Elon Musk has taught a lesson to the Twitter Board that maybe isn't so surprising to for-profits. Musk affirmed that when the going gets tough or there's a lot of money on the table - the board will opt to leave.
In the world today, or at least in the US philanthropic world, boards are struggling, even more since Covid, to figure out how to make their nonprofits truly sustainable. But when I say "figure out" I don't really think that there's as much thought being given this dilemma as I would like to present. Of course, sustainability has become a really huge challenge to nonprofits both in the short and long-run pictures.
I recently learned that one organization that has been trying a variety of strategies to achieve sustainability but is currently dependent on one donor who is footing pretty much most of the bill, is now faced with a reality that the one donor has decided to call it quits. No more money. The board's reaction: ok, I guess that's it. Rather than consider what were the alternatives, they threw up their hands and in a fairly short fashion will have closed-down the shop. Lesson: a total loss of money, unlike Elon Musk's situation will indeed make a board go away. So much for passion for mission I pose.
I know of other boards when faced with a similar situation agreed it was determined to make mission go on and members began looking for a partner who would work with them to fund a sustainability strategy that would keep services going at the level they were. In this scenario money or lack thereof still played a role in moving the board on but at least they were committed to not letting the work go away.
Finally, there the college whereby the board said, we aren't doing this anymore - we are out of funds and hope. The alumni rose up and said to the board, they were correct, they weren't doing this anymore - the alumni will pick-up the ball and make it work. Five years later, the college is indeed working and the first board has gone away replaced by those who have done and are committed to doing the work.
The Twitter board proved that their passion was money, not Twitter nor what Twitter might or could be. Nonprofit boards, face this dilemma, more in the reverse but the outcome, the decisions if not driven by mission, can result in a fail that maybe is just not necessary. One lesson: recruit and/or do the work to ensure your board is passionate and will do more than stand-by and not behave like John Belushi's Animal House fraternity brothers who stayed behind after "when the going gets tough, the tough get going".