The Strategic Board: The Step-by-Step Guide to High-Impact Governance

A SIMPLE, PRACTICAL PLAN FOR BUILDING A GREAT, EFFECTIVEBOARD

Every nonprofit board wants to be great. But the reality is, feware. It's one of the great puzzles of governance. How do you moldhighly talented individuals with diverse backgrounds, limited time,and no governance expertise into an effective board?

The Strategic Board provides the answer. Drawing on more thantwenty years of nonprofit experience, Mark Light outlines apractical model that overcomes the built-in deficiencies ofnonprofit boards and guides them to strategic effectiveness. TheStrategic Board(TM) model of governance is a step-by-step,easy-to-implement, multilevel course of action that enables a boardto craft a comprehensive Governance Plan(TM) that:
* Develops a Leadership Plan that determines "Where to gotomorrow?"
* Creates a Delegation Plan that specifies "Who does what?"
* Follows through with a Management Plan that decides "What getsdone today?"
* Puts in place a Vigilance Plan to answer the question "Did ithappen?"

The Strategic Board approach doesn't dictate the answers. Rather,it makes sure you ask all the right questions as you outline yourgoals and focus on achieving them. It's a uniquely flexibleblueprint for better functioning that will at last connect yourboard's work about where you go tomorrow with your staff's work onwhat gets done today.

Every nonprofit board dreams of greatness. Here are the tools toachieve it.

Mark Light is President of the Arts Center Foundation, Victoria Theatre Association, and Dayton Opera, as well as the consulting firm First Light. An executive with nearly twenty years of experience, he has provided governance guidance to organizations ranging from the United Way to housing authorities to arts organizations. He speaks extensively and has presented programs for the National Center for Nonprofit Boards.