Charities Can Benefit From Diverse Boards

To the Editor:

As the development officer of a nonprofit community center with a budget of less than $1-million, I had some thoughts about Pablo Eisenberg’s commentary “Foundation Boards Shouldn’t Be Filled Just With Wealthy People” (June 30).

I am always looking to the board for more: more personal giving (theirs isn’t 100 percent); more involvement in pursuing major gifts (the local Association of Fundraising Professionals chapter hosted a symposium on this, and I was able to coax two board members and my CEO to attend with me); more participation in fund-raising events; and more leads for sponsorships.

So at first glance, my reaction to Mr. Eisenberg’s contention would be no, I want board members with the capacity to give and the connections to find other donors.

But I realized, on later reflection, that what he wrote was not only true but very important, for this reason: By serving on a board that is diverse by class, such individuals would have a chance (perhaps their only one) to meet each other and share stories.

Time and time again, it is hammered away at me in professional-development workshops that I need to get stories from the people who have benefited from my organization’s mission and tell them to potential donors to make my case persuasive.

There is a human dynamic that I feel Mr. Eisenberg touched on that needs to be amplified: It is only through interactions with persons of different classes, professions, educational status, etc., that we are able to acquire social empathy necessary for guiding a nonprofit organization in the realization of its mission.

It’s important not only that the makeup of a nonprofit’s board resembles the community it intends to serve (just as Mr. Eisenberg said, foundation boards should be “a representative sample of America”); it is absolutely vital that members of a class-diverse board talk to one another in order to learn from each other, because without that knowledge such a board would be handicapped in carrying out its fundamental responsibilities.

I would argue that such an exchange should be a basic activity of any board, handled as either a subsidiary process, like a board retreat or training, or better, as a regular agenda item, like “show and tell.”

However it is accomplished, it must be a part of a board member’s job description. A person’s story puts the humanity back into the cause, adding an emotional component that mere statistics cannot replace. It is that emotional element that will fire up a board to set relevant, responsive policy and program goals and work at finding the resources the staff needs to achieve them.

Foundation boards should set the example and promote this kind of diversification among the boards of the organizations they fund. How else are we to know who, as a society, wereally are and what we need?

Douglas Levy

Grant Writer/Development Officer

Kenan Center

Lockport, N.Y.