In Vu Le’s new book, Reimaging Nonprofits and Philanthropy: Unlocking the Full Potential of a Vital and Complex Sector, the creator of the NonprofitAF.com blog challenges much of the conventional thought and practice that drive nonprofits and philanthropy.
The following text is excerpted with author and press permission from Reimaging Nonprofits and Philanthropy: Unlocking the Full Potential of a Vital and Complex Sector (Wiley, 2026) by Vu Le. All rights reserved. This book is available wherever books and eBooks are sold.
Instead of thinking of itself as the boss…a nonprofit board should consider itself a critical but co-equal element of the organization’s work.
Our default structures and philosophies and have conditioned board members to think they’re basically the supervisors of the ED/CEO. It is ingrained in all of us, and many EDs/CEOs think along this line, too. Even I have introduced a board member at an event and joked, “This is one of my bosses!”
This line of thinking has caused tremendous problems, such as inflating board members’ ego and sense of importance, decreasing of staff’s authority and autonomy to do work, and furthering the board’s meddling and micromanaging in programs and operations. It is problematic when board members rarely have even close to the same level of knowledge about what is happening on the ground.
Instead of thinking of itself as the boss of the ED/CEO or staff and thus imbued with power to make all the important decisions, a nonprofit board should consider itself a critical but co-equal element of the organization’s work, serving as a partner and a check-and-balance mechanism. In Ananda Valenzuela’s article series on governance, they mention the core role of the board to be “Loving Accountability,” which includes monitoring team morale, financial stability, and impact on the community, having trusting and transparent relationships with staff, and stepping in to provide support when there are crises.
None of that though means that the board is the boss of the staff. Ananda emphasizes the board having “power-with” instead of “power-over” the staff. This is not a perfect analogy by any means, considering what has happened in politics over the past few years, but think of the branches of the U.S. government. The legislative branch can make laws. It can also impeach and remove the president. And the judicial branch could uphold these decisions.
The expectation that most boards fundraise has negatively affected their ability to do their main duty well, which is to govern.
Similarly, under the idea of “loving accountability,” boards can pass policies, ensure the organization is complying with its values, checking regularly to make certain the executive leader is doing their job and is not abusive or corrupt, and possibly removing them when needed. But just as no one would consider the House of Representatives, Senate, or Supreme Court the collective “boss” of the president and the executive branch, no one should consider boards the “bosses” or “supervisors” of executive leaders and their team.
Fundraising May Not Necessarily Be a Main Board Function
This is probably one of the more blasphemous things I say. The expectation that most boards fundraise has negatively affected their ability to do their main duty well, which is to govern, and it may be time to separate these two roles by removing fundraising from most boards’ roster of duties entirely. Who will be in charge of fundraising and how can nonprofits be sustainable if board members don’t pitch in? The answer is simple.
The ED/CEO and staff will be responsible, as they’ve always been.
Unless we’re talking about large historic organizations like the symphony, where being on the board is a prestigious status symbol that requires hefty annual donations, connections to wealth, or ideally both, boards’ fundraising activities and personal contributions only make up a small portion of the budget but lead to all sorts of problems.
Removing fundraising as an essential board role could:
- Increase focus on governance: Expecting governing bodies to do both fundraising and governance when they are both complex tasks and board members have extremely limited time means they often do a good job at neither. Removing one, fundraising, will allow the other, governance, to more likely succeed.
- Improve morale among staff and board: Nonprofit staff are often frustrated because their boards aren’t pulling their weight with fundraising. Some board members are frustrated because they just want to do governance, but they’re expected to fundraise. Meanwhile, some board members just want to donate money and don’t give a tub of moldy hummus about governance. Separating out fundraising from governance will clarify roles, decrease expectations, and allow people to choose how they want to be involved.
- Allow boards to be diverse and reflect the communities they serve: Believing boards are responsible for fundraising means nonprofits tend to prioritize recruiting those who have money, are connected to it, or who can fundraise. Since these folks tend to be white, this helps explain why the diversity of boards in the United States is so abysmal. Eliminating fundraising as a critical board function will balance this out, as nonprofits will focus less on who has money, and more on who has the lived experience and skills to be effective on the board.
- Create more egalitarian boards where all voices matter: No matter how nice people are, it doesn’t counter the fact that board members who give more money are allocated more power and influence at the organization than those who give less. Deemphasizing the board’s role in financially sustaining the organization increases the likelihood that all voices, especially those from marginalized community members, are treated equally.
- Let nonprofits align better with their values: We all hear horror stories of board members who don’t experience repercussions for being racist, sexist, transphobic, ableist, and so on, because they are also major donors or had connections to major donors, and the org is afraid of losing their donations or relationships. Eliminating fundraising as a function of the board will help lessen this type of values misalignment.
None of this is to say board members can’t give to their organizations or help with fundraising. They certainly can contribute if they want. They can pass along connections to potential donors and funders as appropriate. They can even join the development committee and help that way, if they understand they’re serving in a volunteer capacity and not as a board member.
