After the first five, the rest will grow your skills in all you do
All nonprofits are essentially scientific, social experiments in bettering our various lots in life. Including nonprofit arts organizations.
The background of that experiment is this: there is a thing that needs to be done or else the community suffers. Private businesses can’t do it. The government either can’t do it, won’t do it, or are prevented from doing it by opposing groups. This is where a nonprofit comes in.
The experiment, then, unfolds to a proposal, for which the scientific method must be used to solve. The question that kicks off the process becomes, “Can a nonprofit do [a highly needed thing to support the community] by taking on tasks that no one else can do efficiently?”
A hypothesis that answers “Yes, and here’s how…” becomes the complete menu of programs for the nonprofit. You sit on the board of a nonprofit arts organization. Your job is to make sure everything is done so that the result of the activities quantifiably betters your community.
Over the last couple of months, we’ve identified the five most important responsibilities for a nonprofit arts board member. In order, they are as follows:
- Determine why the company needs to exist. Not “wants” to exist. “Needs.”
- Raise the funds to pay for that.
- Choose the executive director; you will report to that person.
- Find other board members, including those who are not like you at all.
- Advocate zealously, regularly, and without regard to politics.
Obviously, there are more than five. But when you place these five, in order, at the top of your list—make it the center of your strategic meetings and board meetings—you have a chance to not only be a relevant member of your community, but a leader in making things better.
The other responsibilities all have to do with learning and governing. They have to be done, but your nonprofit arts organization is no better off even if these things are done with exceptional aplomb. Think of these things as binary activities. Done or not done. There no prize for “done well.”
Learning
If these are the last words you read in preparation for becoming the best zealot for your company, then please don’t continue. Curiosity is a determining factor for success in any field. If you believe you already know as much as there is to know, you’re a fool and nobody wants a fool on their board.
If these are not the last words, good. This blog does not purport to be the answer to all your prayers. Any publication, consultant, executive director, board member, school, or any leader that believes that they have “The. Answer.” resembles the supercomputer in the book, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, whose answer to life, the universe, and everything is “42.”
Learn all you can about the arts, but more importantly, learn all you can about what your community needs. Collaborate with other board members of other kinds of nonprofits to see how, perhaps, your arts organization can help their goals (and how theirs can help your goals). Read books, reports, studies, and media—with perhaps only a couple of grains of salt—not to see what the next steps are (you don’t want a snake oil salesman to tell you what to do), but what is in the wind.
Learn about the other board members, the staff members, and the key donors. Thank them for what they do, but make sure what they do is because of the organization (and not because of them, personally). Like anyone else in the business community, don’t accept “we’ve always done it this way,” or “this is the way everyone does it” or (the worst) “best practices” as an explanation.
Learn about the HR practices, conflicts of interest, and other bugaboos that might compel you to act as a referee. Learn how to read a balance sheet, and P&L statement, and ask questions about the budget long before you are compelled to vote on it. Learn what the “overhead myth” is, why it’s a myth, and what (as a group) you can do to make life easier at your nonprofit.
Learn about what it means to work as a team and not as a collection of lone wolves. Follow the orders that the executive director may provide, but not blindly. Ask “why” questions if something doesn’t seem right to you. You might find that “best practices” might have been correct yesterday, but not today. Look up the history of hysterectomies to uncover what “best practices” has done to humanity.
Governing
You don’t have to spend all that much time in governance, except to read and understand the financials, abide by the by-laws, and make sure that no board member, staff member, donor, foundation, community member, volunteer, audience member, or public official is bamboozling you. Governing is an odd word for board members. At 3 hours a month, it’s difficult to govern, except as a dilettante leader. If someone were to make an unpopular decision based on such little time and effort paid to your company, you’d be pretty upset, and rightly so. Therefore, the most important thing you can do to convey your governance properly is to follow this advice:
Heats of moments, castle intrigue, or unexpected power plays are the subject of art, not the governance thereof. Surprises are the outcomes of lack of communication, toxicity, and misplaced blame. Don’t make decisions that way. If a board meeting turns into an uprising, that means that there is a severe disconnect.
Go back to square one. Do not make decisions in haste. Your job is to make things better, not louder (or angrier).
Also remember that the second definition of governance has to do with a thing that controls another thing—a governor on a power saw, for instance, keeps the wood in line. Bad boards, governing as toxic control martinets are causing great leaders to experience severe mental health issues. When great leaders leave the industry because of burnout, several libraries’ worth of loss in institutional memory and progressive action leave with them. That’s a prescription for conservative, no-risk leadership intended for survival—not a bold, forward-looking vision to make communities thrive. Burnout causes communities to implode.
Use the art you produce as a means toward an end, not as the end in and of itself. Insist on it. Don’t be wowed by artistic presentations at board meetings. Spend each board meeting as if it were a retreat; expenses spent on the future are far more effective than expenses spent on things on which you no longer have any control.
All of the other ideas of how boards behave have been written in so many books that it would be silly to list them off here. This is not a hard and fast, do-it-this-way-or-else, kind of proposition. Be alert and flexible, and your board will succeed in its role of making your community a better place to live.
Or, if the collected data from your scientific method experience reveals indications otherwise, not. If that happens, either go back to the beginning with a new hypothesis, or give the reins over to those who will. Prepare neither to succeed or to fail. Just follow the data.
This is the last of a series of columns on what nonprofit arts organization boards’ real responsibilities are. They are not hard and fast rules; rather, they are ideas intended to provoke arts boards into action that will compel them to help the community, rather than to tout their artists’ vision. The arts are never mentioned in Section 501 (C) (3) of the IRS code, and are therefore not eligible for tax exemption status just by virtue of producing art. Now, in 2023, they must actually, measurably, and quantifiably help communities’ most vulnerable people (or else suffer the consequences of being relegated to the elitist, non-essential status they currently deserve). Use these ideas to find your community impact. If you need help, just let me know.
Based in Kirkland, Washington, Alan Harrison is a writer and speaker specializing in nonprofit organizations, strategy, the arts, and life politics. His columns appear regularly in major publications. Contact him directly at alan@501c3.guru.
If you’re feeling generous or inspired, just click on the coffee cup above. You don’t have to, of course, but if you can afford it and find some value here, please provide the desperate need for caffeine.
Alan is always looking for good opportunities to write and consult for nonprofits that need a hand. And, of course, that elusive Perfect Opportunity™.
BIG NEWS: Alan’s new book, “Scene Change: Why Today’s Nonprofit Arts Organizations Have to Stop Producing Art and Start Producing Impact” will be published in January. CLICK HERE TO PRE-ORDER IN THE UNITED STATES. If you live in the UK, CLICK HERE.
Alan will be speaking on May 19 at the Washington State Nonprofit Conference at the Marriott Hotel in downtown Tacoma, WA. The publisher has pre-printed a LIMITED NUMBER of books so that attendees can purchased a signed copy right there at the event.
A few more copies may be made available for those booking conferences, reading engagements, and speaking engagements. Recruit your local bookstore, conference panel, or boardroom to get a visit from Alan. Let Alan know if you want bulk copies for your board!
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