While looking for nonprofit news stories today I ran accross the Neighbor Brigade in the Christian Science Monitor. The Monitor regularly publishes a section called "change agent" where it highlights an individual who is doing good stuff and Pam Washek, founder of Neighbor Brigade, was the pick of the week.
Neighbor Brigade, in my opinion, is a kind-of block watch which organizes individuals in a given neighborhood but instead of looking out for signs of crime, looks out for neighbors in immediate and temporary need or crises and responds e.g. someone gets cancer and needs the lawn cut or meals made until they can get back on their feet.
What fascinated me most about this story was the work Ms. Washek has and continues to do to continue to grow her movement, particularly around seeking leaders. This made me wonder about Neighbor Brigade's governance. And while thinking about this I mosied over to Neighbor Brigade's website and then to Guidestar. Guidestar had very little information because there's not much been filed. And, the website speaks nothing about the board -- or nothing I could find.
"So what" you ask -- seems like good work is going on and that's all that matters. Perhaps, but is this true? Is all that matters about a nonprofit that good work is going on? Are there not plenty of lessons about nonprofits that are founder driven and pretty much all we know (and all we need to know) is that the person at the helm is doing good?
My thoughts for the day.