The Guidebook for Boards of Directors of North Carolina Nonprofit Corporations provides an overview of the role and responsibilities as a board member of a North Carolina nonprofit, including a primer on nonprofit organizations, essential elements of a nonprofit board, duties and liabilities of nonprofit board members, and the basics of tax exemption.
©2008 North Carolina Center for Nonprofit Organizations, Inc.
Excerpt below. Download the full 34-page PDF at bottom.
The board is fundamentally responsible for defining the organization's mission and what it strives to accomplish, usually through a strategic planning process. The board must be involved in the portions of planning involving philosphical and strategic decisions, but may assign responsibility for tactical planning to the staff.
Ten-Step Strategic Planning Process Exercise Who are we?1. Create, change or affirm an organization vision and mission.
Who serves on today’s nonprofit boards? How are they composed and organized? How do they conduct their work? How well are they fulfilling their many important roles and responsibilities? What impact are they having on organizational performance? Leading with Intent: BoardSource Index of Nonprofit Board Practices answers these questions and is the latest in BoardSource’s series of studies tracking and analyzing trends in nonprofit board leadership since 1994.
This Common Ground article includes short-term and long-term strategies to help your organization deal with a board member who is not contributing to the well-being of the board and the organization (also available in Spanish).
Additionally, you may wish to review:
There are board chairs and there are great board chairs. Being a conscientious board member is in itself a challenging, time-consuming job. But becoming the chair of the board means a lot more responsibility (also available in Spanish).
Some do's and don'ts for leading through effective board governance (also available in Spanish).
What should a board do once it suspects or has discovered evidence of embezzlement? Clifford Perlman details the responsibilities of the board when funds go missing. (Nonprofit Quarterly)
When Funds Go Missing, What Can You Do? What Must You Do?