BOOK REVIEWS

Four Books on NonprofitBoards and Governance

Kathleen Fletcher

Governing Boards, by Cyril O. Houle. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1997. 223 pp., $21.95 paper.

Boards That Make a Difference: A New Design for Leadershipin Nonprofit and Public Organizations, by John Carver. 2nded. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1997, 241 pp., $28.95 cloth.

Perfect Nonprofit Boards: Myths, Paradoxes, and Paradigms,by Stephen R. Block. Needham Heights, Mass.: Simon &Schuster, 1998, 149 pp., $21.95 paper.

Nonprofit Boards: Roles, Responsibilities, and Performance, byDiane J. Duca. New York: Wiley, 1996, 192 pp., $29.95 cloth.

THE last ten years or so have seen a plethora of books and arti-cles about nonprofit boards. Many of them seem to be inresponse to the perception that nonprofit boards are not work-

ing and need somehow to be fixed. Executive directors and fundersexpress concern about boards not performing their governanceresponsibilities well. A primary issue is the perceived tendency ofboards to become too involved in management issues. In response tothose concerns, new models have been suggested as alternativesto the traditional model of board governance. Three of the booksreviewed here advocate different models of board functioning, andthe fourth articulates them all, giving readers their own choice.

Cyril Houle’s Governing Boards is a new printing (in paperbackthis time) of the book originally published in 1989. This book is aclassic articulation of the traditional model of board governance and,as such, is often used in courses about boards. As Houle describes inthe preface, the book actually grew out of an earlier version pub-lished in the 1950s, which shows the long pedigree of this boardmodel. Houle begins by stating that nonprofit organizations use a tri-partite system: the work to be done, the administration of that work,

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and the establishment of policies to guide it. The work is done bythe staff, the administration by management, and policy makingby the board; in this traditional model, the board is truly in chargeof the organization. The board chair has a great deal of power andresponsibility for making the board follow its mandates and for see-ing that the organization is well managed through its chief staff offi-cer. Houle says that the particular responsibilities of the board andthe executive should be distinguished from each other as much aspossible. He is not absolutely rigid, however. He does talk about theshadowy “zone of accommodation” that must exist betweenthe board and the executive as they adjust to each other. He also saysthat the oft-repeated statement that “boards make policy, staff han-dles administration” is too simplistic and that, in practice, there iscarryover between the two roles.

There is much good material in the Houle book, though somewould argue with the traditional model. Chapters on recruiting anddeveloping board members, board structure, board and staff roles,and board operation have helpful practical suggestions that manyboards can strive to follow. For instance, the suggestions for orien-tation of new board members and for putting together an annualschedule of the work of the board seem particularly useful. Theauthor has great respect for boards and believes they play an essen-tial role in our American democracy. He also sees the wrinkles andwrites of the problems that boards and executives encounter, par-ticularly in their relationship with each other: cronyism, antagonism,the dominant executive, the dominant board, and so on. The bookis obviously written from long experience and observation of boardsof traditional nonprofit organizations.

The model put forth in the Houle book is one important basisfor the model espoused by the National Center for Nonprofit Boards,which sponsored both the original publication in 1989 and this newprinting. The only addition to the 1989 version is a forward byNancy Axelrod, former executive director of the center. Axelrodstates that, despite changes in the climate for nonprofit organizationssince the book’s original publication, Governing Boards remains anindispensable comprehensive resource, “a careful and systematic dis-tillation of decades of best practices, thoughtful observations, andpractical approaches to problems of governance” (p. xiv). This state-ment is true, but the book is also a bit dated. In particular, it is toobad that the bibliography at the end of the book was not updated,since all the entries are from the 1980s or before. Perhaps a new edi-tion of this book, rather than just a new printing, is in order.

Boards That Make a Difference, by John Carver, is a new edition.The original book, published in 1990, was the first widely distrib-uted printed version of Carver’s policy governance model, which hebegan developing in the early 1980s. Carver believes that nonprofitboards do not work well because they become too involved in man-agement. In Carver’s model, the sole duty of nonprofit boards is to

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The work is doneby the staff, the

administration bymanagement, andpolicy making bythe board; in thistraditional model,the board is trulyin charge of the

organization

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establish policy in four general areas: ends (results), executive limita-tions, the board-executive relationship, and board process. Every-thing about the board—its structure, membership, and operation—revolves around the board’s obligation to establish and monitor poli-cies in those four areas. The board-executive relationship is orga-nized around the CEO’s accountability to the board “for no less thanthe entire product and behavior of the organization” (p. 107). TheCEO, however, has no responsibility for the board itself, only to theboard.

Carver’s approach has been both lauded and demonized amongnonprofit practitioners. He is often criticized for his my-way-is-the-only-right-way attitude. His model has been criticized for its ideal-ized view of the board, operating above the messiness of theboard-executive relationship as it really exists in nonprofit organi-zations. There is also criticism of his lack of attention to the impor-tant role of the board in fundraising and external relations. Themodel clearly subordinates the CEO to the board and expectsthe board alone to set the parameters of that relationship. On thepositive side, many organizations have found Carver’s model usefulin helping their boards better define their policy-making role and ingetting board members to stop focusing on management issues. Ifnothing else, Carver’s approach generates both discussion andcontroversy.

This second edition has been expanded by one chapter (“PolicyDevelopment by Levels”) and updated using examples from Carver’swork in the 1990s. References have been updated as well. The essen-tial message and model, however, are the same as in the originalbook. In the 1990s, a number of booklets, tapes, and newslettershave been published to supplement the original book and describehow to implement the policy governance model. With this array ofsupport material in the marketplace, it is perhaps not surprising thatthe basic ideas have not been changed. It would have been useful ifin the second edition Carver had addressed some of the specific crit-icisms leveled at his model, but this does not occur. It is probablytrue that many of his ideas have been successfully adopted by vari-ous nonprofit organizations without embracing the entire model,since any model needs to be adapted to specific circumstances.Although the policy governance model is idealized and leaves noroom for the subtleties of human interaction, it has useful ideas thatboards and executives should consider. However, reading the bookis somewhat tedious because it is quite repetitive. Perhaps theessence of the model can be gleaned more efficiently from the otherpublished materials.

A recent book by Stephen Block describes a model of gover-nance that contrasts sharply with both Carver’s and Houle’s but mir-rors the ideas of several other writers and researchers in the 1990s.Entitled Perfect Nonprofit Boards: Myths, Paradoxes, and Paradigms,this slim volume asserts the primacy of the role of the chief executive

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In Carver’s policygovernance

model, the soleduty of nonprofit

boards is toestablish policy in

four generalareas: ends(results),executive

limitations, theboard-executiverelationship, and

board process

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officer in developing and maintaining the board. In the four chaptersin which this assertion is laid out, Block first states that both boardsand chief executives strive for perfection and feel frustration becausethey fall short of the traditional model of governance. This traditionalmodel, called the “heroic model” by Herman and Heimovics (as citedby Block), puts the board unequivocally in charge of the organiza-tion. Block calls this the traditional paradigm and suggests that resis-tance to change makes it difficult for nonprofits to give it up eventhough evidence shows that it doesn’t work.

The paradox of the traditional model, according to Block, is thatto get the work done the board must delegate that work to the exec-utive, while still retaining its legal and moral responsibility for theorganization. If the board exercises its governance obligations by ask-ing tough operational questions, executive directors may considerthis micromanaging and become defensive. However, the board mustdo this to carry out its legal governance responsibilities. Block statesthat “the board cannot truly govern and avoid the accusation of beingmicro-managers” (p. 93). This statement is reminiscent of PeterDrucker’s views in an article (1990) in which he stated that boardsshould meddle, and therefore they had better be organized so as tomeddle constructively. Drucker also said that responsibility for effec-tive governance of the organization should be assigned to the chiefexecutive and should be one of his or her key duties.

In a chapter entitled “A Paradigm Shift for Nonprofit Gover-nance,” Block first cites Houle’s traditional model (a nonprofit orga-nization’s effectiveness is the major responsibility of the board chair)and Carver’s policy model (the executive director is not responsiblefor motivating the board) as examples of ideas about boards withwhich he does not agree. He then cites Herman and Heimovics’sboard-centered leadership model and his own conjoint-directorshipapproach as examples of models that “perceive the executive direc-tor as a central figure that the board relies on for support of its gov-ernance success” (p. 105). The model he proposes can be summedby this quote:

The time devoted by the executive director, the informationin his/her grasp, and his/her constant daily focus on theorganization’s mission and operations is a principal reasonfor the executive director to be at the core of leadership anddecision-making activities. . . . The executive director is notin a subordinate role. The executive director is a colleaguewho can monitor the time and activity of board members,helping pilot board members to use their skills in appropri-ate ways with meaningful opportunities. In other words, theexecutive director-concerted leadership paradigm advancedby this book endorses the ideas that: The executive director isthe real key to board success! [pp. 107–108; italics in theoriginal]

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Block’s slimvolume assertsthe primacy ofthe role of thechief executive

officer indeveloping andmaintaining the

board

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This is an idea that has been advanced before, not only byDrucker and Herman and Heimovics but by other researchers andconsultants as well. It does seem to reflect the reality of most boardstoday: they depend on the executive director because he or she hasthe information they need, and they often have little time to giveto their governance duties. Block, however, seems to move away fromthe traditional heroic model, only to develop what might be called a“heroic executive director model.” The executive director musttake the time to get to know each board member and help him or herfind the right way to make a contribution. This approach is shownin a description used as an example by Block: “In her role as execu-tive director, Sandra pays keen attention to her board members’ style,actions, responses, their choice of words, their interactions with herand among the board members. When visiting a board member’soffice, she explores the type of books on the shelf, the decorationson the wall and desk, the type of music that is being played in thebackground, and any other clues that can give her a sense of the per-son” (p. 128).

Although this shows common sense and sensitivity, many busyexecutives would cringe at the implication that so much of theirenergy needs to go into individual board members. The problem isnot that board members don’t need the executive’s attention (theydo); the problem is the time crunch in which most chief executivesfind themselves. There are only so many hours in the day, and fewbusy executives have the luxury of putting countless hours intoboard development. Even so, they actually cannot afford not to do so.This is the paradox of the executive director, which Block does notseem to recognize. So, although the primacy of the executive direc-tor to the board’s success is a reality (in my opinion), Block’s modelmay be as idealistic as Houle’s and Carver’s. Fashioning some kind ofblend between models that fits each individual organization may bethe only way out of this conundrum.

The four chapters in which Block explains these ideas are thehighlight of this book. The rest seems to consist of side trips thatcause the book to lose its focus. It might have been better to developthe model more fully and give persuasive examples of its validity thanto diverge in unrelated directions. In the preface, Block lists threepositions he says underlie his thinking: (1) the idea of giving up theexpectation that board members should know how to operationalizethe concept of board effectiveness; (2) the strong belief that an effec-tive board of directors is an outgrowth of the executive director’scapability; and (3) the need to develop a set of tools for improvingboard commitment and participation. If the entire book had exploredthese three positions more fully, the contribution made by the bookcould have been greater.

Nonprofit Boards: Roles, Responsibilities, and Performance, byDiane Duca, is a book that seems to fit the need for a model thatblends the ideas put forth in the other three books reviewed in this

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article. Duca’s book is an overview text, like Houle’s GoverningBoards, but it is more up-to-date. It includes research, resources, andcurrent lines of thinking that have become familiar in the last decadeto those knowledgeable about boards. In the first chapter, Ducareviews Houle’s traditional model and Carver’s policy model as wellas Miriam Wood’s research on the cyclical model of board develop-ment. She discusses the distinction between management andleadership and the difficulties boards sometimes have in separatingthe two responsibilities in practice. In succeeding chapters, she dis-cusses the ethical and legal obligations of boards, board structure,board composition, effective board meetings, and board self-assessment. In discussing board responsibilities, she talks about theboard’s role in policy making, strategic planning, financial oversight,fundraising, and program evaluation. She also includes a chapter onnew challenges for boards: government relations, the impact of pro-fessionalism, the changing role of the executive, collaborations andmergers, and public skepticism about nonprofit organizations. Theseissues have seldom been discussed in previous books about boardsand are an example of the contemporary nature of this volume.

In the chapter on board-executive relationships, Duca has thisto say: “Over the past twenty to thirty years, different schools ofthought regarding the nonprofit board-executive relationship haveprevailed. Some professed that the executive should be in control ofthe board, while others said the board should be dominant and theproper role of the executive should be to manage the organizationaccording to board directives. Neither of these dichotomousapproaches has proven to be effective over time” (pp. 89–90).

She goes on to describe three different ways to approach theboard-executive relationship that are appropriate for today’s complexnonprofits: (1) executive focus (based on Herman and Heimovics’sresearch, which she cites); (2) balanced partnership (which soundslike the traditional model of Houle and the National Center for Non-profit Boards); and (3) strong board, strong executive (as in Carver,whom she also cites). Regardless of the approach taken, she stressesalso the importance of effective interpersonal relationships built onclearly communicated expectations and mutual respect.

This book is quite thorough and well written. Each chapter endswith a list of suggestions for further reading, and several case stud-ies are included. A strength of the book is that it brings together cur-rent research and theory about boards with real experience in thefield. It is, in short, a balanced approach to the topic. Includingcontemporary issues and ways of thinking about boards helped merelate to this book better than to the more prescriptive, one-sidedapproaches. The author appears to respect the reader’s ability to makeup his or her own mind about the various approaches described.Nonprofit Boards: Roles, Responsibilities, and Performance is a valuableaddition to the current literature. In fact, because it is more currentand provides different viewpoints, it merits consideration for use as

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More up-to-date,Duca’s book

includes research,resources, andcurrent lines ofthinking thathave become

familiar in thelast decade

to thoseknowledgeableabout boards

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a general text in nonprofit management courses that deal with boardsof directors.

All of the books reviewed should be on the bookshelf of thoseconcerned with nonprofit boards. The Houle book is a classic, theCarver book presents again one of the field’s most prominent alter-native board models, the Block book provides another alternative,and the Duca book gives us a new general text. Knowledge of differ-ent board models helps those working to increase board effective-ness, and these books present a good cross section of prominentmodels that exist in our current thinking.

KATHLEEN FLETCHER is a consultant and researcher in nonprofit organi-zation management, specializing in board development, strategic plan-ning, and evaluation, and a part-time faculty member in the Universityof San Francisco’s Master of Nonprofit Administration program.

Reference

Drucker, P. “Lessons for Successful Nonprofit Governance.” NonprofitManagement and Leadership, 1990, 1 (1), 7–14.

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