Term Limits for Nonprofit Governing Boards

Now it’s time to get back to one of my favorite themes: nonprofit governance boards. This time we’re going to discuss term limits for board members.

I have long been a proponent of term limits for members of nonprofit boards. There are at least three reasons for this. First, it builds and broadens leadership in the organization. Second, term limits allow board members to see “the light at the end of the tunnel.” Third, it forces the board to bring in new leadership each year, and that has the potential to freshen the governance approach with new perspectives, experiences and skills.

Over the years of my practice, however, I have found a good deal of resistance among sitting board members to the idea of term limits. Even though many of them apparently chafe at the prospect of being board members “forever” many of their fellows, to the contrary, are eager to retain their standing and status. Why is that?

One potential reason for this reluctance to accept term limits for oneself as a board member might be that boards of nonprofits have tended since the late 19th century to be more homogeneous than heterogeneous. We gain some insight on this from an article by Pamela A. Popielorz and J. Miller McPherson entitled “On the Edge or In Between: Niche Position, Niche Overlap, and the Duration of Voluntary Association Memberships" that appeared in the American Journal of Sociology 101 (3) November 1995, pp 698-730, as quoted in “The Nature of the Nonprofit Sector” by J. Steven Ott, Westview Press, 2001.

Popielorz and McPherson show us that “voluntary organizations lose fastest those members who are either atypical of the group (the niche edge effect) or subject to competition from other groups (the niche overlap effect). In fact, given the independence of these two effects, an organization most risks losing members who are both atypical of that group and typical of many other groups. In this way, the membership-level effects explain why voluntary associations are homogeneous.” They go on to assert, “when an organization acquires a member who is unlike other members, that member does not last for long…. Selection against extreme members keeps the niche boundaries of the organization in focus. In other words, the process of selection acting through the niche edge effect and the niche overlap effect, act as a homogenizing mechanism for voluntary associations.”

So, what we’re seeing is “like attracts like” and repels that which is different. Comfort level, familiarity, common experience, similar skills, approximately the same social status are some of the factors that may play a role in bringing together people who want to stay together in a nonprofit board. This indicates that in many instances it can be quite a trick to get board members to willingly give up their seats and retire from the board in order to permit “fresh blood” to infiltrate the board.

So, in order to motivate board members to willingly give up their seats for the good of the organization and for the sake of good governance, we must first get back to the essential motivation and purpose for which the nonprofit in question was founded. So the question becomes, “Have you, Mr. or Ms. Board Member become a member of this nonprofit’s board as a way to meet your own personal needs for camaraderie and good fellow feeling, or have you become a volunteer in order to further the aims of the organization? If you’re here to aggrandize yourself, then it’s time you left anyway. And if not, then in the name of advancing the organization you should be willing to move aside and let others lead for a while.

The thought behind this is that too much homogeneity is not good for nonprofit governance in today’s competitive marketplace. But many board members get “comfy” in their surroundings and don’t want to give up the power, the responsibility, the acclaim and the privilege of saying what should happen to a nonprofit organization.

That’s why term limits are so crucial to good governance. They tend to work against homogeneity to some extent, and they provide the opportunity for diverse opinions, experiences and skill sets to apply their knowledge to the problems currently being faced by the organization.

Two links that might be helpful. The North Carolina Center for Nonprofits has a Term Limits, Attendance Policy, and Confidentiality pdf, and Board Source is a more complete listing of available resources on this subject.