Strategy and governanceAlign the boardand the plan.
The best organizations are aligned: a well-functioning board with clear governance rules, following a measurable strategic plan.
What aligned looks like
Strategy and governance
The mission is clear. The vision, what success looks like, is clear. The values are stated, and they are demonstrated.
The board is built to carry the mission forward, whether it is mainly a fundraising board, a steering board or a representative one.
The people the organization serves come first, and they always have a voice.
Outcomes and evaluation
The programs are measured. Outcomes and impact line up with the mission, vision and values, and they are measured and reported over time. The funders are informed.
Risk, compliance, and privacy
Directors are protected by D&O insurance. Risk is assessed regularly and independently. Possible breaches of confidentiality are researched and reported, and staff are trained in cybersecurity, phishing included.
Finance and accounting
The balance sheet is sized to the organization, its mission and its need for a rainy day. The financial structure produces clear, accurate FASB/GASB reporting.
Technology and AI
The data's provenance is transparent, the numbers always agree, and every variable is described in full. Accredited organizations have a head start here, because the accrediting body vouches for their practices.
Three moments, one problem underneath
The plan went quiet.
It is in a binder or a shared drive. The retreat went well, the board adopted it, and everyone meant it. By month six nobody has opened it, because a funding cliff and a licensing review had dates and the plan did not.
The board outgrew its structure.
Usually turnover, but sometimes a crisis. Bylaws amended three times by three different Chairs and never reconciled. A committee structure that made sense at half this size. An executive director who has never had a real evaluation because nobody was sure whose job that was.
The next plan is due.
The current plan runs out soon, or there is a new executive director, or someone has raised the idea of joining forces with a similar organization. The board wants more than a document this time. It wants to think clearly about the organization's future before anyone writes a goal down.
When the board is not built to hold the plan, with no committee that owns it, no evaluation that ties the executive director to it, and no meeting where progress is the standing item, the plan goes quiet no matter how good it was. When the board has no plan worth holding, it drifts, stalls, and fails.
A goal of “Community partnerships” is not objectively measurable. A board cannot govern against it, staff cannot be held to it, and a funder cannot be shown it. This is how strategic plans die.
Boards stay strategic.
That is the board's job.
The board
- Hires, develops and evaluates the executive director.
- Approves a strategic plan and a budget to achieve it.
- Sets policy.
- 3 yearsThe strategic plan
Management
- Does everything else, tactically.
- 1 yearThe tactical plan
- Every goalSMART, with a named person responsible and a named backup
- Every roleOne shared scorecard, board and management alike: the KPIs each role owns
A clear, measurable strategic plan is the main instrument the board has for staying strategic without getting involved in management tasks.
Board development sessions
Three examples. Planning happens off-site, on purpose, so everyone gets out of their normal modes.
It's 2030.
“It's 2030, and we are just finishing the year. What does the organization look like?”
From that picture the board works backward to greatness: goals, milestones and measurable objectives.
The index card test.
Every director gets a card and, without conferring, writes two sentences: what is this organization trying to change, and how would we know if it worked?
Collect the cards and count the genuinely different answers. One or two means the board can govern toward something. Eight on an eleven-person board means every vote that year was decided on a different theory of what the organization is for. The spirited discussion that follows is what aligns the directors.
Staff at the table.
The executive director brings senior staff to the board to present and discuss a real issue.
It develops them, gives the board and the staff exposure to each other, and calms nerves.
A board that works as one.
Discussion is spirited, and nothing said in the room leaves it. Once the vote is taken, every director supports the result.
Directors spend time together outside meetings, on purpose: dinner after the annual plan is adopted, a holiday dinner. People who know each other disagree better.
Innovation is celebrated and explored. Cautious innovation; bold, measured steps.
Directors keep developing, through training, workshops and conferences, and management attends too, so the relationships between board and staff are built before they are needed.
The bench, and the voices at the table.
Non-voting assistant directors build the bench for future seats.
Partners and stakeholders join the board on purpose, for their perspective, with or without a vote.
Every decision faces one question before any other.
Is this good for the people we serve?
Someone to keep the scoreboard.
A plan needs someone outside the daily operation who shows up every quarter with the same questions and a report the board can read in four minutes.
Other practice areas
Outcomes and evaluation
Prove what changed
One measurement system, organized around what your funders need to see.
Risk, compliance, and privacy
Protect what you hold
The annual risk assessment, chaired and finished. The remediation list, owned.
Finance and accounting
Make the numbers work
Board packets that answer questions. Reporting your board can act on.
Technology and AI
Put technology to work
Systems, data and AI where they pay for themselves, and custom software when nothing on the market fits.
The conversation costs nothing.
Thirty minutes. Bring whatever is hardest right now.