How the best boards expand hope, courage, and agency
This is the fourth in the series on practices for Board Leadership. This post focuses specifically on Action.
ID: three overlapping circles, the orange on in front is labeled “Action”
As I prepared to write this post, I have been thinking a lot about Nikole Hannah-Jones’ recent New York Times article, In Fighting for Every Black Child, Did I Betray My Own?
Hannah-Jones writes compellingly about her determination, as a Black woman, to strengthen public education for all. To do this, she made a deliberate choice to not send her daughter to the best school that their family could afford, but rather to commit to her local public school and work to make it better.
As she shares, it turns out that the school her daughter attends does not have the leadership or resources to prioritize educational excellence. One of the hardest parts of the story is that her daughter Najya, currently a teenager, has expressed anger and disappointment for the choices that her mother made.
Although some have criticized Hannah-Jones since the article was published, I have incredible empathy for the challenging decisions that she describes. If you have not read this article yet, I encourage you to take some time to read it at the gift link above and reflect on her family’s story. (Here’s another take on Hannah-Jones’ story from Tesha McCord Poe.)
But why mention this in a post about nonprofit boards and action?
Hannah-Jones’ article is especially powerful because it shows the tension between working to enact change inside the education system and being an individual in that system.
We’re not wired to think in terms of systems
A challenge in nonprofit work is that so much of what we work on comes down to systemic challenges: inequality, violence, environmental racism, and unequal access to resources such as education or healthcare. But our human brains are wired to think in terms of stories of individuals. We form an impression of the world and make decisions based on the stories of the people we encounter.
Not incidentally, this is why increasingly segregated neighborhoods decrease empathy; the more that we encounter people like us in terms of race or class, the more difficult it becomes to “see” the stories of those who have different struggles.
Boards can have the same role that Hannah-Jones recounted in her article: to amplify or change how systems work through individual stories. In other words, humanize and expand empathy for the people who are part of the organization so that the organization can better serve them.
The question is, then, how can the board and staff speak up in a respectful, energizing way about the challenges they are seeking to address—and then take action to reduce those challenges?
Here are three ideas.
Decrease the gap between staff, board members, and the community
The board members of our past client Youth Alive! are intimately knowledgeable about the impacts of violence—and the importance of violence of intervention. Youth Alive! describes the staff as follows, “We come from and live in the communities we serve, and we share a lived experience of navigating and healing from violence and its impact on our community. We have a personal interest in the work we do every day because it doesn’t just benefit our clients, it benefits us too.” Many board members would also describe themselves in those terms.
On some of the strongest boards we’ve worked with, the gaps between board members, staff, and the clients/community the organization serves is smaller. Staff and board are closer to the experience of the inequalities in our current systems they’re seeking to change— and their determination to speak out and take action to shift this inequality comes from a place of empathy and connection.
2. Use Asset Framing to build hope amidst the challenges
Learning about Asset Framing a few years ago felt like a puzzle piece fitting into place. Asset Framing defines people by their aspirations and contributions before defining them by the challenges they face.
As creator Trabian Shorters shares in this instructive video, “Once you understand that I aspire to be a scientist, or a leader or a high school graduate…you’re telling a truer story about me. I don’t run around believing that I’m an ‘at-risk this’ or a ‘low-income that’…no one carries around those labels thinking this is how I want to face the world.” Shorters emphasizes the importance of telling stories that reinforce people’s agency. (Here is a terrific introduction to Asset Framing from Leeann Alameda.)
3. Name that courage is needed in these times—and bring a critical mass of people together to expand courage
As I write this, we’re a little less than a month away from the midterm elections in the United States—a moment to vote for our values and encourage others to take action to vote for their values.
Unlike Vu Le expresses in this article, I don’t support the idea of the “Minimally Viable Board.” That’s because we need the critical mass of people that a board of directors can be to expand the energy and values of an organization.
Some people might say we should give up on boards. And yes, there are a lot of boards that are not working well—some of which I have observed first hand and written about in the past!
And. We have also seen some amazing boards and board members take action to be the advocates and voice for the values of their communities and organization. We have seen board members act as ambassadors in the best sense of the word—good will agents who expand the organization’s work.
At The Ross Collective, we’re not giving up on boards. We’re here to advise on strengthening them so they can be the asset needed in furthering nonprofits’ missions within the communities they serve. If your board is ready to have a strategic advisor and finish this year strong, reach out. We can’t wait to hear from you.