The
Next Steps in USCF Governance Reform
Teamwork is what nonprofit governance is
all about - a group of diverse individuals who come together to put their
collective talents, knowledge, and experience to work helping an organization
be all it can be. All to often, however, boards wind
up functioning less like teams and more like caste systems in which one
individual or small group makes the important decisions while the others are
ignored or even driven away. Naturally a board will feel accountable to those
who nominated or selected them. Often, the very structure of a nonprofit
board can inhibit teamwork and promote division and frustration. Many boards
are simply too large to accommodate an inclusive approach to decision-making,
while others have complicated structures and other obstacles that stand in
the way of better participation. Membership
as a Key Element A formal membership organization has
members who can have a say in the structure and priorities of their
organization. In 2001 the USCF membership was empowered to elect the
directors who hire/evaluate the Executive Director. The first membership
election of these directors will occur in 2003 and the first Executive Board
to be fully elected by the
membership will be put in place in late summer of 2005. As GM Larry Evans
has stated, "No one has ever claimed that allowing the full adult
membership to directly vote for their Policy Board is a panacea for all of
the Federation's electoral problems, but why should the Federation be
different from most other comparable membership organizations that extend
voting rights to dues-paying members in good standing? How long will it
continue to squander its most precious resource and best salesmen – its own
members?" In the for profit sector, we can easily see
that a board of directors is the voice of the owners (shareholders) of the
corporation. It is not always apparent that nonprofit organizations also have
owners. Most modern governance models conceive of the governing board as
being the on-site voice of that ownership. Just as the corporate board exists
to speak for the shareholders, the nonprofit board exists to represent and to
speak for the interests of the owners. A board that is committed to
representing the interests of the owners should not allow itself
to make decisions based on the best interests of those who are not the
owners. Hence, boards with a sense of their legitimate ownership relationship
should no longer act as if their job is to represent themselves, staff,
volunteers, customers, or special interests. Who are the owners of a nonprofit
organization? For a membership organization, its members are the owners. It
is the board as a body that speaks for the ownership, not each board member
except as he or she contributes to the final board product. On behalf of the
ownership, the board has total authority over the organization and total
accountability for the organization. The leadership is accountable to the
membership for producing results towards advancing the organizations mission.
The board is responsible for sustaining the mission, ensuring the
organization has the resources necessary to fulfill the mission, and
providing oversight as well as independent verification
ensuring fiduciary and legal requirements are met. Board members
represent the membership and should be individually and collectively
responsible to them for the sound and proper performance of their duties. Better Accountability is Necessary
Accountability can exist in any environment
as long as the membership can truly and directly have the final say if
necessary. In other words, if any delegation of authority occurs by the
membership the basic question is whether the delegation of authority is reversible
-- controlled by those who delegated it. Various ways to become a more
accountable organization include:
Don't treat your membership like mushrooms-keeping them in the dark.
The more you can share about your business, the more members can contribute
to helping advance the mission. If you have dark secrets, you're in the wrong
business. Be truthful to yourself and others. It is critical to keep the membership
engaged. People want to know what is going on in the organization. Talk to
them! Organize a consistent system of passing on information. Better
accountability will be the USCF Board of Directors most important challenge. What
About New Blood? Larry Cohen has stated: "The big
question (either for the USCF or local clubs) has to be where will the new blood come from? If the same people end up running things
and new people get discouraged what will the future of USCF be?" In my
view, James Eade probably gave the best definition
of new blood. "By new blood, I
mean people who are not part of our state affiliate programs, who are not TDs
or organizers, state officials or any of the other traditional sources. I
don't simply mean people who haven't been on the PB before. I mean NEW blood. In fact, the more I observe the USCF
governance system, the more I'm starting to believe that state affiliate
service should be a disqualification for the Board, and I'm only half-joking.
(IMHO) We need fewer people who have mastered the intricacies of petty chess
politics on the Board of the USCF." This refers to what appears to be
some sort of musical chairs between state officials, the Chess Trust/other
chess organizations, and the USCF board. More importantly, too often there is
the problem with former employees, contractors, organizers, or TDs becoming
board members or former board members becoming employees, consultants, or CL
contributers for the organization. This unhealthy cycle of overseeing the use
of membership funds and being compensated by membership funds must stop. We
need to use standard nonprofit methods to attract new talent and remove
ineffective leaders. Larry Cohen also asked "The USCF
already has a problem with retaining members, how will it deal with the
prospect of trying to get new people into the actual running of the
USCF?" There is a best practice board building cycle that features
multiple steps for a board to follow that assists with this effort that
includes:
One of the more important responsibilities of a board is to ensure
that it continuously adds qualified new members and keeps them engaged. Board
building shouldn't just happen when it's time to fill a vacancy or by
allowing state officers to arbitrarily seat board members at the Annual
Meeting, but should be a continuous process that includes year-round
activities. An important individual board member responsibility is to inform
others about the organization and suggest possible nominees to the board who
can make significant contributions to the work of the board and the
organization. Many boards have decided to craft a board
member agreement or contract that they ask each new board member to sign as a
part of the installation ceremony. These agreements usually spell out the
responsibilities of board members and specific expectations tied to service
on their particular board. These expectations may define requirements for
personal giving, committee or task force duties, meeting attendance
obligations, board member ethics, conflicts of
interests, board recruitment, and other activities in which every board
member is expected to participate. The purpose of these agreements is to
remind board members of what serving on the board means. They are not legal
documents like employment contracts. Such agreements act as gentle reminders
while making a point that there are obligations with volunteering. The recruitment of talented, team-oriented
board members may be the number one issue facing the nonprofit sector in the
21st century. Finding the right people with the right expertise - whether it
is in technology, fund-raising, marketing, or finance - is critical to the
organizations success. The encouragement of other than the special interest
and the wealthy to serve is important to improve the participation of
talented individuals. A lack of
diversity and limited choice will stifle an organization over time. One of
the most common ways of assisting the board in engaging the right people is
through a governance committee, which is the entity that meets the need for a
coordinated, continuous program of board member recruitment and board
self-evaluation. The committee's role often is to identify, cultivate,
recruit, orient, and educate board members as well as potential board
members. This is the group that talks with the chair and the rest of the
board about what kinds of people you need to make your board a well-rounded,
high-performing team. The governance committee's main role is to increase the
talent pool, recruit new board members and to assure that each board member
is equipped with the proper tools and motivation to carry out his and her
responsibilities. Equally important with identifying,
encouraging, cultivating, recruiting, and orienting prospective board members
is rotating out board members to make room for new skills and insights. Term
limits is an often-used mechanism to assist with such rotation. Three years
is the most common term length for board members according to a recent survey
conducted by BoardSource and A Common Message for Elections The quality of
election campaigns in the USCF has been notoriously low, and the mudslinging
is awful. It can be very expensive to run a successful campaign. Many
successful businessmen take one look at the USCF political arena and decide
they have better things to do with their time and money. Hence the same faces
year after year involved in USCF leadership. Providing a common message that
stands or falls in the public arena, rather than private campaigning in the
election of the Executive Board is an important goal. More information about
the qualifications and actions of our Delegates is also important. To do this
it is necessary to have a basic mechanism for a significant public message to
voting members which provides an equal starting point for quality information
from all candidates. Ethical guidelines for campaigning would be helpful.
Access to more electoral information that is publicly available to all voting
members will enhance the process. Such quality information can help equalize
the need to spend a great deal of money on a campaign thus allowing
relatively more resources to be directed to support chess related activities.
Too little information is available under the current system. Less negative
campaigning would be more productive. More USCF sponsored public information
about candidate’s qualifications, their vision,
perspectives on the challenges facing the USCF, and what they have produced
or will accomplish for the membership as a board member will greatly improve
the process. A well informed electorate on all issues is problematic
for any size group and in reality impractical for a very large group,
although enough quality information must be made available to allow the
voters to become a monitorial membership that scans the environment for
controversial or off course events that, in their opinion, require their
response. The Case for Election by Office We favor a system
in which the electorate vote for candidates by position as opposed to the
system in which the elected Executive Board itself determines who is
president, vice president, secretary and treasurer. A 'Yasser Seirawan' type might run for the presidency but would
likely back away from running for an EB post without any guarantee of serving
in any particular position. Under the Illinois General Not-For-Profit
Corporation Act the President can call special meetings of the members. It is
important this office of trust be given the consent of the governed. Voting for candidates
by position allows a competition like atmosphere and encourages debate. A
candidate must tell you how he/she is qualified for a specific job, not just
being on the board and they must convince you they can do it better than
someone else can. This also involves debating against opponents. This process
is highly informative to the membership and often gets them very involved. When just having a
group running for seven seats you rarely get any debate or battle of ideas.
Such group activity encourages slates or tickets to run which destroys the
diversity of ideas and talent a successful board requires. You may even have
a member with the least votes become the President of the organization.
Candidates can be elected based only on their affiliation with a slate and
not on their qualifications. If there are few candidates for the number of
seats then people can get elected with very few votes. However in this
process we think each potential board member should state how they would
handle a presidency and how the would move chess forward in America. Indeed
under the current USCF bylaws each Executive Board member is a potential
president. We also would encourage moderated debates [online] with the
candidates so they can be asked questions and we can see how they respond. In all of this we
need to remember we are looking for board members to represent chess to the
world, help guide a nonprofit corporation, and be the role models for our
children. Chess credentials, wealth, and celebrity have little to do with
this. The voting members need to understand this clearly. It takes several
years to build up relationships and to carry out any plan so it behooves the
corporation not to change its leader every year or midstream due to political
disagreement. Greater
participation in elections is clearly an important goal. The goal has never
been to have a majority of eligible voters participating as this is
impractical with large groups. In fact, it is interesting to note that nonprofit organizations
typically have participation rates among eligible voters of less than 20
percent with between 5 to 15 percent being the norm for a traditional
process. You often will get more towards the 20 percent end of that
membership participation rate in elections if you use mail ballots, have
candidates run for a specific office, include informative election material
with the ballot, and include return postage. Surprisingly it appears
organizations have demonstrated a 30 to 50 percent increase in participation
rates when the capability is offered to view election information and cast
votes online using a special and secure election webpage. Improving
Governance Participation Volunteers are the cornerstone on which the
not for profit sector is predicated. Increasing volunteer involvement and
building a more productive board for a nonprofit organization requires
painstaking care and will take time. However, the effort does yield results
towards a more informed and engaged membership as well as a more energetic board.
It has taken more than twenty years to bring about the current Federation
situation but there is now an opportunity to change the organizations course
towards best practice. The very first steps involve listening to the
membership, encouraging their participation, and respecting each other. The
sooner one starts in this direction the sooner one can better accommodate a
more inclusive approach and remove the obstacles that stand in the way of
better organizational results. |