What Successful Boards Need Now

Last year the consulting firm Association Laboratory, Inc. released a white paper calling for stronger association governance measures, Creating and Sustaining a Strategic Board of Directors  (opens in a new tab). Based on interviews with 25 association executives, the paper prescribed a board-staff relationship that was built on strong decision-making skills and a culture of accountability.

It’s a year later, and 2025 has muddled associations’ expectations. Those with members who rely on federal grants have been whipsawed. DEI initiatives are under closer scrutiny, as is the tax-exempt status of nonprofitdom in general. What do boards and CEOs need at this moment?

Association Laboratory president and CEO Dean West, FASAE, suggests that as a starting point, associations get in touch with their mid-term memories. “This is not the first time there has been disruption, or the first time there has been challenges for the nonprofit sector, and I think part of the challenge is that many boards and CEOs seem to think they’re operating in a unique time,” he says. “They got a lesson during the pandemic in how quickly they could move if necessary, and promptly forgot it.”

Being a more effective, more responsive board may require associations to recover that sense of urgency. He offered a few tips on how to do that in 2025.

Build for risk tolerance. “Our CEOs and our boards are incredibly conservative and risk-averse, because you’ve got that one year, and if you’ve screwed it up and get booed, it’s no fun, and then you’re gone,” he says. “Or if you make this phenomenal decision when it works three years from now, no one will remember you were on the board when the decision was made. So there’s nothing but disincentives to take risk and nothing but incentives to support the status quo.” Associations need to look for talent that will break the mold and understand the value of calculated risk.

Train on Decision-Making. West advocates for a volunteer system where volunteer leaders are trained on all the elements of an association’s work—meetings, finances, education, etc. But the committee roles they assume on the way to the board should be designed to hone their decision-making skills, not expertise on departmental particulars. “What you’re doing for me as a participant is that as I go from committee to task force to committee, I’m building my ability to accept risk and accept that there may be consequences beyond my knowledge, negative consequences,” West says. “You’re also teaching me to look at the long term.”

Make Volunteering Meaningful. Younger volunteers want to see a clear path to a board seat. They also have plenty of other options for their volunteer time, so associations need to be clear with them about what West calls the “volunteer value proposition.” “You can say, we’ve got a five-year path,” he says. “We’re going to teach you how to be a better volunteer leader. We’re going to give you an opportunity to make an impact. And we’re designing around that you won’t just randomly show up and suddenly, like be licking envelopes. So we’re going to productively use your time to have an impact.”

Don’t be afraid to triage. If the current board is moving too slowly, a CEO and/or board chair may need to be more proactive about hustling them along the path to a clearer decision. “You need to be able to say, ‘The assumptions facing our decisions from last year are no longer valid. We have to come to a decision about what to do about it very, very quickly,’” he says. “You may have to force your board through it, and you may wish you had a better board. But you can pull together a group of people with unique knowledge of the circumstances, and you run them through a process as fast as possible to come up with some choices or options, that the board eventually acts on. If I’m an association facing a dramatically different environment, I say, Well, what kind of understanding and competencies and attitudes do I need out of a group of people to properly assess the implications of that environment and make decisions about what we should do as a result? And you custom design that group.”