Diversity, Change, and Culture

Three Keys of Success for a Nonprofit Board

This past week marked the final regularly scheduled meetings of the College of Wooster board of trustees for the 2020-2021 academic year, and also the final regularly scheduled meetings in which I presided as the board’s chair. It has been an honor to serve the College as board chair these past four years, and I look forward to continuing to serve with my fellow trustees in coming years under new board leadership.

In our final session yesterday, I provided my closing remarks to my colleagues, and I thought some of you might be interested in a very brief summary of the three key points I made. These points are not exclusive to my institution, but apply to any college or university board, as well as to boards of other nonprofit organizations. The three points are:

• In our diversity lies our strength. A diverse board is able to see more issues more clearly and can bring better judgment to decisions that need to be made in the best interests of the institution.

• To remain relevant, a board must match the world in the pace of change. While one hopes that certain institutional values remain constant over time, those constants are expressed differently by different generations, and boards must be prepared to respond in positive ways to new expressions of them.

• A board is only as strong as its culture. When someone speaks, the rest should listen, and board leadership must create space for all the voices in the board room. Each member of an organization’s board should respect the viewpoints of those with whom they disagree, and support their right, and indeed their responsibility, to express them.

During my tenure as chair, I had the good fortune and great pleasure of working with a wonderful President and senior staff and with an amazing and diverse group of trustees who have dedicated an extraordinary amount of time, wisdom, and talent to the board’s work. I can think of no better way to give back to the institutions that helped form me than to volunteer my time and resources to the important work that they do. In such opportunities I have been truly blessed.