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In preparation for Creation In Common’s upcoming webinar — Building a Strategic Board (October 18), I have been thinking about how nonprofit strategy means different things to different people within the organization. The last few months, I have spent just as much time in the board room with trustees as I have in the office with staff. As it should be, when talking strategy board and staff approach it from multiple perspectives. This can sometimes be confusing when these different points of view seem at odds with one another. In reality, board and staff use a very different kind of language to talk about strategy.
About nine months ago, I was invited by the Dallas Theater Center to help form a new governance-level committee focused on community engagement. Years earlier the board had hired a new artistic director who had successfully built several strategic partnerships and alliances for the theater company. The board felt that they could play a distinctive role in this work, but all parties wanted to make sure that it would be both complimentary and relevant. During our meetings, I observed staff discussing community engagement in terms of the intricacies of specific activities, the output of these activities, and the intended results; whereas the board members talked about the larger impact these activities have had on the community and how it strengthens the theater’s sustainability. By recognizing these different approaches, the group was able to define a role appropriate for the board that focused on assessing impact, building community influence, and coordinating with other board committees on directing and developing resources.
The important take away from this experience is how board members are most effective when they have one foot in the community and one foot in the organization. That when it comes to organizational strategy they have the capability to place operational priorities within a community context. I’m not sure all boards recognize this or take advantage of it. To me it is there greatest strength.
Finally, the Dallas Theater Center’s board and staff could have easily left this alone– not listened to the unique difference between the board and staff’s strategic voice. Instead, they saw an opportunity to explore how to elevate the impact of their work in community engagement and what a governance perspective could bring to it.
October 04, 2012 at 8:53 pm, Hal Cropp said:
This article raises the question, which I hope will be addressed in the webinar, of how (or who) this board perspective can be developed without losing the energies and focus the staff brings to bear on their own unique perspective.
October 04, 2012 at 9:53 pm, Carlo Cuesta said:
I would agree about that being a key question. I think the initial fear is that a board that is focused on strategy will lead to a drain on staff, focusing on issues unrelated to the organization’s primary work. Previous BoardSource research studies show that the more a board is engaged around the strategic life of the organization, the more it is engaged in building influence and capacity– they have greater alignment to the real priorities of the institution.