This is my review of the most recent leadership issue of Associations now (table of contents here. It was quite useful. One thing I need to bring up with my section council is that this info is very useful but it's not quite packaged such that a true volunteer-driven organization (like a small chapter) could make sense of it. More on that later.
Useful piece on “auditing your audit committee.” Tip: if you don’t have enough financial experts on your committee, you might swap CFOs “with another association of similar size so that each association can have the other’s CFO sit on its board.” Also, it points to AICPA’s nonprofit audit committee toolkit.
Duty of dissent. Upshot is that some boards are too harmonious. It’s true. They can’t get anything done, or they end up in very odd places. Especially interesting quote from Glenn Tecker: “There’s a particular psychodemographic group that tends to be attracted to leadership positions in organizations, especially associations. We often refer to them as ‘shapers,’ and that is individuals who get value out of participation in an organization because it lets them influence things, and that’s… important to them.” How nicely put. I would really like to pick his brain about psychodemographics of these people, because I’ve found as he has that they come in good and bad flavors.
Tearing down the Ivory Tower. Good piece and it’s true, sometimes boards act regal. They look foolish but they mainly don’t mean to do it.
Lynda McDaniel’s piece on building a board from the ground up. Very interesting material posing very thoughtful questions. Useful tips too, for board members.
