Board-staff relations and perceived effectiveness in nonprofit organizations

Boards of directors perform both internal and external functions. After reviewing research on the external function, this paper reports the results of an empirical study of the internal role. Based upon responses from 142 people in seven private nonprofit organizations the study finds that: (1) participants experience less actual influence than they think they should have; (2) board members' influence is positively related to the frequency of board meetings and the extent to which board members feel informed of their duties, though neither is very strong; (3) ratings of organizational effectiveness are positively related to board member ratings of staff educational sufficiency and the extent to which board members feel informed of their duties; and (4) at the organizational level of analysis, organizational effectiveness is strongly related to the amount of total influence in the organization though this result seems to be based mostly on the strong relation between the influence of the executive director and effectiveness, as effectiveness is unrelated to board influence and positively related to the difference in influence between the executive director and the board.