Job Description for Board Members
What are job descriptions for nonprofit board members?
Board members are trustees who act on behalf of an organization’s constituents, including service recipients, funders, members, the government, and taxpayers. The board of directors has the principal responsibility for fulfillment of the organization’s mission and the legal accountability for its operations. This means that as a group they are in charge of establishing a clear organizational mission, forming the strategic plan to accomplish the mission, overseeing and evaluating the plan’s success, hiring a competent executive director and providing adequate supervision and support to that individual, ensuring financial solvency of the organization, interpreting and representing the community to the organization, and instituting a fair system of policies and procedures for human resource management.
Board members have a duty of loyalty to the organization, its staff and other board members. While differences of opinion are sure to arise, board members should seek to keep disagreements impersonal. By practicing discretion and accepting decisions made on a majority basis, board unity and confidence will be promoted.
Board members accomplish their functions through regular meetings and by establishing a committee structure that is appropriate to the size of the organization and the board. Ideally, board members arrive at meetings prepared and ready to engage in thoughtful dialogue, and there is a group process which generates and uses the best thinking of its members.
Boards should be open to self-evaluation and regularly review their own composition to ensure constituent representation, and board expertise and commitment. Boards also are responsible for evaluating and determining compensation for the executive director.
