Board Impact

A board of directors can advance its impact by adopting characteristics of high-functioning boards, implementing processes to measure current board functions, and taking steps to implement growth. For this assignment, you will imagine you serve as a consultant responsible for reviewing your selected nonprofit board’s current operations and helping the executive staff and board members compose a 2-year general plan to enhance the organization’s positive impact on the stakeholders the organization serves. You will write an executive summary of improvement steps. Step 1. Review and Investigate Review the board profile you created for your selected nonprofit organization and utilize online resources or your organization contact to investigate answers to these questions: How is the board tracking its mission and outcomes? To what extent does the board have the diverse leadership, skills, networks, and commitment to fulfill the nonprofit’s mission? How is the board innovating and mobilizing strategies? Step 2. Research Research high-functioning boards, focusing upon diverse engagement and partnerships, innovation, and future-focused strategic practices. Step 3. Develop Develop a plan for greater board impact. Your plan should include: background information the executive staff and board members should know about current impact, key characteristics of high-functioning boards, evidence-based strategies for improving the impact of the present board of directors, and strengths and challenges the board and staff may face when implementing the recommended strategies. Step 4. Compose Compose an executive summary to incorporate the plan from Step 3. See the Executive Summary Template linked on the Learning Objects page or you may develop a format of your own. Use fonts/colors, formatting, and headings to make the executive summary straightforward and concise for readers to follow.