Foundation boards are where strategy gets set, resources get allocated, and the terms of debate get defined, yet the community members most impacted by those decisions are rarely in the room. Community on Board: A Tool for Shifting Power through Foundation Governance invites funders to change that.

Community on Board offers practical guidance on how to move beyond advisory roles and tokenism, toward welcoming impacted community members as full governing equals. It confronts the forces that keep conventional boards conventional, including assumptions about what counts as expertise, bylaws never designed with community in mind; and fiduciary frameworks borrowed from for-profit settings. And it insists changing board composition alone is not enough — the culture of the board must change too. That means co-creating new norms for meetings, decision making, and conflict; compensating community members for their time; and continuously asking whether power is actually shifting.

Featuring a variety of real-world examples, this tool offers provocations, practical tips, and other resources for funders ready to reorganize the boardroom around accountability to the people their work is meant to serve.