Governance
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Boards At Work: How Corporate Boards Create Competitive Advantage by Ram Charan
Behind closed doors, in corporate boardrooms across America, a quiet revolution is taking place. Boards of directors – long an unrealized source of competitive advantage – are transcending their traditional roles to proactively influence the future direction of their companies. Ram Charan shares an intriguing, first-hand account of how a small but growing number of exceptional boards are changing the face of corporate governance. He also shows how CEOs can tap the vast reserve of experience and wisdom a board’s membership represents.
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Culture of Inquiry : Healthy Debate in the Boardroom by Nancy R. Axelrod
This book explains how to create a culture of inquiry within the boardroom – one marked by mutual respect and constructive debate that leads to sound and shared decision making. It details how to develop an environment where board members solicit, acknowledge and respectfully listen to different points of view; where they seek more information, question assumptions, and challenge conclusions so that they may advocate for solutions based on analysis; and where board members are able to voice their concerns before reaching a collective decision, which, once made, is supported by the entire board. It includes tools for creating an environment of trust, for cultivating teamwork, for stimulating dialogue, and for sharing information. Written by one of the preeminent experts in nonprofit governance, this guide shows how to engage and energize board members and make better decisions.
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Forces for Good, Revised and Updated: The Six Practices of High-Impact Nonprofits by Leslie R. Crutchfield and Heather McLeod Grant
In the first edition of Forces for Good, the authors studied 12 nonprofits that achieved extraordinary levels of impact and distilled six counter-intuitive practices that these organizations used to change the world. This revised and updated edition explores how the recent economic and social upheavals has impacted those noteworthy organizations.
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Generations: The Challenge of a Lifetime for Your Nonprofit by Generations: Peter C Brinckerhoff
This hands-on guide includes the Generational Self-Assessment Tool. This tool gives you a baseline to measure your success as you bring generations into your planning. Throughout the book, you’ll find real-life examples that illustrate key points. You’ll also find practical ideas that you can use immediately. Finally, the book includes keys points and discussion questions because you need to get your staff and board involved in this discussion today. The wake-up call been given to nonprofit boards and staff alike: now is the time to plan for generational change.
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Get There Early: Sensing the Future to Compete in the Present by Bob Johansen
Nobody can predict the future, but you still have to make sense of it to be successful. Leaders are facing a world of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity – a world laced with dilemmas. Get There Early shows how to sense the future to provoke new ways of understanding the present. Institute for the Future’s Distinguished Fellow Bob Johansen uses 35 years of 10-year forecasting to unpack complex dilemmas and help leaders seed innovation and strategy. Get There Early helps leaders resolve the constant tension between judging too soon (the classic mistake of the problem solver) and deciding too late (the classic mistake of the academic).
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Governance as Leadership: Reframing the Work of Nonprofit Boards by Richard P. Chait, William P. Ryan, Barbara E. Taylor
Written by noted consultants and researchers attuned to the needs of practitioners, Governance as Leadership redefines nonprofit governance. It provides a powerful framework for a new covenant between trustees and executives: more macrogovernance in exchange for less micromanagement. Informed by theories that have transformed the practice of organizational leadership, this book sheds new light on the traditional fiduciary and strategic work of the board and introduces a critical third dimension of effective trusteeship: generative governance. It serves boards as both a resource of fresh approaches to familiar territory and a lucid guide to important new territory, and provides a road map that leads nonprofit trustees and executives to governance as leadership.
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Governance Committee (Boardsource Committee Series, 1.) by Sandra R. Hughes, Berit M. Lakey, Outi Flynn
All things must be properly fed and cared for in order to thrive and succeed…. A nonprofit board is no different. The governance committee ensures the constant health and effectiveness of the full board and the work it performs for the organization. It expands the traditional idea of a nominating committee, clarifying the variety of responsibilities a governance committee truly has. Governance Committee discusses this group’s challenging responsibility in overseeing the performance of the board and managing compliance to the organization’s mission. Discover how this committee can help all boards – new or seasoned – live up to their highest potential, keeping board members energized and engaged in maintaining value and control.
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How to Help Your Board Govern More Manage Less (Boardsource Governance Series) by Richard P. Chait
This resource was developed by the National Center for Nonprofit Boards, now called Boardsource. It outlines ten ways to help nonprofit boards maintain governance accountability and develop clear boundaries between responsibilities that should appropriately be held at the Board level versus the management level.
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Leadership and the New Science: Discovering Order in a Chaotic World by Margaret J. Wheatley
Leadership and the New Science launched a revolution by demonstrating that ideas drawn from quantum physics, chaos theory, and molecular biology could improve organizational performance. Margaret Wheatley called for free-flowing information, individual empowerment, relationship networks, and organizational change that evolves organically – ideas that have become commonplace. Now Wheatley’s updated classic, based on her experiences with these ideas in a diverse number of organizations on five continents, is available in paperback.
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Leadership in the Era of Economic Uncertainty: Managing in a Downturn by Ram Charan
In Leadership in the Era of Economic Uncertainty, Ram Charan helps you steer your business through the minefield of contracting markets, cash shortages, and ongoing uncertainty. In this concise and highly accessible guide, the author provides practical actions you can execute immediately to protect cash flow vigilantly, even daily, and use cash more efficiently; use ground intelligence to survive the storm and position your business to thrive in the aftermath; develop a better understanding of your customers; reevaluate your pricing strategy and capital expenditures; and use cost cutting strategically.
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Leading the Association: Striking the Right Balance Between Staff and Volunteers by James J. Dunlop
Leadership in associations is a responsibility shared between staff and volunteers. The most effective associations are able to maximize the contributions of staff and volunteers by appropriately defining their relationship. This relationship is not a static one, nor is there a perfect formula for splitting the responsibility. There are, however, some important principles that point to an appropriate direction for your association. This study identifies these principles for the first time. It introduces objective measures of staff-driven and volunteer-driven associations, based on careful research. It explores the relationships between staff and volunteer leaders and examines how and why their roles differ from one association to another. Finally, it identifies specific strategies that leaders may employ to shift the base of influence within their association.
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Leveraging Good Will: Strengthening Nonprofits by Engaging Businesses by Alice Korngold
Leveraging Good Will shows how nonprofit organizations can access the extraordinary resources of businesses, and how for-profits can benefit from partnering with nonprofits. Written by Alice Korngold – an expert in matching business professionals with nonprofit organizations – this important resource clearly demonstrates how nonprofits can gain valuable experience, expertise, relationships, and funding that will elevate and advance their organizations while businesses can build stronger relationships with the community and develop the next generation of leaders. Filled with illustrative examples and real-life success stories, Leveraging Good Will is an insider’s guide to what it takes for nonprofits to transform their organizations through partnerships with businesses. Step by step, the book outlines how to create a solid plan based on proven-in-practice techniques.
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Nonprofit Mergers Workbook: The Leader’s Guide to Considering Negotiating & Executing a Merger by David LA Piana
Here’s everything you’ve wanted (and should) know about nonprofit mergers. This practical guide walks you through the entire merger process from assessing your reasons and readiness, to finding a partner, negotiating the deal, and completing the merger.
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Running Board Meetings: How to Get the Most from Them by Patrick Dunne
Greeted with enthusiasm when it was first published, Patrick Dunne’s practical guide continues to provide valuable, step-by-step advice on every aspect of running board meetings. Witty and succinct, this fully revised and updated third edition will ensure that readers are always well-prepared, every board meeting runs smoothly, necessary procedures are followed, and the board’s decisions are always acted on. Organized into a highly sensible “Before,” “During,” and “After” structure, it leaves no stone unturned.
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Ten Basic Responsibilities of Nonprofit Boards (Governance) by Richard T. Ingram
BoardSource’s all-time bestseller, with more than 175,000 copies sold, not only explores the board’s 10 core responsibilities, it also puts them into the context of the governance challenges facing nonprofits today. This new, expanded edition clarifies and distinguishes the board’s responsibilities from those of the chief executive and senior staff. In addition, it includes two appendixes, one covering the individual responsibilities of board members and the other providing a sample self-assessment for individual board members.
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The Handbook of Nonprofit Governance by Boardsource
From Boardsource, this comprehensive resource explores the overarching question of governance within nonprofit organizations and addresses the roles, structures, and practices of an effective nonprofit. The Handbook of Nonprofit Governance covers the topics that are of most importance to those charged with creating and sustaining effective leadership, including building a board; succession planning; policies; financial oversight; fundraising; planning; strategic planning processes; risk management; and evaluation of the board, CEO, and organization.