All non profit boards
will fail totally if
the one great principle of board governance is ignored: success
is directly correlated to the quality of the food served. This
does not necessarily mean expensive food so much as attention
to detail and taste. For example, many a worthy cause has foundered
on an inadequate selection of donuts. Others have assumed, quite
wrongly, that because their cause was noble and pure, their provisions
should be likewise. A board meeting is no time for nutritional
proselytizing. Or for skimping. Above all, the cookies should
be fresh and the mayonnaise plentiful. I have watched once outstanding
non-profits wither into obscurity for failing to observe these
simple rules.
The best boards are conspiracies of the creative and confederacies
of the competent, filled with guerrillas of the good and Aquarian
anarchists working for something far grander than themselves.
In recent decades we have come to speak of public
interest groups as non-profits and non-governmental organizations.
This is like speaking of girls as non-boys or Presbyterians as
non-Catholics. And suggests where the real power remains. - Sam Smith
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