Some interesting thoughts on the purposes of boards in the blogosphere today. Laura Zabel makes some “bored assumptions” about the primary purpose of boards suggesting that passion about the mission should come first with fund raising being a distant second or third or fifth…

“I’ll be blunt here: if you’re not thinking about how your board represents your community then you’re not building a relevant organization. When we are looking for new board candidates at Springboard there are two criteria:

-do you love and understand the mission deeply?
-will you energetically represent the organization to your community and your community to the organization?

Swim Pony Performing Arts artistic director Adrienne Mackey says much the same thing in a post of her own today.

“Which means that were I to incorporate the mission my board would be responsible for is “To make Adrienne’s work the most Adrienne it can be.”

But Mackey, whose organization is not incorporated as a non-profit and who states from the outset “I am generally anti non-profits for the majority of content generators, especially for small ensembles and individual creators,” asks

“Are there any artists who, if given the choice, would actually want to keep a board of directors if they didn’t have to? I know that many of my peers have talked to me about learning to find meaning and usefulness and sometimes even joy in the people they’ve invited to be part of their non-profit board. But if they weren’t required to find a way to live with this set up, would they still do it?”

She asks this predominantly in regard to companies that exist to promote the work of a single artist rather than in the service of promoting or curating types and genres of art or to provide “a habitat for artists to plug into.”

The basis of this is the belief that (my emphasis):

“..artists should get input from the outside about how their work is best made and how it might be financially sustainable and responsible. But at the core, I don’t agree that the final responsibility for a creator’s product can be located outside of the creator.”

For me, both posts are further evidence of the sentiment that has been simmering over that last few years that the current structure needs to be replaced. Adrienne Mackey makes a good case for situations when you should not view non-profit status as the default and only choice.

We have seen the appearance of Benefit Corporate structure in an increasing number of states over the last few years as a way for companies to effect positive social impacts. Readers of my blog know that I am intrigued by the idea of arts organizations being created with expiration dates.

But I think there is just as much validity in Laura Zabel perception that there is nothing necessarily wrong with the current structure, but the that assumptions and dynamics of board relations need to be altered.

 

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Today’s post title inspired by Edwin Starr. I should note, I am not advocating for the dissolution of boards a la the “absolutely nothing” lyric. It is often difficult to think of a title for my posts and it was just too good a reference to pass up.