It's the board, stupid.

Berkshire Museum's (Pittsfield, MA) drama roils on, the museum world is thinking a lot about deaccessioning. And it should. The New England Museum Association even added a last-minute session to its annual meeting roster to talk about it. But here at Leadership Matters, the Berkshire Museum's problems have made us think a lot about boards, board behavior, and organizational culture. Remember Bill Clinton's famous tag line, "It's the economy, stupid"? How about a variation on that for the museum world: "It's the board, stupid."? How many of a museum or heritage organization's problems, both financial and cultural, trace back to the board? Yes, yes, mission and vision are really important, but assuming they're beautifully crafted in the beginning, they don't have power on their own. They're just words. The folks empowered to carry them forward into the world, to interpret them, to make the magic happen, are first and foremost, board members, and in a recent Stanford survey of non-profit boards 27-percent of board members lack a the depth of knowledge, and the engagement required to help their organizations succeed. Pretty shocking. At larger museums, boards are often referred to with the pronoun "they," as in "I wonder if they will give us a raise this year?" They are rarely seen except when they meet on site several times a year. Then, the most jaded staff make jokes about which board members will be able to find the meeting room. They have all the cookies, and yet it's so easy for them to lose their way, literally and figuratively. And who can tell them anything? They are the board. They hire the museum leadership that we write about each week on these very pages. This is not to say all museum and heritage organization board members are jerks. They are not. Many are exemplary human beings, but just as being promoted from assistant director to director doesn't make you any smarter, neither does board membership. And yet so much depends on board members' good work. So if you're a board member, if you work with museum boards or if you're a museum director who wields some influence, here are some things we hope you've tackled:

Does your board understand its legal responsibilities? Is that information available in their board handbook? Does your organization have regular check-ins about those responsibilities vis a vis the organization?
What kind of orientation does your board offer new members? If information is passed orally from member to member, you may want to re-think that. There is plenty of support for how to design a board orientation plan. We are particular fans of Joan Garry because of her clear, simple approach. You could do way worse than to take her advice.
Does your board have a strong nominating or governance committee? Do they understand your organization deeply and completely enough to know that being wealthy and well-connected might not be all your organization needs?
Is your board among the 52--percent of non-profit boards nationally whose work is done by a board within a board? If the answer is yes, do you understand when and how that happened, and whether it is still working?
Does your board have a respectful, collegial relationship with your executive director? Does it have succession plans for board and staff leadership?
Does your board understand that its primary responsibility is fiduciary? According to the Stanford survey only 42-percent of all non-profits have a "give or get" policy where members are required to donate or raise a particular amount each year. That might not work for your board, but even a modest required donation levels the playing field, and reminds all board members why they are there. There is no nirvana of boards where everyone internalizes the museum's mission, gets along with the executive director, contributes time and money and gets others to do the same, but if board members universally understood their trusteeship as work, based in a museum's mission, perhaps there would be less disruption, less mediocrity, and more organizational success, and raising operations endowments by selling the collection would never ever be considered. Joan Baldwin