I had a fabulous time last week speaking with theater board members and leadership as part of the Theater Wisconsin gathering outside Milwaukee (at Ten Chimneys…if you haven’t been, you need to go). The subject of my particular part of the event was ”Clarity vs. Chatter: The theater board’s new role in knowing (or defining) the difference.”
There’s an awful lot of chatter in board governance and in institutional leadership. It was fun and fascinating to explore the issue with folks in the trenches.
To get some clarity around the role of the governing board, we worked from a wonderfully clear statement from board guru John Carver:
“Simply put, the board exists (usually on someone else’s behalf) to be accountable that its organization works.”
The two challenges for the cultural nonprofit in that definition are: on who’s behalf, and the definition of what it means to “work.” That’s where the chatter begins, and the clarity tends to fade away. Thankfully, in both cases, the answers are up to the board to decide. Do you work for the audience, the artists, the community? Just decide and go with it. What does it mean for your organization to “work”? Decide that with clarity, and resist the tendency for others to define it for you — funders, advocates, audiences, artists.
My thanks to Theater Wisconsin for the opportunity to chat. I hope any and all that were there contact me to continue the conversation.
Yes – but you left out the most important factor in shifting clarity: funding!