As this story made it to NPR you have likely heard that the entire board of Seattle's ACT Theater has resigned except for the thee officers. They have apparently taken this step based on an intent to re-create a board that is optimal for the welfare of the theater and presumably under the assumption that the 'till today composition and structure would not advance the Theater forward. Interesting premise following an article by a counterpart that called these boards "broken" and needing reconstruction.
I must admit that there is indeed a lot about nonprofit boards that calls for correcting. I don't know about this approach as solving the problem but it might. More importantly, the board must really ask what is broken, why and what are the approaches for correction. Is mass resignation and then recomposing from the inside and heavily driven by staff (what ACT is doing) the answer? And then does this redoing approach correctly or successfully address the first question to be asked: who's theater (aka nonprofit) is a nonprofit anyway?
Here's the NPR story.
A Contemporary Theatre — Seattle’s ACT company — has announced that its entire board of trustees has voluntarily stepped down.
The only exceptions are three positions required by law — the chair, secretary, and treasurer.
This board overhaul is the result of three months of “deliberation and difficult conversations,” according to ACT’s Artistic Director John Langs. He said the changes are meant to bring the board more in line with the goals of the theatre.
The change was sparked when board members read an article in American Theatre Magazine by Michael Bobbitt titled "Boards are broken, so let's break and remake them." Bobbit is Langs' counterpart at the New Repertory Theatre in Watertown, Massachusetts.
In the article, Bobbitt argues that nonprofit boards are broken, and need to be dismantled and rebuilt. He notes that most boards don’t represent the communities they serve, and points out the tension between creative vision and fiduciary responsibility. That further raises questions around who should direct a theatre's creative vision — board members or artistic staff?
Langs said ACT board members then decided to reevaluate their hierarchal structure and dissect inequalities within the board.
“The question we asked most pointedly was: ‘If you can do this all over again, what would you have done differently?’” Langs said. “And from there, we prepared a roadmap through a committee of governance and a couple other key board members and staff members collectively to talk about what we could do. And the outcome of that meeting was: We have to disrupt the status quo.”
Now that the Board has voted, and members have resigned their positions, ACT is ready to rebuild the board from the ground up. Langs said a new committee comprised of executive leadership, representatives selected by staff, representatives selected by artists, and the three remaining trustees will lead the new selection process.
ACT plans on creating a new board with 12-15 members. This group will not use the former “committee” structure. Instead, all trustees will be involved in all aspects of board responsibilities to provide fiduciary oversight, strategic guidance, and risk management.
Once a new board is in place, the three remaining trustees will step down and re-apply for appointments if they wish to resume their positions.
“What is happening at ACT is the result of unprecedented collaboration between the ACT Trustees and ACT’s world-class staff leadership over multiple years," Dr. Eric Bennet, board chair, said in a statement. "Given that there’s no blueprint for this type of organizational equity and change to draw from, this has meant answering fundamental questions together to chart our path forward. The ACT Board’s restructuring is about trusting that, through equity, we’ll be a more vibrant, thriving theatre and able to bring audiences the most authentic contemporary work.“