspiration; complex ecosystems operate without a single entity at the “top,” telling everyone else what to do. Instead, different species work in complex interdependence to find balance. What does it look like to imagine governance ecosystems operating in the same way? The Indigenous Governance Toolkit, developed by the Australian Indigenous Governance Institute, offers a healthier definition of governance as:

How people choose to collectively organize themselves to manage their own affairs, share power and responsibilities, decide for themselves what kind of society [organization] they want for their future, and implement those decisions. To do that they need to have processes, structures, traditions and rules.

This framework invites us to center self-organization, where those most impacted are at the table, deciding their own futures. This framing inherently challenges the top-down “board knows best” assumption that we’ve inherited from the past. We have so many arbitrary rules that limit our imagination of what’s possible when it comes to nonprofit governance.

Take, for example, Robert’s Rules of Order, generally considered the “gold standard” for how boards are supposed to work together. Written in 1876 and based on how the US Congress operates, Robert’s Rules is difficult to understand and very formal. It is a domain of knowledge long held solely by highly educated White men and made purposefully inaccessible to communities lacking those identities. Yet the rules have become standard practice for many boards, without any examination of whether they actually facilitate clear, equitable, productive decision-making.

Another arbitrary rule is that the board alone must hire the executive director despite being a group of volunteers with limited understanding of their nonprofit’s inner workings, and whose views of the organization are largely, if not entirely, informed by the prior executive director.

When an organization is in crisis and in need of new executive leadership—after the staff, for example, oust an executive director—the usual response is for the board to go off on its own and find a new leader, with limited dialogue with staff about what skills are necessary and what leadership style works best with the team. Unsurprisingly, the new hire is often a poor match with the team, entering into a new organization blithely unaware of its true state—this is especially painful to witness when it’s a BIPOC leader who has finally been offered a well-deserved opportunity to be an executive leader. The new executive is set up for failure, and the crisis starts all over again.

Despite the ample evidence we have of how harmful this approach is, it’s still uncommon for staff to serve on executive director search committees with equal decision-making power as the board. Antiquated beliefs about the importance of a strict divide between board and staff, where the information going to the board is carefully controlled by the executive director, creates classic systemic issues since the board makes important decisions based on incredibly limited, imperfect information.

The point here is to let go of the traditions that no longer serve you, from simple changes like ditching Robert’s Rules to more complex analyses of how and when the board should, in fact, be the decision-maker. Is the board most impacted by the decision? Does the board have ample information that ensures they can make the decision well? Is the board’s involvement in a particular decision simply contributing to excessive bureaucratic red tape or does it truly add value?

These questions are invitations to engage in the duties of care, loyalty, and obedience in the simplest and most generative way possible. If you are part of a board, you can actively build a culture that works for your board members and the organization you are serving.

Shifting Mindsets

The mindsets or paradigms we use to look at the world fundamentally change what’s possible. If we want to change complex systems, changing mindsets is one of the most powerful leverage points available to us, far more effective than changing the rules or who wears what hat. In the words of Donella Meadows, author of Thinking in Systems,

​​Whether it was Copernicus and Kepler showing that the earth is not the center of the universe, or Einstein hypothesizing that matter and energy are interchangeable, or Adam Smith postulating that the selfish actions of individual players in markets wonderfully accumulate to the common good, people who have managed to intervene in systems at the level of paradigm have hit a leverage point that totally transforms systems.

So, changing your board’s mindsets can make all the difference. In order for boards to walk a different path, they need to engage in three fundamental paradigm shifts:

Consider inviting your board to discuss these mindsets. Reflect on the past six months: Where are these different mindsets showing up in your work? What, specifically, would change if your board committed to these three mindset shifts? By shifting these paradigms, board members can bring a more liberatory and engaged stance to their board service.

In the first article of our series, we laid out the history of boards, in order to understand why we unconsciously assume that the current board structure must be the only correct way to govern. In this article, we invited in a different lens through which to look at governance, centering purpose instead of structure, and learned about three mindset shifts that can transform the way your board operates.

If this all feels too philosophical, rest assured. The third—and final—article of this Reimagining Nonprofit Boards series will get concrete, offering a clear process for nonprofit leaders and workers to follow to change your board, with specific examples of boards that are walking a different path.