Assignment
I have attended your recent board meeting, I have observed the proceedings, and read the material. I understand from all the observations that your organization is going through two challenges.
A. How to expand the operations and in which way?
B. How to bring diversity to the board while facing the challenge that most board members are not in favor of diversity.
I will start with the second challenge because the first challenge relates to the first. This challenge relates to governance. I want to mention a few points I discovered from the board discussion and the material.
A. Elevate provides services on the North side of the Chicago neighborhood of Rogers Park, which is a diversified community in terms of income, race, and ethnicity.
B. Elevate is currently providing services to 500 students, of which 89% are non-Caucasians, but most of the staff members and volunteers are Caucasians.
C. There is a general understanding among the majority of the board members that diversity in the board will cost the donation, which they don't have any evidence of.
D. A few board members do not contribute in donations, and a few don't show any interest in the organization's matters but still contribute in funds; that behavior is against the organization's bylaws.
E. There are conflicts between the executive director and the organization's founder, and the founder tries to use the executive director's powers.
F. Elevate performance dashboard suggested that there are some areas where the board is not fulfilling its developed criteria and shows poor performance in areas like new nominee meeting criteria, the percentage of board members representing the background of the community should be 25%. Still, it is only 5%; new board members recruitment should be five but recruit only one; the percentage of board members meeting fundraising expectations should be 100%, but it is at 80%, board member's participation in the annual fund should be 100%, but it is at 70%.
Above mentioned points are participating in the bad governance of Elevate board, and the board cannot make critical decisions relating to the organization's expansion. Good governance is a mixture of accountability, transparency, responsiveness, consensus, participation, inclusiveness, following the rule of law, and efficiency. But observations suggest that there is a lack of consensus as some members are in favor of diversity and the majority of the board members are not; the majority of the board members are following the bylaws, but still, there are some who are not following the by laws by showing lack of interest in organizational matters and not contributing funds and finally inclusiveness is missing due to lack of diversity.
Give your Recommendations on how to improve the board governance, what the board should do to increase diversity in the board, and what the criteria should be for a new board member.