How well does your organization orient its board members to their work? I know organizations that do a great job of it and organizations that have never given it a passing thought. Stop and ponder this for a moment: are people born with the expertise to serve on a nonprofit board? Then how does one acquire the knowledge and skills necessary to be an effective board member? I suspect that many would say that they learned by watching others and doing the work assigned to them. All well and good, I suppose, if we simply want board members who rubber stamp the leader’s decisions. Now stop and ponder this: the nature of nonprofit work and funding is increasingly complex due to any number of things, including increased professionalization, greater scrutiny from government, regulators and funders, heated competition for audience and dollars, and relentless escalation of fixed overhead costs. This is the nonprofit world as we now know it. It is not for the faint of heart. What ...