We recently conducted a survey on how Alaska nonprofits are responding to the state fiscal crisis – we heard from many of you that you need support. Here are nine ideas to help guide you. You can use these as a conversation starter with your board and leadership team. You can also call on us. We are ready to guide you. As you go through these, help your board and staff be as strategic as possible to avoid surprises. And remember – don’t just create the plans, live them! Create or update your strategic plan: Not a new tool for sure, but an essential one. If you don’t know who you are and where you are going, every road will take you there, and every crisis will distract you. Create… Read more »

The right people at the right time – this is a fundamental premise of the Foraker Nonprofit Sustainability Model. We apply this to the board, the CEO/ED, and the relationship between the two. The goal: balanced partnership. The reality: it takes consistent attention and purposeful action. Central to this relationship is the board chair. We know, of course, that not every nonprofit has staff. In fact, most nonprofits in Alaska have no staff. However, this intensifies rather than minimizes the important role of the board chair. And yet, staff or not, our board chairs are often picked by default – we often joke that the person who gets up to go to the bathroom during the selection will become the chair.  This is no way to set up a team… Read more »

There is a common saying: “It is lonely at the top.” I have been contemplating this saying as I enter my 18th year in leadership, including my two and a half years as Foraker’s CEO. I’m thinking about this mostly because of hard conversations I’ve had recently with Alaska leaders, and because of studies like Daring to Lead, which suggests new CEOs often leave their jobs during their third year because they feel isolated. I am also thinking about it because while there are certainly times I experience isolation, for the most part this is an experience I have managed to avoid. What can make leadership less lonely? And how do we stay and thrive in our work? Some research points to creating environments of support. We believe in this… Read more »

We spend a lot of time in meetings. As seen by the thousands of articles written about meetings, we all know they can be better. Well, here is one more article because, let’s face it, meetings could be better. While all of the following ideas can be applied to all kinds of meetings, I am a true believer that it’s critical that board meetings, in particular, get as close to right as possible. Notice I don’t say perfect, since we are talking about a meeting of people and well, you get the point. There are so many components to a great meeting, however, we have to be motivated to change, which for most of us means we need to find the urgency to make a shift. Hopefully, urgency and crisis… Read more »

You have heard us talk many times about a central theme of the Foraker Nonprofit Sustainability Model – the right people. This topic has many layers to it. It’s about recruiting and engaging the right board members at the right time and equally about the critical partnership between the board and the CEO. Getting either of these wrong can create huge distractions for the organization as it struggles internally with trust and communication instead of focusing its work on the leadership required to deliver mission. These experiences are far too common and, while we offer many tools to help boards and staff get recruitment on the right track, many organizations bypass this help and hope for the best. This is a whole topic worthy of many newsletter articles, but today I… Read more »

Can our Board of Directors simply vote on a question by email? Will the decision then be a valid decision of the board? By Steve Mahoney, Esq., Consultant to The Foraker Group Interesting questions for a board to consider. To answer we need to take some steps through general corporate common law, the Alaska Nonprofit Corporations Act (AS 10.20), and then our corporate documents. First, common law principles of actions taken by board members are set on three premises: That all directors are aware of what is being discussed and decided and have been given adequate notice, along with the ability to attend the meeting where the decision is being made. That no conflicts exist, or none remain undisclosed, that would place in question the board’s decision. That in practicing… Read more »