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Nonprofit boards of directors usually exist to be controlled by the organization’s executive director

At Cold Takes, Holden Karnofsky finds that “Nonprofit boards are weird” because there are usually too many people on them, the executive directors often control the boards rather than vice versa, and the board is often ornamental rather than practical. He thinks some of the main causes of nonprofit board weirdness are “Great power, low engagement, unclear responsibility, no accountability,” and he ends by saying: “The board is the only body at a nonprofit that can hold the CEO accountable to accomplishing the mission. I broadly feel like most nonprofit boards just aren’t very well-suited to this duty, or necessarily to much of anything.”

Loyal GWC readers will be unsurprised to know we have some opinions: many, if not most, the many nonprofits we work for only operate through the will of a single person (usually the executive director) or a small number of people, and this can remain true even in nonprofits with eight-figure budgets. Large nonprofits start small and grow over time, and boards are often accustomed to being passive and controlled by the executive director. Change is hard and, if an executive director controls an organization and its board, she or he is going to want to select board members who can be controlled. An external funder might be able to change this dynamic with enough cash. But most nonprofits never get above seven-figure budgets, or maybe low-eight-figure budgets, so boards remain pretty parochial. Size matters, as it does in so many things; tech startups don’t have strong boards either, because startups only have a small number of people working at or in them. Large, old companies tend to have much stronger boards. Small- and medium-sized nonprofits are similar to tech startups: the budgets and stakes aren’t big enough to generate real boards, and charismatic or effective founders often rule even when the size of the organization has increased.

The more people there are on a board, the less likely it is to do anything, thus leaving the executive director to run the show. So a founder or executive director who wants to stay in control will often want a large, amorphous board that is likely to do what the executive director says. Speaking of “running the show,” the board is often for show. Yes, the same may be true of many for-profit businesses, but the degree is much higher at nonprofits. Often, the board is there for signaling purposes, not for operations or excellence. Nonprofits are more like businesses than most people realize.

So, as in many things in human life, there is the nominal, stated function, and the actual function (see also: The Elephant in the Brain by Robin Hanson and Kevin Simler). Board members are often cultivated for their ability to donate, not govern—or, sometimes, their ability to provide political cover. Volunteers are similar, although we’d never be daft or uncouth enough to say this sort of thing in a proposal. In a proposal, the nonprofit is always noble, the board is always strong and powerful, the volunteers are always earnestly sought, and the mission comes first.

In reality, humans are what humans are. In the Federalist Papers, James Madison famously noted that “If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.” Most nonprofit workers adopt the pose of being selfless and angelic. Some are! Maybe you’re one. Most, however, are mere mortals, with the usual dollops of self-interest, hypocrisy, self-deception, and so on.

You can see a lot of hypocrisy that’s uncritically accepted by a lot of organizations, including nonprofits. Exclusionary higher education is a particular notable example, given the soaring rhetoric of “inclusion” spouted by some people involved with higher ed, versus the reality of those same schools seeking to reject as many applicants as possible. Princeton University’s president, Chris Eisgruber, has, for example, blathered extensively about the school’s efforts to “combat systemic racism.” Princeton has a $37 billion endowment. The school’s undergrad acceptance rate is 5.6% and it charges a sticker price of $73,000 a year (yes, the school does accept a handful of token low-income students every year, but that the school’s overall demographics reflect its target: the wealthy). Does that sound like a school devoted to combating systemic racism to you? How can people make these kinds of arguments with a straight face? Colleges and universities are run largely for the benefit of their administrators. The other exclusionary schools are doing the same things, as are their private-school feeders, despite their vigorous marketing to the contrary.

Regarding the above paragraph, let me be clear: describing how something is, is not the same thing as approving of it.

Returning to nonprofit boards, I knew a guy who, over close to two decades, built a large nonprofit in Southern California—until his board ousted him. He’d been stealing money for many years, and probably should’ve gone to jail, but I think he was surprised to find the board finally wake up and do something. He was used to a board that would do his bidding, but his organization eventually got too big and too well-known for him to control the board. And his behavior was too repugnant. As with the example of hypocritical universities, I don’t approve of what he did, but I do note it.

As with all generalizations, there are exceptions to the principles articulated above. But the generalizations exist because they describe what’s happening on the ground, as opposed to what’s happening in the hot air and press releases many organizations produce.

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