Participants in its study suggested that foundations provide more financial support to the operating budgets and infrastructure of the nonprofit sector to offer more training and development for staff and board members to aid the leadership transition. Participants also proposed that more events and meetings be arranged for the different generations to meet and form a complete plan for transition.
A report by the Urban Institute found that most heads of medium-sized nonprofits give poor marks to their trustees for fundraising and monitoring board performance.
''Substantial percentages feel their boards are doing a poor or fair job in many areas,” says researcher Francie Ostrower. ''Our findings clearly do reveal disturbing levels of CEO dissatisfaction with board performance,” largely due to a lack of activeness in recruiting new trustees, fundraising, and making donations themselves.
The study proposes initiatives to bring more diversity to the leadership segment of nonprofits and more support for board development as it found that, on average, 83% of trustees are white, and 36% of boards have no minority members.
Another report by Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisers calls for foundation leaders to ''reconsider the many ways to incorporate diverse perspectives into solving our greatest challenge” of concentrating on underserved and diverse communities. It found that the number of grants and grant dollars targeting minority areas did not increase in proportion to increases in staff and board diversity, reports an article by Inside Philanthropy, a publication of Philanthropy Journal.
''To fix the urgent social problems we face, foundations and nonprofits need to fix their own internal problems. With foundation investment, for example, nonprofits must develop sustainable business and fundraising strategies; build and engage effective boards; find and keep smart leaders and groom the next generation of leaders; unleash the power for productive collaboration; and work to fix flawed policies underlying the symptoms and causes of social problems,” the article suggests.
The charitable marketplace needs greater investment to increase the effectiveness of nonprofits and foundations in order to accomplish its goal of bettering our communities.
