The Difference Between a Good Board and a Great Board

By Harold J. Schultz, Ph.D.

If you or a board member were writing a report card on the performance and practices of your board, what grade would you give it?  Would you conclude you have a good board, a great board, or something else? To be most effective in your organization’s performance and funding success, you will want to move your board from a good board to a great board.

What are the differences between a good board and a great board?

1. Great Boards begin as good boards and graduate. Note the seven universal hallmarks of a good board (hopefully, your board) in Welcome to the Board  by Fisher Howe.
2. Great Boards define themselves by what they are, but equally by what they dare to become.
   
   “Defining the organization and stating its goals and purposes is probably the most critical task that confronts trustees. Everything else that trustees do rest on this basic decision.” (Robert Greenleaf)
3. Great Boards define themselves by asking questions. Asking the right questions in board meetings is more important than giving the right answers to irrelevant questions.
4. Great Boards keep their attention focused on strategic priorities, not operations. Through strategic planning, the Board sets the compass for the organization; management provides the blueprint that translates these strategic goals into a programmatic plan for action.
5. Great Boards secure their future by building endowment to provide a secure revenue stream in difficult times.
6. Great Boards do not skirt their fiscal and fiduciary responsibilities. They take responsibility for ensuring that sufficient resources are found to carry out its mission and programs successfully. They understand that no fundraising effort ever succeeds unless one person (including board members) asks another person for money.
7. Great Boards are never really content. They do not coast on yesterday’s success. They look for opportunities to stretch their goals and programs to serve better those in need. They also know that tomorrow’s successes do not just happen. They are the result of wise and creative planning and are aware that “all planning degenerates into work if anything is to happen”  (Peter Drucker)
8. And finally, great boards identify priorities — “first things first and second things not at all.”  They spend their time together on major, not minor, matters.

Bill Moran, The Moran Company, specializes in nonprofit executive searches
for executive directors, fundraising staff and other top nonprofit leadership.
www.morancompany.com

© 2008 The Moran Company
“We find great nonprofit executives”