You are busy, but you give your time through board service. Do you ever wonder if you are doing this governance thing well? I rarely visit with a group of nonprofit leaders without the subject of board leadership coming up. Sometimes I hear executives talk about how supportive their boards are, but unfortunately, this is the exception. More often, I hear frustration and exhaustion when it comes to board relationships. And I regularly hear seasoned leaders ask questions like, “Is the nonprofit governance model completely broken?”
After the mayhem the sector experienced in 2025 and given the constant need for organizations to adapt quickly, this article focuses on three things any board member can do to support leaders as they navigate uncertainty and overwhelm.
1. Make sure you don’t leave your ED worrying about whether the board is performing its key oversight duties.
These are the role of the board, and the ED has enough to worry about. I tend to break these duties into three areas: strategic oversight, ensuring adequate resources, and managing risks (including protecting your tax-exempt status).
What best practices and legal responsibilities this requires is something your board should be familiar with. At the most basic level, however, you should be holding each other accountable to showing up for meetings prepared; making sure there is a pipeline of new board prospects being cultivated; giving annually and helping to support the building of resources for the organization; disclosing personal or professional conflicts of interest; and approving and reviewing a responsible strategic plan and organization budget.
These things keep you out of legal peril, make your organization stronger, and keep your Executive Director/CEO from chasing new potential board members and worrying about meeting quorum and bylaws compliance.
2. Bring in experts who can support the mission and your ED.
In the corporate world, boards often include experts in the organization’s core business model. In the nonprofit world, volunteer boards may bring useful knowledge like legal or financial expertise but rarely have all the expertise needed to make decisions on complex issues. Strategic direction during times of change, identifying and managing organizational risks, or evaluating how to strengthen missional impact often requires outside support.
Strong executive directors may have much of this knowledge, but there is always a time when bringing in an attorney, HR expert, strategic planner, evaluator, or facilitator is the right move. I have seen boards and staff energized and able to make more thoughtful, data-informed decisions when they lightened the load and brought in a subject matter expert or facilitator.
Even with lean budgets, organizations thrive when they use this approach wisely. Sometimes this looks like interim staff support during a big project or staff turnover. Consider what contract support might help your ED accomplish long-range goals without burning out.
3. Bring more solutions than ideas or problems.
Bring more solutions than ideas or problems. While questions and ideas bring life into boardroom conversations, during times of change, your staff team has more on their plates than usual, and the prospect of burnout is real. Consider your long-range plan and annual plan, and make sure you understand what things are bogging down your ED. Consider how to help him or her with the things that are taking too much energy.
Here are a few examples:
- When the organization faces too many opportunities and not enough focus, help your ED/CEO clarify what they should say “no” to right now. A strategy screen can help with this.
- When bringing up an idea in the board room or listening to a fellow board member bring up a suggestion or idea, propose a way that you or another board member might be able to support taking action on the idea.
- Make a habit of regularly asking your ED/CEO what things are taking up his/her time that should not be…or what key strategic priorities s/he can’t seem to get to. Then, brainstorm potential solutions (such as hiring some temporary support). Related to this, make sure you are doing an annual review, and ensure that he or she has clear goals each year that you’ve agreed upon in advance.
P.S.
I was an ED/CEO for 14 years and work with many of them now. I understand the headaches. If you want to brainstorm how Heightened Development can help strengthen your board leadership or lighten the load for your CEO, please reach out.