Nonprofit Boards That Work: The End of One-Size-Fits-All Governance
Maureen K. Robinson

John Wiley and Sons (2001)

Reviewed by Mary Case

Damn it! Maureen Robinson has written the book I’ve been trying to write for several years. And even at that, it’s taken me three years to get around to reading it! Robinson is the consummate nonprofit governance professional, experienced, straight forward, sensible, sensitive to all sorts of organizational structures and scale, and above all, generous.

Her book is written conversationally, as if she were in the board room with you and yours, answering pointed questions:

• Do boards matter? What do we want and need from boards?
• What are the most striking differences that shape the ways in which boards organize themselves to do their work?
• Is there a way to build a framework for effective governance that accommodates the sector’s rich diversity and still feels useful and relevant to individual boards?
• What are these board responsibilities called duty of obedience, duty of care, and duty of loyalty?
• How can the board distinguish between its functional dimension and its symbolic dimension?
• How is the work of the board connected to the work of the organization and to the work of the individual board members?
• How is the work best structured? What are the rules of engagement?

Robinson gives the most useful advice:

• Be willing to start from scratch each year with every committee. Get over the muscle memory of the traditional committee structure.
• Create committees of two…or the smallest committee consistent with getting the job done.
• Financial statements are a good illustration of the difference between data, information, and knowledge.
• A plan that does not allow for clear measurements of progress will vanish over time.

I've picked out a few useful highlights of this book, which appealed to my sensibilities. However, I recommend the following approach to using Robinson’s book with a board if you are the executive director. Read the book, marking the areas which most resonate with the needs of your board currently and ask the board chair to do the same thing. Together, discuss your picks and create a learning agenda for your board, a part of which should be delivered regularly, at the board meeting or via email prior to for discussion at the meeting. Purchase copies of the book for every member and assign brief readings prior to the meetings. These can go along with topical pieces you find elsewhere (local newspapers, professional journals, etc.) I recommend keeping the learning agenda slightly separate for the other work of the board. To insure that it doesn’t get pushed aside, place it near the top of each meeting’s discussions.