Underestimating the power of nonprofit governance

Abstract

Much of the dialogue around nonprofit boards has focused on secondary or transactional issues rather than on the question of what good governance must include in a nonprofit setting. This serves to rob the nonprofits of creativity, rigor, power, and the kind of finely tuned understanding of accountability the public should expect. By focusing on the central questions and principles of nonprofit governance rather than on structural concerns, the possibilities for a wider variation in governance models open up. All organizations are set in a larger social context, so we cannot end our reflection at the individual nonprofit level. These questions are particularly pertinent during a period when our attention is focused on governance from Wall Street to Baghdad. Some believe that public governance is overly affected by corporate interests, and we are now seeing case after case of scandals exposing ethical problems in the governance of corporations that only recently were seen as exemplary. This puts the interests of ordinary and particularly marginalized people at risk. In a democracy, the nonprofit sector is there to ensure that people have a voice in our future - at the community, national, and global levels. If we accept this as our primary role, it has implications for what should be present as constants in our governance structures.