If anyone understood what nonprofit board membership entails, no one would ever agree to serve.

Have any members of nonprofit boards really thought through the legal and moral responsibilities involved?

I'm not a lawyer, so I won't attempt to terrify you by providing an authoritative account of the legal responsibilities that are vested in the boards of nonprofit organizations. You can look that stuff up. Read it and weep.

Though not a lawyer, I am something of an armchair ethicist.(1) And the more I think about the ethical demands placed on nonprofit boards, the more clear it seems to me that no one could ever manage to live up to the nominal duties.

Let's consider BoardSource's list of the “Ten Basic Responsibilities of Nonprofit Boards:”

• Determine mission and purpose.


• Select the chief executive.


• Support and evaluate the chief executive.


• Ensure effective planning.


• Monitor, and strengthen programs and services.


• Ensure adequate financial resources.


• Protect assets and provide proper financial oversight.


• Build a competent board.


• Ensure legal and ethical integrity.


• Enhance the organization's public standing.

Once I read the more detailed explication, it was clear to me that if anyone really fulfilled these duties, he would not only be unavailable for any other task, but would also be unable to get a good night's sleep.

It's #9 that clinches it for me: “ensure legal and ethical integrity.” How on earth is a board member supposed to be able to do that, when so often he is also mandated to keep his nose out of the day-to-day management of the organization? Reviewing the various job descriptions that are written for board members and chief executive officers, I realize that the division of labor seems designed for failure. The board members seem to have all the solemn responsibility of administering a public trust, and the CEO has most of the opportunities to abuse that trust.

Moreover, I know - and anyone who works on a day to day basis in a nonprofit organization knows this as well - that unless board members stand next to employees all day and watch them, it's difficult to ensure that everyone is really complying with policies set by the board.

In the long run, various kinds of audits and inventories can reveal patterns of ethical or legal violations. Moles and whistleblowers can also document bad behavior. But there's a real disconnect between the ultimate responsibility vested in the board, and its ability to ensure that high ethical and legal standards are met, and it's no wonder that liability insurance for nonprofit boards is a hot topic.

1) Like most nonprofit professionals, I am keenly interested in ethics, seeing it as a tool for constructing elaborate arguments that prove my utter superiority to the rest of humanity. I continually fail, but hope springs eternal.

Lying.

RAINA. You were not surprised to hear me lie. To you it was something I probably did every day--every hour...

BLUNTSCHLI (dubiously). There's reason in everything. You said you'd told only two lies in your whole life. Dear young lady: isn't that rather a short allowance? I'm quite a straightforward man myself; but it wouldn't last me a whole morning.

RAINA (staring haughtily at him). Do you know, sir, that you are insulting me?

BLUNTSCHLI. I can't help it. When you get into that noble attitude and speak in that thrilling voice, I admire you; but I find it impossible to believe a single word you say.

- George Bernard Shaw, Arms and the Man



Every time it happens, I'm shocked all over again. I'm naive enough to be shocked every time I hear a nonprofit professional lie casually to funders, journalists, colleagues from other organizations, or random visitors.

When a colleague tells what I know to be a lie (i.e., in my presence, but to a third party) I don't know whether to be amazed by his or her trust that I will condone this, or to be insulted by his or her estimate of my intelligence. Do liars really think that I can't draw the obvious conclusion, which is that if they lie to others then they'll cheerfully lie to me?

And these are the people who are dedicated to serving noble causes. Maybe they think it's ok, because it saves trouble and it gets the job done. After all, if we're the good guys, then it's not really lying when we lie. Right? Well, maybe that's true when terrorists hold a gun to your head and ask for the secret code. But "we're the good guys" is not an excuse for lying about how many clients you're serving or why you're twenty minutes late for a meeting.