Here are three items I thought you might find interesting. A recent posting related to a board governance controversy at Carnegie Hall connects to topics covered in chapter 7 – working with boards of directors. The posting at the Creating the Future blog site also poses a set of interesting discussion issues about the role of the board. Lastly, managing the confidentially of donor files is talked about in chapter 12 and the story posted in the Nonprofit Quarterly is one a development director would probably not want to see circulating.
Carnegie Hall Chair to Step Down over Accountability and Governance Concerns
By Ruth McCambridge | September 18, 2015, Nonprofit Quarterly
Yesterday, Ronald O. Perelman announced his decision not to seek another term as chair of the Carnegie board after a joint meeting of that board’s audit and executive committees were held. Perelman had announced that he would leave if his concerns about the board’s oversight were not addressed. He will leave in a month instead of running for re-election. Perelman was critical of trustees for placing “a premium on avoiding tension and disagreement.”
Earlier this week, it was revealed that Perelman, who was only six months in at the helm of the board, succeeding Sanford I. Weill, who held the position for 25 years, sent an email to the board suggesting that Clive Gillinson and the rest had been inattentive to related party transactions, and that this exhibited a “troubling lack of transparency” and a lack of “appropriate oversight” on the part of the board. Perelman, who has been on Carnegie’s board since 1988, also cited “an inability to obtain a full picture of Carnegie Hall’s financial operations, especially as it related to profits and losses involving performances,” and wrote that he was “troubled by the manner in which related-party transactions…were being identified, vetted and approved.”
Links: https://nonprofitquarterly.org/2015/09/18/carnegie-hall-chair-to-step-down-over-accountability-and-governance-concerns/
NYT Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/18/arts/music/ronald-perelman-will-step-down-carnegie-hall-board.html?_r=0
Rethinking Boards from Scratch: If There Were No Such Thing as Boards, What Would We Build?
August 28, 2015 by Hildy Gottlieb,
Creating the Future Blog http://blogs.creatingthefuture.org/walkingthetalk/
It all started so simply.
It was February of the still-new year 2015. Creating the Future’s board of directors was discussing its work plan for the year ahead. “What does the board wish to accomplish over the next 12 months? What are the most important questions for the board to consider in 2015, to ensure we achieve these priorities / objectives?” From a meaty list of topics, the board prioritized Board Composition and Recruitment as the first one to tackle.
At our next meeting – in March and then continuing into our April meeting – we asked and discussed, “What could the composition of our board make possible for accomplishing our mission? And what would the ideal board composition be to accomplish that?”
Link: http://blogs.creatingthefuture.org/walkingthetalk/2015/08/28/rethinking-boards-from-scratch-if-there-were-no-such-thing-as-boards-what-would-we-build/
How to Really Screw Up Donor Relations: Heritage Donor Files Inadvertently Revealed
By Ruth McCambridge | September 14, 2015, Nonprofit Quarterly – Source 09/9/2015; Gawker
It is likely that most of us who fundraise for any length of time have found ourselves in the position of being face to face with a potentially large donor who says something that is anathema to our work. What to do? Challenge it? Act like you didn’t hear it? Or finesse the situation by implying that you basically agree but can’t say so?
The Heritage Foundation has a healthy fundraising program, which raised $135 million between 2008 and 2009. That fundraising program is partially tracked through “call reports,” which document the interactions between the institution and its donors, and those reports, some of which have been acquired by Gawker reveal the conservative think tank’s balancing act between its positioning on issues and the positioning of a portion of its far-right donors.
Link: https://nonprofitquarterly.org/2015/09/14/how-to-really-screw-up-donor-relations-heritage-donor-files-inadvertently-revealed/