Who’s Teaching Leadership?

Leadership Ventures, a nonprofit in Indianapolis with a mission to build and support the volunteer and executive leadership of nonprofits, has only one message on its multi-page website.  It is a “Dear John” letter addressed “Dear Friends.”  As of 30 June 2010, Leadership Ventures will severe its relationship with the world, closing down, a causality, so they say, of the economy.  To me, it is the causality of shortsightedness and a failure to understand.

I do not know Leadership Ventures; in fact, I only learned of them in reading about their demise.  So, why am I mourning?  It isn’t the first and it won’t be the last nonprofit to close its doors; and, as readers of this blog know, I am a fan of slimming down the nonprofit sector.  So, why do I want to scream at the top of my lungs?

People simply do not understand the importance of nonprofit boards.  They do not understand the important job—and yes, it is a job, albeit that wonderful oxymoron of descriptors, a volunteer job—that boards have to do for the nonprofits they lead.  They do not understand the immense value-add nonprofit boards can bring to the nonprofits they lead.  And because they do not understand this, they do not recognize the significance of professional development to allow those in this volunteer job to develop and/or hone the skills and knowledge needed to do this job well.  The need for professional development does not impugn the skills and knowledge that board members bring with them, the skills and knowledge that they use day in and day out in their day jobs and may bring to bear around their nonprofit board table.  Professional development specifically for board members, however, addresses the unique roles and responsibilities of being a nonprofit board member, it helps board members grow into being the best board member they can be.  And based on the thousands of board members I’ve met over the decades—whether serial board members like myself or first-timers, and everything in between—every one of them could use some help in being stronger, better board members.

And the good Board of Leadership Ventures found that out.  To fuel their decision making process, the Board commissioned a feasibility study to understand for real whether there was a need for the services of Leadership Ventures.  Their data showed “a high need for governance training and the development of charitable leadership.” Leadership Ventures had been providing that service, having helped over 30,000 paid and volunteer leaders over the course of their lifetime.  So, that was the good news.  The bad news was that the study also found that “the resources are not there to sustain them.”  Huh?

A nonprofit has the data to prove a) the need for its service, b) the successful provision of that service and c) the absence of competition for that service, but no one wants to fund them going forward.  What am I missing?  Why do we—board members and donors—not understand the centrality of board work to the success of a nonprofit? Why do we—board members and donors—accept the fact that professional development is of the essence in our day jobs but not in our volunteer jobs?  How do we—board members and donors—let a champion of achieving the best nonprofit boards possible close its doors—in Indianapolis, small or large town, USA, anywhere?  Don’t we understand that without educated, smart-working boards, nonprofits will only be a shadow of their full potential?