Non-profit governance boards.

Some say governance boards are frivolous and useless, since the real direction comes from staff. Others argue they’re disconnected from the communities they’re meant to serve, because staff does all the groundwork. Some see boards as existing to support the operational leader, doing whatever that person wants, protecting them whenever needed. Others view them as capacity fillers, stepping in to do work staff can’t or won’t take on.

But boards are necessary. They exist for a reason, and they’re not meant to be free operational labour or to shield management from accountability. They’re meant to provide a distributed balance of power: a second set of eyes to ensure the organization is being steered wisely and in the right direction to serve its people and its purpose. They’re supposed to be a collective of diverse perspectives, removed from the day-to-day, able to reflect thoughtfully on long-term strategy and direction. And sometimes they’re the last line of accountability, a final resort for whistleblowing when issues between management and staff become unresolvable.

Too often, though, in nonprofit settings, I’ve seen governance boards that are weak or effectively absent. They become captured by their operational leaders, wrapped around their fingers like indulgent parents by a charming child. They succumb to management’s pressure and agendas, as if they lack the agency or knowledge to know better, simply because they’re not “doing the work” themselves.

A lot of times, a weak board isn’t weak because its members have bad intentions. Often, it’s about prioritizing comfort over accountability, consensus over debate. There’s a real fear of crossing the delicate line between governance and operations, so the default becomes “trusting staff” without question. Other times, board members and staff are friends, social acquaintances, or longtime colleagues, blurring boundaries and responsibilities. In these cases, dissent is treated as disruption, pathologized as ego, and characterized as disloyalty. The result is a board that functions as a rubber stamp or an extension of management, rather than a critical independent body. This is how institutional accountability gets eroded and governance gets captured. 

I’ve sat on multiple nonprofit boards, from grassroots organizations I’ve founded to institutions with multimillion-dollar budgets and thousands of staff. Regardless of the size, the same dynamics emerge.

I’m a question-asker. To me, asking a good question is like forming a good thesis. In science, you’re trained to formulate good questions: to interrogate, to examine, to identify the constants and the variables. Put me in a llama show at a fair, and if the ringmaster needs audience questions to fill an hour of programming, but everyone is shy? I’ll be right there with the kid next to me, asking anything and everything.

I remember when I started my board service at the local public library. I was entering an environment where questions were rare and board meetings mostly consisted of hand raises and praises. But I asked my questions, especially the ones people didn’t want to hear, because I took my role seriously. Sometimes I could feel the heat of management’s eyes searing into the back of my neck. It got to the point where I consulted an external board advisor and confessed that maybe I just wasn’t a good fit for the board’s culture.

She calmly assured me that there was a reason I was invited to the board: to bring a bit of me to the table. She reminded me that board culture evolves with the people who are part of it. She said she could tell that ethics and duty mattered to me, and encouraged me to keep asking questions. Because asking those questions was how I could fulfill my duty to steward the institution ethically, on behalf of the public.

Another time on the same board, management brought us a contentious issue. They wanted to retract the long-standing Living Wage policy, which ensured that every worker earned at least the local living wage, typically higher than the legislated minimum. We were given no notice. No written report. No time to reflect. We were told a snap decision had to be made within minutes, a decision that would directly impact the lowest-paid workers in the entire system.

Had this been a younger version of me, I might have caved to the pressure, deferred to management, and gone along with the group. But this time, I refused. I refused because I’ve seen others, on other boards and committees I’ve served on, say no on the record. I’ve seen people resign rather than back something they knew was wrong. I remembered that I had that same power to dissent. So I did. I was the only one who did.

But the decision still passed.

There was no collective reflection. No one asked if I was okay. No one echoed my concerns. But my goal was never to win. It was to show that dissent is possible, that it’s ethical and necessary to do it on record, even if you’re the only one.

That day reminded me: I have the power to say no. Saying no is governance. And saying no can be good governance.

To this day, when I serve on governance boards, whether I founded the organization or am stewarding a legacy institution, I begin by checking in with my moral compass.

I’m not here to please leadership or to preserve harmony. I remind myself that I have the agency, and above all, the duty, to ask tough questions and to refuse complicity in problematic behaviour, unethical decisions, or misguided directions. 

Good governance is not about loyalty to personalities. It is about loyalty to principle. And sometimes, principle sounds like one word: no.