Board Research to Practice : Board Roles and Responsibilities

While virtually everyone agrees that the role of the board in nonprofit organizations is to enable them to achieve their mission, differences arise when it comes to specifying exactly what the board's authority and responsibilities should be. In fact, this is one of the most frequently written about topic in the literature on nonprofit organization boards. Since most nonprofits have a paid top manager, the question arises: What should the board's role and authority be compared to that held by those in management positions? In this podcast, Professor Yvonne Cafik presents on the topic and explores this question with nonprofit leaders to discuss the underlying issues, why boards and managers become confused, and how to clarify roles and responsibilities to govern and manage effectively.