Board Composition, Diversity, and Recruitment

This Content Collection provides resources, perspectives, and sample polices for families and boards thinking about board composition and recruitment, both within and outside the family. Included are resources on the advantages, challenges, questions, and opportunities of engaging non-family trustees on a family foundation board and of promoting diversity and inclusion in the field of family philanthropy at large.

Please see the NCFP Content Collection on Racial Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion for additional information and resources.

Interested in learning more about this topic alongside your peers? Consider signing up for a current or future cohort of NCFP’s Racial Justice Learning & Action Network.

Featured Resources

Building the Board Your Foundation Deserves

Article

The title of this post has been carefully chosen to start or renew a conversation around great governance. How do you build the board your foundation deserves? Are there practices that make the most of volunteer leadership? Are there practices that keep you from having a highly functioning board? The …

A Place at the Table: Non-Family Membership on the Family Foundation Board

Passages Issue Briefs

Family giving comes from a common cause, a shared vision, a particular need for giving back a portion of life’s gifts. Family members can focus on shared personal interests and can shape the architecture of their giving by expressing and validating shared family experience. Foundation board service can be …

Families In Flux: Guidelines for Participation in Your Family’s Philanthropy

Passages Issue Briefs

Family members marry, divorce, remarry, form domestic partnerships and, in many cases, move far away from the family home. With families growing ever more complex, varied, and far-flung, foundations and donor-advised funds need clear guidelines regarding who participates in their philanthropy and in what roles. This Passages report addresses changing …

Passing the Baton: Generations Sharing Leadership

Passages Issue Briefs

Today’s family foundation field has many well-prepared next generation members and a whole generation of longer living, active senior members. And while the field has been resourceful in promoting next gen involvement, it has done little to address succession issues for the senior generation or to consider options for …

Choosing and Preparing Your Grantmaking Successors

Passages Issue Briefs

Family foundation donors and first generation boards should begin the continuity and succession discussion early in the foundation’s lifetime if perpetuity is the objective. In a succession plan, one trustee usually succeeds another. However, before succession can take place there should be continuity of governance where members of more …

March 14, 2013

Adding nonfamily trustees and community voices to your family foundation board

What are the signs that your foundation’s board might benefit from adding a community leader to bring new energy and a fresh voice to board deliberations and decisions? Some family foundations have never had an outside trustee on the board and don’t want one. Others have had non-family …

June 12, 2014

Navigating Leadership Transitions in Family Philanthropy

Every family philanthropy experiences the joy, the sadness, the complexity, and the energy of transitions. Moving toward new leadership in the family can be difficult, emotional, and sometimes frustrating. However, when it is done deliberately and thoughtfully, these times of transition can also be positive for all involved. Times of …

What Do We Call Our Non-Family Board Members?

Article

Currently, we use the term “non-family” board member for board members who are not members of our founding family, but we would like to find another term for these individuals. What do you suggest? Here are a few examples of other terms used by family foundations around the country.

July 12, 2018

Making Space at The Table: Welcoming New Voices to Your Family Giving

There are so many ways to welcome new voices into your family giving to enhance your own giving and family impact. Having others engaged can enhance diversity, inclusion, help your own family, and introduce new ideas and perspectives for impact. Hear from families who have found creative ways to engage …

We’re a Family: How Can We Be Diverse?

Article

Editor’s note: This article originally appeared on the Minnesota Council on Foundations’ Philanthropy Potluck Blog, and is used with MCOF’s permission. During discussions of diversity in philanthropy, family grantmakers sometimes get frustrated. Their thoughts may immediately turn to: “Our board members are family, how can we be diverse?” …

The Changing Face of Philanthropy: Diversity in Family Giving

Article

Quick, create a mental picture of a philanthropist. What do you see? An older white man? That’s the picture that pops into most of our heads. And it’s not surprising — this is the dominant image of philanthropy in the United States. From Andrew Carnegie to Warren Buffett, these …

How do we ensure that the family will not lose “control” of the foundation over time?

Ask the Center

There are a variety of strategies that family foundations around the country have used to retain control while engaging non-family board members in their work. These strategies may be used alone or in combination, and may include the following: Strategy 1: Create term limits for current board members. A technique used …

Ready to Add Non-Family Board Members?

Blog Post

Changing familiar habits and traditions, and welcoming non-family into the fold, requires a degree of sacrifice and risk-taking. In return, there is an improved outcome in sight. Adding community or expert board members has the potential to increase the family foundation’s effectiveness.

The Challenge Of Diversity

Report

Today we know that we are immeasurably better off for having extended the family, and have accomplished far more than we could have ever done. We need diversity not simply to reflect the movements we fund, but to understand them.

Diversity and inclusion: Lessons from the field

Report

There's an arrogance about a foundation that deals with a constituency without having that constituency represented." "While diversity is an inescapable fact in the 21st century global marketplace, inclusion is not." "We know we have much more to learn and more to do to integrate diversity in all our operations.

Q & A with the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation on Adding Non-Family Board Members

Article

When the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation added four non-family members to its board, it wanted to bring new perspectives into its meetings, while also promoting the integrity and values of the family and the foundation.

Sample Policies, Forms, and Letters

Trustee training program (Knott Foundation)

Sample

The Baltimore-based Knott Foundation has developed a comprehensive and innovative program to introduce younger family members to the responsibilities of serving on the foundation’s board.

Board orientation guidebook (Table of contents)

Sample

The table of contents for a family foundation board orientation guidebook.

Criteria for trusteeship

Sample

Sample listing of key attributes to be used as guidelines by the nominating committee of a foundation or advised fund when considering candidates for election to the board of trustees or advisors.

Board Governance Responsibilities

Sample

Getting ready to involve a new generation in governing your family foundation? Consider these challenges and desired characteristics provided by both senior generation and next generation family members.

Board Orientation Outline

Sample

Outline for board orientation

The Leighty Foundation job responsibilities

Sample

Describes the job responsibilities of The Leighty Foundation’s Five Board members, Board Secretary/Treasurer, directors, and advisors.

Survey to determine family interest in serving (Andrus Family Philanthropy Program)

Sample

This survey from the Andrus Family Philanthropy Program is used to help the Board and staff determine the interest and experience of family members seeking to become involved in the activities of the family’s philanthropy.

Inclusiveness and diversity statement

Sample

This statement on the value and importance of inclusiveness and diversity was developed by the Board of Directors for the Surdna Foundation: This policy includes, but is not limited to, the Foundation’s activities and practices in hiring, training, compensation, benefits, promotions, terminations, and business and community relations. Employees and …

The David and Lucile Packard Foundation Commitment to Inclusiveness and Diversity

Sample

Outlines The Packard Foundation’s promise of inclusiveness and diversity and includes the composition of the foundation’s board and staff.

Process for selecting nonfamily trustees (Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation)

Sample

This statement describes the inclusiveness policy used by the North Carolina-based Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation for identifying and selecting qualified and interested nonfamily trustee candidates to serve on their board of directors.

Guiding Questions to Advance Racial Diversity in an Organization

Tool

A series of discussion questions for nonprofit organizations designed to help board and staff identify: How organizatinal polcies and procedures may hinder or impact racial diversity within the organization, and An agreed upon process for moving towards meeting diversity goals.

Diversity Statement (Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation)

Sample

The Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation’s philanthropic entities values diversity in its employment practices, in the organizations it supports and in all of its other endeavors.

Statement of inclusiveness (Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation)

Sample

This short statement from the North Carolina-based Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation was developed to share its policy on inclusiveness with respect to board, staff, and community.

Community Board Members: Panta Rhea Foundation Recruitment Documents

In 2020, the board of directors for the Panta Rhea Foundation announced it’s intentions to expand the board to include leadership and representation from outside the donor family. In 2021, after a long search involving trusted partners & grantees, the foundation welcomed trustees from the broader social justice and nonprofit community, Solomé Lemma and Cedric Brown. The following documents share various aspects of their community board member recruitment and interview process.