“Boards need to go beyond inviting input from those with relevant lived experience – they need to share power by ensuring that these lived experiences are embedded into the composition of the board itself – with all of the rights, responsibilities, and power that board membership brings with it.”
In the face of increasingly pressing systemic inequities, nonprofit boards must change the traditional ways they have worked and instead prioritize an organization's purpose, show respect for the ecosystem in which they operate, commit to equity, and recognize that power must be authorized by the people they're aiming to help.