Although nonprofit organizations are increasingly adding young professionals to their boards of directors, there are limited opportunities for board leadership development. Our purpose is to directly address this challenge by spending time reading about governance, talking with local governance experts, and, especially, sharing among ourselves the challenges of serving on boards in order to improve board leadership skills.
More specifically, the practicum focuses on distinctive features of nonprofit board governance and uses research and concepts along with students' current board experiences to illuminate challenges and explore solutions in order to build board leadership competencies. The course will cover legal requirements of nonprofit boards, their basic roles and responsibilities, important issues of recruitment, composition and diversity, intra-board and board-staff dynamics, and life cycle changes. Other topics may be added, depending on student experiences and interests.