This week’s lesson reminded me of a discussion that I had in my class last semester – I’ll leave out the details of the professor’s name, but the class was a budgeting/financial related.

Our professor asked the class “What is the role of a nonprofit board?” and the class gave many great replies. I stated a few things:
– To leverage their contacts for fundraising
– To provide advice regarding management/strategic planning of the organization
– To utilize their expertise in the field (social service, animal welfare, etc.) to connect the organization with resources
– To plan the financials of the organization
– To provide feedback from the community/constituency (if someone from the constituency is on the board, for example, if someone with a SUD disorder is a board member)
– To vote on major decisions regarding the organization’s mission and vision

, etc.

My professor stated that all of these were wrong – the board’s only function is  fundraising, and that’s it. I questioned him and said “What about financials? Strategic planning? etc.” and he replied, “Yes, that’s why you hire good executive staff, especially a CEO and CFO.” He cited the fact that many museums have board with 100+ members.

I thought about my own board at my nonprofit and I realized that for the most part, his claim is true. While we do have a large board with a variety of backgrounds, it does appear that the only members that provide real value to the board is those that can leverage their business contacts and fundraise. Our management team usually just makes all of the major decisions of our nonprofit, and sometimes we present to the board our plans and they say “OK that all sounds fine.”

I’m curious about the thoughts of my classmates for this controversial statement – what do you think? Is the only real function of a board is to fundraise?