Peter F. Drucker on Practical Leadership

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Nonprofit Governance: Lessons for Success

DESPITE THE ALMOST LIMITLESS diversity in their mission and size, the majority of American nonprofits have the same governance structure. They have an unpaid, outside, part-time board. And, they have a paid full-time executive officer, called variously president, executive director, executive secretary, senior pastor, administrator, executive vice-president, or general manager. Despite their almost limitless diversity, nonprofits are alike also in that in many—maybe the majority—this governance structure malfunctions as often as it functions. Boards are criticized as being “rubber stamps” ...