A Quris article by Amitabh Behar makes the case that the "corporatisation of nonprofit boards is diminishing the impact civil society is able to achieve". M. Behar argues that "as long as the laws of the land are adhered to, we must flip the question of seeking accountability from the executive, and instead ask the team how can we empower and support them in their struggle to achieve the vision and mission of the organisation. Behar goes on to note that "if you go to a nonprofit board room today, this understanding of ‘empowering and standing in solidarity with the team (executive)’ might be turned on its head, particularly in bigger, more ‘professionally’ run organisations. Today, board meetings are primarily geared towards compliance and accountability, backed by donors and consultancies. This is pushing more organisations away from a board focused on solidarity, to one focused on compliance and accountability."
Changes in leadership and processes - hiring folks whose backgrounds are in media, bureacracy or the private sector versus being rooted in social causes and understanding the workings of civil society.
2. Repurposing organisations for ‘greater impact’
Behar offers "that Increasingly, ‘new’ visions and strategic plans are focused on the desire to make a sharper impact and increase fundraising possibilities. Greater impact is always desirable, but this desire to make a sharper impact is not rooted in systems or ecosystem thinking, but instead in a decontextualised assembly line blueprint of change, which often does not yield results. It does not factor in the complexity of social change, and views it as a solvable problem at best. This corporate way of thinking gets further amplified as more donors hire leaders and professionals trained in business management, who then, in turn, change funding patterns by investing in log-frames and results-oriented frameworks. Process-driven, bottom-up, people-led processes, built around trust, solidarity, and partnership end up being sidelined."
3. Lower risk appetite
This management-driven approach also significantly lowers levels of risk appetite. It certainly has very low levels of appetite for (or even an understanding of) confronting power, which is essential for real change and struggles for justice and dignity. As managers and private sector professionals, the idea is to avoid conflict and focus on profits. This approach is detrimental to the long-term impact civil society wants to create. In many cases, creating conflict—by way of challenging, questioning, and critiquing—is a fundamental prerequisite for civil society.
4. Disconnect with communities - A really important issue I believe!
Given that most board members who cross over into the social sector come from positions of relative privilege, they might not have enough experience of substantively engaging with the communities we work with, particularly the most marginalised and excluded communities. They are often most comfortable shaping policy or macro public narratives, and this comes through in board room conversations that urge organisations to move from community or citizen-centric work to more advocacy and policy work.
“This shift away from working directly with communities leads to altering the fundamental premise that civil society should be built on.”
This shift away from working directly with communities leads to altering the fundamental premise that civil society should be built on—rootedness in communities, where on principle, they are not viewed as bystanders. The growing focus on policy changes the lens from working with communities to working for communities, going back to the ‘benevolent charity’ model.
Behar concludes stating:
The ability to challenge and confront power often comes from a strong resolve, anchored in passion for justice, born out of a constant interrogation of power. When this ability gets compromised, civil society is left weaker.
This is good stuff and worthy of a board's generative conversation - more than once.