In Challenging Times, Overstretched Board Members Fight Burnout
By Holly Hall
THE BAD ECONOMY has worn out many of the trustees who sit on charity boards across the nation, say nonprofit executives and consultants who advise boards.
Nonprofits have been putting greater
demands on their trustees for the past
four years just as many board members
have been facing financial pressures of
their own.
BoardSource, a Washington group
that advises nonprofit boards nationwide, says the economic crunch has
caused a spike in the number of charity
leaders seeking its help to get trustees
to do more. And with severe shortfalls
among state and local governments that
provide a sizable chunk of many charities’ budgets, the demands on nonprofit
board members are likely to increase.
“I am on two boards myself right
now, and just asking friends to support things has become harder,” says
Carol Weisman, a St. Louis consultant who works with nonprofit boards.
“They have a grown child out of work
or they’re helping their daughter keep
her house from foreclosure. I cannot tell
you the number of times I’ve heard that
‘charity begins at home’ as the explanation for why someone can’t give now. It
does not seem to be getting any better.”
In New York, “we are seeing burnout, and we are finding it more difficult
to find people to serve on boards,” says
David M. LaGreca, head of Governance
Matters, a nonprofit that provides board
recruiting and consulting services to
charities in the metropolitan area.
Now, she says, trustees show more
energy and enthusiasm and are completing a four-year plan to expand the
number of girls Pace serves.
COURTESY OF THE MEMPHIS SYMPHON Y ORCHES TRA
Memphis Symphony Orchestra rejuvenated itself by reaching out to its
community, like these students from the Soulsville Charter School.
Worn Down by Success
To be sure, the economy isn’t the only
reason trustees are challenged now,
says Jan Masaoka, a veteran nonprofit
management consultant who now edits
Blue Avocado, an online publication for
nonprofit leaders.
Trustee fatigue, she says, also occurs
when an organization doesn’t achieve
the goals set out by the board or when
colleagues on the board don’t do their
fair share. Dealing with a problematic executive director can also frustrate
board members.
Even success can lead to trustee
burnout, especially if an organization
evolves beyond its board members’
skills and capabilities.
Pace Center for Girls, a Jacksonville,
Fla., charity that provides academic aid
and other services to troubled middle-and high-school students, faced that situation two years ago after it expanded
to 17 centers. The organization realized
it needed to revamp its board, whose
members were all representatives from
the local centers.
“That structure was no longer effec-
tive,” says Mary Marx, the organiza-
tion’s chief executive.
Reinventing Themselves
Since the recession started, however, boards are far less likely to be challenged by expansion than by sharply
constrained resources.
Yet some boards, working closely with
their chief executives, have managed
to use the financial crisis to reinvent
themselves and their organizations,
says Fred Miller, a Boston consultant.
“Some people would say this is a ter-
rible time, but it forces innovation. This
is a transformative moment we’re in.”
At the Memphis Symphony Orches-
tra, for example, when economic hard-
ship created a $1-million deficit in 2008
and 2009, “our board was disengaged
and fatigued,” says Ryan Fleur, the or-
ganization’s chief executive. “It came
down to the hat going around.”
At the same time, he says, “we were
seeing tremendous declines in our au-
dience.”
Then, Mr. Fleur recalls, “one trust-
ee asked, If the symphony went away,
would Memphis even notice? We didn’t
like the answer.”
But the question led the symphony’s
board and staff members to review and
change its mission: Instead of focusing
on its musicians and creating the best
possible music, which was an “intro-
spective mission,” Mr. Fleur says, “we
decided that we exist to create mean-
ingful experiences for the community
through music. Music is a means, not
an end.”
That simple shift in thinking has led
to some big changes.
Among them is a series of new performances held throughout the city so
the symphony can collaborate with local artists such as a rapper or an indie
rock band.
“These artists make up the fabric of
the Memphis popular-music community, but we were completely disconnected” from them, says Mr. Fleur.
The performances, he adds, are drawing more people in their 30s and 40s
Keeping Boards Active Is a Shared Responsibility, Say Governance Experts
WHEN a charity’s board mem- bers are burned out, or not performing up to their potential, who’s responsible for making it better?
It depends on whom you ask, says Jan
Masaoka, a former management consul-
tant in San Francisco who spent many
years advising nonprofit leaders. Char-
ity officials with relatively little experi-
ence will say it’s the board chair’s job to
rejuvenate an underperforming board,
or they will say it’s a shared responsi-
bility of the board chair and the orga-
nization’s executive director, says Ms.
Masaoka, “But when you ask longtime
successful executive directors about
board problems, they say, ‘It is my re-
sponsibility.’ ”
Many board problems can be traced
back to the executive director, says Ms.
Masaoka, now editor of Blue Avocado, a
publication for nonprofit leaders. When
trustees are burned out or not fully
engaged, she says, “executives like to
complain because it makes it look like
a board problem, when it is the execu-
tive director working to get the most
out of the board, rather than working
to strengthen the board.”
Feedback from Trustees
The bad economy may be placing
more demands on nonprofit trustees,
but a poorly performing board usually involves some failure on the part of
a charity’s staff, says Simone Joyaux,
a Foster, R.I., consultant who advises
nonprofits on governance issues.
“If there is trustee burnout, it’s be-
cause we don’t know how to use them
effectively,” she says. “The fatigue on
boards comes from inadequate leader-
ship by staff.”
It’s up to the executive director and
other key staff members to help trust-
ees understand what good governance
is, says Ms. Joyaux, to ensure that
board meetings are interesting and well
run and that trustees who are asked to
raise money and undertake other ac-
tivities have plenty of support and ad-
equate training.
Adds Ms. Joyaux: “I asked one devel-
opment officer who was not happy with
her board, ‘Do you call them on the
phone and ask them what they need?’ ”
Ms. Joyaux, who also sits on charity
boards, says trustees can get burned
out when chief executives and fund rais-
ers ask them to seek money from their
friends, even when those people have no
interest in the cause.
