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Understanding the dharma center board
The portfolio, if you will, of an effective board of directors is broad and diverse. In the early days of a Zen center, board members may be somewhat more hands-on than they will be in later years. When the organization still has only a few people and a lot to do, the group may function as a working board, heavily involved with the daily operation of the center, care of the facilities, and tasks of various committees. However, as the sangha grows and develops, attracting more participants and members, directors will likely give up these activities in favor of becoming a policy or governing board. Some directors may enjoy their day-to-day participation and elect to remain involved in activities unrelated to governance. However, everyone should be clear about which tasks are performed as part of board service and which are performed as a more general volunteer. An expectation can arise over time that this extra work is required of all board members, which may prevent good potential directors with much-needed skills and limited time from accepting an invitation to serve. Also, if the board members do everything, other sangha members lose the opportunity to participate and don’t feel like part of the practice community. Developing a broad base of participation with shared expectations and clearly defined roles combats the overwhelmed, desperate feeling that leads the leadership core to take on more and more work until it burns out, collapses, and disappears.
It’s the province of the board to step back from the daily details and maintain a higher-level perspective on the life of the center and the sangha. While others may be given the responsibility for getting the newsletter distributed, making sure there are enough candles, and maintaining the center’s library, the board is charged with oversight—making sure that the organization is on track to achieve its desired goals, and achieving them in the right way. The board leads by setting the center’s priorities, directing resources toward those priorities, and helping to remove obstacles in the path of the staff and volunteers who are working to accomplish the mission.
That’s not to say that the board does not have a responsibility to stay up-to-date on what’s going on at the center and how the organization is doing. A disengaged board can’t be effective in its role. Key areas of the center (committees, practice leaders, staff groups, project teams) should provide regular reports to the board about their goals, progress, challenges, needs and concerns. These could be in written form, or a representative could be invited to attend a board meeting to talk about activities and answer questions. It’s a real boost to the board’s image in the sangha to be seen actively listening to and partnering with leaders across the center, and it’s very helpful to the board to hear directly from those who are implementing projects around the organization.
It’s the province of the board to step back from the daily details and maintain a higher-level perspective on the life of the center and the sangha. While others may be given the responsibility for getting the newsletter distributed, making sure there are enough candles, and maintaining the center’s library, the board is charged with oversight—making sure that the organization is on track to achieve its desired goals, and achieving them in the right way. The board leads by setting the center’s priorities, directing resources toward those priorities, and helping to remove obstacles in the path of the staff and volunteers who are working to accomplish the mission.
That’s not to say that the board does not have a responsibility to stay up-to-date on what’s going on at the center and how the organization is doing. A disengaged board can’t be effective in its role. Key areas of the center (committees, practice leaders, staff groups, project teams) should provide regular reports to the board about their goals, progress, challenges, needs and concerns. These could be in written form, or a representative could be invited to attend a board meeting to talk about activities and answer questions. It’s a real boost to the board’s image in the sangha to be seen actively listening to and partnering with leaders across the center, and it’s very helpful to the board to hear directly from those who are implementing projects around the organization.
Governance vs management
The job of a board of directors is governance: setting rules and giving required guidelines to steer an organization’s direction. Management, on the other hand, is concerned with making decisions at various levels to bring about the desired change. In other words, it's the difference between setting policy and executing policy. For many small dharma centers, the board is a working board by necessity, but it's helpful to make specific plans to change that dynamic. It will take a little time, but you need to be clear about what you’re aiming for so you can focus on larger issues and setting direction.
A board has three legal or fiduciary responsibilities:
Under this overall umbrella, a board has four areas of focus or responsibility. Seen this way, board work is no longer a great undifferentiated mass of small questions and problems. It's also no longer a big blank space in which directors wander around looking for something to do (or wondering why a board is even necessary).
The job of a board of directors is governance: setting rules and giving required guidelines to steer an organization’s direction. Management, on the other hand, is concerned with making decisions at various levels to bring about the desired change. In other words, it's the difference between setting policy and executing policy. For many small dharma centers, the board is a working board by necessity, but it's helpful to make specific plans to change that dynamic. It will take a little time, but you need to be clear about what you’re aiming for so you can focus on larger issues and setting direction.
A board has three legal or fiduciary responsibilities:
- Duty of Care: Take care of the nonprofit by ensuring prudent use of all assets, including facility, people, and good will.
- Duty of Loyalty: Ensure that the nonprofit's activities and transactions are, first and foremost, advancing its mission; Recognize and disclose conflicts of interest; Make decisions that are in the best interest of the nonprofit corporation; not in the best interest of the individual board member (or any other individual or for-profit entity).
- Duty of Obedience: Ensure that the nonprofit obeys applicable laws and regulations; follows its own bylaws; and that the nonprofit adheres to its stated corporate purposes/mission.
Under this overall umbrella, a board has four areas of focus or responsibility. Seen this way, board work is no longer a great undifferentiated mass of small questions and problems. It's also no longer a big blank space in which directors wander around looking for something to do (or wondering why a board is even necessary).
The nonprofit board's four areas of responsibility
Ambassadorship
In their ambassadorial function, directors represent the organization internally to the sangha, staff, volunteers and externally to the community (partners and donors) and the world of Sotoshu. They have a broad interest in communications vehicles and tasks (newsletter, website, Facebook, flyers, YouTube channel, publications, etc.). However, their role is not in execution but in strategic communications goals, identity standards and branding. The board is also involved with community outreach, particularly in identifying target groups, what they need and how the temple can help.
Stewardship
Stewardship is about managing resources, the stuff you need in order to function. Generally, that's money, facilities/materials, and people.
- Money: This includes your budgeting function. Fiscal responsibility is why the treasurer is a board officer and why the board takes an official vote on the annual budget as a policy document. You can have accountants, bookkeepers, purchasing, payroll, etc. executing policy, but stewardship of the funds is a board responsibility.
- Facilities: The board's function here is to make sure that you have facilities that support practice. That includes issues of capacity, condition, location, layout, etc. Facilities and budget can be closely tied, especially if you need major repairs or a new building. One reason to create a shared practice vision is so that you can consider this question: Can we achieve this vision with the building and grounds we have? If not, what needs to happen -- repairs, remodeling, landscaping, relocating? Your building and grounds are a resource to be managed.
- People: The board oversees people doing work through its human resource management functions. Managing practitioners as practitioners happens in a different part of the organization.
Policy setting
Policies are about how we make decisions; boards set policy so recurring issues don’t return to it every time a decision is needed. Procedures are about how we execute decisions. Staff and those on the ground are in the best position to know what needs to happen and how to do their jobs. Policies are set by boards; procedures are set by staff (and sometimes volunteers).
For example, say that someone wants a refund on sesshin fees. Board policy says that under certain conditions, refunds will be given; in other words, directors make one decision about the availability of refunds and move on, rather than considering each request on a case by case basis. Staff procedure says who makes the refund, how it’s issued, how it’s recorded, etc. The board provides direction, and the staff does the execution.
The advantages to skillful policy setting are twofold. It makes for an efficient operation, since not everything comes back to the board every time; staff are empowered and not hindered in doing their work. It also makes things consistent, since everyone is treated equitably. There’s no “What did we do last time?” that may result in different responses to the same conditions if no one remembers. It's important to have a complete and readily-accessible list of the official policies on your books so that both directors and staff can refer to it as needed. If don't have one, ask the board secretary to review past minutes to glean adopted policies and compile a list so that you know what your organization is bound by. If that's not possible, start over – either write and adopt a few policies at a time, or create a set of policies based on typical nonprofit operations and adopt the whole document at once, making sure to include in the motion that this document supercedes all previous policies..
Overall, a focus on policy setting gets directors out of the weeds. A mature board moves away from being a working board and toward being a policy board. Of course, this assumes there are staff and volunteers on the ground doing the execution.
For example, say that someone wants a refund on sesshin fees. Board policy says that under certain conditions, refunds will be given; in other words, directors make one decision about the availability of refunds and move on, rather than considering each request on a case by case basis. Staff procedure says who makes the refund, how it’s issued, how it’s recorded, etc. The board provides direction, and the staff does the execution.
The advantages to skillful policy setting are twofold. It makes for an efficient operation, since not everything comes back to the board every time; staff are empowered and not hindered in doing their work. It also makes things consistent, since everyone is treated equitably. There’s no “What did we do last time?” that may result in different responses to the same conditions if no one remembers. It's important to have a complete and readily-accessible list of the official policies on your books so that both directors and staff can refer to it as needed. If don't have one, ask the board secretary to review past minutes to glean adopted policies and compile a list so that you know what your organization is bound by. If that's not possible, start over – either write and adopt a few policies at a time, or create a set of policies based on typical nonprofit operations and adopt the whole document at once, making sure to include in the motion that this document supercedes all previous policies..
Overall, a focus on policy setting gets directors out of the weeds. A mature board moves away from being a working board and toward being a policy board. Of course, this assumes there are staff and volunteers on the ground doing the execution.
human resource management
Human resources includes more than paid staff; it also includes directors and other volunteers. The question to ask is: Do we have the right people in the right places with the right skills doing the right things? Things like staff turnover and recruiting, board engagement and burnout are routinely identified as being among the top challenges facing nonprofits and their boards. You cannot realize your vision and execute your strategic plan without the necessary human resources in place. That means not just having enough people but people with the training and expertise to be effective in their roles. Recruiting based on whether someone has a pulse is not good human resource management.
What makes dharma centers fail
The top five challenges for nonprofit boards in 2023 according to one consulting firm:
• Managing post-COVID revenue
• Staff turnover and recruiting
• Succession planning
• Board engagement
• Technology upgrades
Sound familiar? Dharma centers are facing all of those things today. Maybe the sesshin fees that used to come in regularly when everyone practiced in the zendo have dried up when practice went online during the pandemic -- not to mention that the investments we suddenly had to make in new technology both dented our budgets and changed the look and feel of our practice. Many of us have seen huge shifts in the sangha, with some practitioners disappearing for good. Teachers across North America are aging and stepping back, and there aren't enough new, younger teachers coming up to take over for them. Temple boards have a number of important strategic issues in front of them, and they're not alone in that.
Without careful handling, these issues can bring your operation to a halt. Common reasons that a nonprofit fails include lack of funding, having no plan, people burning out, and a failure to evolve. In order to head off these things, we need a board stocked with effective directors.
• Managing post-COVID revenue
• Staff turnover and recruiting
• Succession planning
• Board engagement
• Technology upgrades
Sound familiar? Dharma centers are facing all of those things today. Maybe the sesshin fees that used to come in regularly when everyone practiced in the zendo have dried up when practice went online during the pandemic -- not to mention that the investments we suddenly had to make in new technology both dented our budgets and changed the look and feel of our practice. Many of us have seen huge shifts in the sangha, with some practitioners disappearing for good. Teachers across North America are aging and stepping back, and there aren't enough new, younger teachers coming up to take over for them. Temple boards have a number of important strategic issues in front of them, and they're not alone in that.
Without careful handling, these issues can bring your operation to a halt. Common reasons that a nonprofit fails include lack of funding, having no plan, people burning out, and a failure to evolve. In order to head off these things, we need a board stocked with effective directors.