Foundations vary widely in context and approach, yet a core set of elements can support any genuine effort to shift power to impacted communities through governance.
Organizational buy-in and capacity:
Are there key leaders on staff and the board to lead this transformation — and keep it going even when bumps are encountered? This shift will create real work and will need in-house capacity to manage it and keep it moving. Investing in professional facilitation can be invaluable, as can consulting services that ease the added responsibilities of board development that typically fall to the staff.
Openness to culture change and understanding what it entails:
Is the board committed to fully including impacted community members not just in composition but in how it works? This begins with taking stock of the culture, co-creating new norms as a new board, and regularly evaluating and adapting.
Continuous equity learning and practice:
Is the board building a shared power analysis and approaching this change as more than a diversity exercise?
Learning orientation and humility:
Does the board recognize that it doesn’t have all the answers? Does it have a culture of learning and honest and direct feedback? A board welcoming impacted community members must be ready to put assumptions and egos aside.
Reflecting on progress — and future work
Building governance models that welcome and engage impacted community members requires boards to operate differently, creating new modes of engagement and continuous evaluation and improvement.
Questions to keep asking as the board evolves:
Q: Is the culture shifting? Are old patterns being replicated or are new ones being co-created?
Q: Who is participating? Who has influence?
Q: Is community ownership and power, as well as institutional accountability to impacted communities, increasing? Would impacted community members both on and off the board say so?
And don’t stop there:
Q: What would it take to have a board composed entirely of impacted community members?
Beginning with this end in mind, no matter how remote or hypothetical, can push your group’s creative thinking and its sense of possibility, boldness, and urgency.
Q: If you reached the goal of having a board composed entirely of impacted community members, what would become possible? What could your foundation achieve, what legacy could it build, and what could communities themselves define, direct, and create with their own assets, expertise, and vision at the center?
Reflecting on progress — and future work
Building governance models that welcome and engage impacted community members requires boards to operate differently, creating new modes of engagement and continuous evaluation and improvement.
Questions to keep asking as the board evolves:
Q: Is the culture shifting? Are old patterns being replicated or are new ones being co-created?
Q: Who is participating? Who has influence?
Q: Is community ownership and power, as well as institutional accountability to impacted communities, increasing? Would impacted community members both on and off the board say so?
And don’t stop there:
Q: What would it take to have a board composed entirely of impacted community members?
Beginning with this end in mind, no matter how remote or hypothetical, can push your group’s creative thinking and its sense of possibility, boldness, and urgency.
Q: If you reached the goal of having a board composed entirely of impacted community members, what would become possible? What could your foundation achieve, what legacy could it build, and what could communities themselves define, direct, and create with their own assets, expertise, and vision at the center?
The foundation board can not only help advance positive and equitable social impact that benefits impacted communities, but also provide an opportunity to practice true democracy. In this way, funders can be the change that they seek.
