What should a nonprofit board member be asking to be effective? One might argue that, in recognizing their fiduciary duties of care, obedience a loyalty, the questions are clear:
- how are we preventing or avoiding risk (financial, sustainability, programatically)?
- are we pursuing mission (includes revisiting as times change) and how is that going (correct direction strategically and what are our results)? This question also includes answering sustainability and management questions.
- are we making any decisions that benefits "me" versus the organization? Of course this is one part of a bigger question - how are we doing as a board - efficiency and effectiveness.
This bucket of questions can pretty much ensure a board is on a path of effectiveness - asking and getting sound answers to these questions.
The McKinsey folks have an alternate slice on this question. In their December 2017 newsletter, William Meehan and Starkey Jonker propose the following:
Question 1: Are we succumbing to mission creep? To me this appears to be coming at the success question in a sort of negative approach but I believe the author's point is to challenge boards to ensure they are always challenging themselves and additionally working to understand how strategic is the organization.
Question 2: How is our ‘theory of change’ informing our strategy? I a a big proponent of Theory of Change (see my Blog). I truly believe that the Theory of Change is what brings individuals to the board and what is or should be the framework for everything an organization does. Theory of Change informs the mission. I also believe the Theory of Change should be visited during every strategic planning process and certainly, when some new opportunity arises and the organization must question if that opportunity is consistent with mission and its theory. So, I concur with McKinsey this is a critical question as a central part of every strategic planning and evaluation activity.
Question 3: How are we evaluating our impact? Yes, understanding impact is central to a board's duty (in pursuit of mission) so for me the question is not as much how but what results are we producing - nuanced but an important nuance particularly given that so few boards even understand the how or what elements of evaluation.
Question 4: Do we have the right ‘fuel’ to drive our organization? The author focuses this question around governance and personnel. Fair enough. This is I believe to the social responsibility focus on "people". Fair enough. One of the 4 "central" questions - not sure.