All too rarely do staff ask themselves, “What do board members want? How can we make serving on our board an experience that people will prize, and never forget?”

Author June Bradham

The great advantage of June Bradham‘s book The Truth about What Nonprofits Boards Want is that it places board members front and center. By interviewing current and former board members at several large nonprofits, she finds out what makes them resign from boards and what makes them stay.

In brief:

• Board members want to use their savvy and their professional skills to make a difference in company with other smart people who are equally committed.
• They don’t want to be rubber stamps, or ATM cards.
• And they want an ED or CEO who will listen.

The interview format makes the book a little scattered. Interviewees sometimes contradict each other–no surprise there, for anyone who’s ever been to a lively board meeting!–and the author’s comments could do a better job of pulling the various points of view together. It’s a quick read as a whole, so you can easily finish it and synthesize it for yourself.

At the end of the book, I was wondering about these questions:

1. Do people on high-level, national nonprofit boards really want to put their hands to the wheel as much as Bradham describes?
2. How would the book be different if she were writing about community-based organizations?
3. What would be different if she were writing the book now, instead of in 2007?

Do you have an answer for any of those questions?