I still think about sitting on hard plastic chairs, a row behind buttery soft leather armchairs occupied by the board of a women’s funding organization I worked at nearly a decade ago. This decades-old nonprofit had two dozen board members and was a veritable who’s who of the Pacific Northwest’s social impact sector.

The executive director maintained a strict firewall between her staff of five and the board, the latter taking up the majority of her time. Planning and executing the quarterly meetings was a sacred ritual that required all hands on deck for an organization with an annual operating budget of just $1.5M.

When a crisis arose—as it often does—this small, coddled board imploded in dysfunction. Fearing reputational damage, the board shirked from its governance responsibilities.

In my time working in the social sector and serving on one nonprofit board or another since 2010, I have yet to come across a well-functioning board of directors. Many boards I’ve noticed are simply asleep at the wheel, without any ill intent. They simply have a lack of interest in governance and in engaging with long and boring board packets, and they lack skills to make sense of the organization’s finances (that is, if they are reconciled and up to date).

Others, especially well-funded and highly visible nonprofits (think Girl Scouts, United Way, the local art museum), tend to have equally visible people on their boards—wealthy donors, influential community members, leaders from foundations, and other well-heeled individuals who bring shine to the nonprofit at the cost of expertise or connection to the mission at hand. These tend to be the most dysfunctional: a room full of big egos and priorities largely divorced from mission delivery, engaging in the kind of politicking that would make Senate staffers blush.

During a two-year consulting stint with one such board of directors, I saw firsthand the absolute disinterest in governance paired with petty rivalries among the board. The chair routinely dismissed the behavior of a chronically inebriated colleague, racist epithets were expressed by a wealthy donor, and persistent absenteeism came from two tenure-track university faculty members. A year into the implementation of a shamefully shallow DEI effort, the board banded together to apply for an award—and focused the efforts of our consulting team on writing an award-winning proposal.

Read the full article about how to fix nonprofit boards by Aparna Rae at Nonprofit Quarterly.