The New York Times offered a kind-of obituary today on the Boys Choir of Harlem. Within the obit were some lessons about nonprofit founders, succession planning and nonprofit governance. Of course, these items are all intertwined.
According to the article, the Choir technically informally ceased operations in 2007. The Choir had 9 years of performances -- all acclaimed and life-changing for both the performers and the audiences. But despite what it could do exceedingly well programmatically, it was not able to perform quite as well administratively or at the governance level. It would require a lot of interviews to understand the turn of events that resulted in a choir that could no longer stay in its founding building or pay its payroll taxes never mind address legal, essentially personnel, issues. Alumni have been successful in organizing a performance of former choir members this month. But that performance was also used to officially announce the death of the choir.
There's reason to believe that there's a market willing to support a Boys Choir of Harlem. So why did it have to end? Was the failure to thrive all about an exec who was charismatic and inspirational but not a strong administrator? Or does the choir's demise rest more squarely on the shoulders of the board of directors which did not provide the best oversight or apparently failed to plan?
We would all benefit from a student project that would include interviews with each board member to better understand the experience of the Boys Choir of Harlem. Such a project would obviously not replace the Choir but it could serve to provide us with insights about how and why a nonprofit board's path leads to similar endings.