What To Do When The Top Executive Isn't The Boss | How nonprofit heads evaluate board performance
Photo/Edd Cote
Dennis Rice, executive director of Whitinsville's Alternatives Unlimited, asks his board to do a self-evaluation .
What’s an executive director to do?
A board of directors made up of some of the community’s heaviest heavy hitters has hired you to run the nonprofit organization it funds. And part of the job is evaluating the board itself.
What if the board is full of cantankerous old men? What if it’s a bunch of slackers who only show up for the first meeting of the year? The board can fire the executive director, but not vice versa.
Fortunately for Central Massachusetts’ nonprofit executive directors, the governing boards of the area’s nonprofits are made up of caring, dedicated individuals. Or so they say.
Self Reflection
“In some ways, they’re the boss, but in some ways I have to manage them. In the nicest way possible,” said Dennis Rice, executive director of Alternatives Unlimited, a Whitinsville-based social service agency.
“You constantly have to remember that they’re volunteers and they have very busy lives,” Rice said. With that in mind, Alternatives asks its dozen board members to evaluate themselves.
And every year, they can look back and ask themselves, “How did we do?” Rice said. “And the board is pretty honest about what they’ve done and what they have not done.”
Rice uses other measures, too. The board is judged by how much larger they’ve made Alternatives’ “circle of friends” and how successful each member is at introducing five new contacts to the organization.
The Alternatives board also has term limits. Members can serve two consecutive three-year terms and after that they must take a year off before returning to the board.
“It brings in new blood, and overall, that’s a good thing. We try to recruit from all geographic areas and we try to be somewhat systematic,” Rice said.
Taking Initiative
“A lot of people think nonprofit boards are just window dressing, and I don’t find that to be the case,” said Kevin O’Sullivan, executive director of Massachusetts Biomedical Initiatives in Worcester.
O’Sullivan’s board has more than 20 members. How can he be sure they’re actively helping MBI achieve its goals?
“If they vote to rehire me after my evaluation period,” he joked.
O’Sullivan said he evaluates the MBI’s board by the participation of its members. The board meets twice a year, and attendance is excellent, he said. The board’s subcommittees meet quarterly, and O’Sullivan keeps an eye on how active board members are there, too.
He also makes note of members’ one-on-one availability.
“I don’t want to overburden them, but I do seek out their expertise,” he said.
Jim Donahue, CEO of Old Sturbridge Village, said tracking the participation of board members is important, but that he also uses some other tools.
In December and January, Donahue called each of the more than 20 members of the OSV board and asked if they felt they were being “engaged, utilized and involved.” OSV also created a trustees web site that allows Donahue and board members themselves to see “all the quantifiable indicators” of board performance.
“We try to provide as much information as we can to make sure they’re engaged and to identify prospective trustees.” As a result, Donahue said he’s been surprised by the extent to which the OSV board of trustees is “in synch” with what he sees as the living museum’s mission.
“I never feel the trustees are pulling the village in a direction that’s not appropriate. You might think there would be some strategic tension, but that’s not the case.”
All the involvement between Donahue and OSV’s board seems to be paying off directly. The average trustee’s yearly donation increased from $3,000 in 2007 to $10,000 last year.
But cooperation doesn’t mean tension doesn’t exist, according to O’Sullivan.
“I don’t sense the egos,” he said. “I value their wisdom, but you gotta be on your toes. I anticipate what they’re going to be asking me, or how they can advise me. I don’t want a rubber stamp. I want them to be involved.”
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