I spoke with someone who has served on many boards. She told me about a frustrating experience that led her to resign before her term was up. It got me thinking about my own history.

I have served on more than 20 boards. In most cases, I stay for as long as I can until I “term limit” off as they say. But I have also left boards early and for different reasons.

Years ago – before we all did Zoom or Teams or Meet – I was on a national board. Most meetings were on the East Coast, and the cost and time to travel were not workable. I finished my first term and didn’t renew, but I stayed on as a supporter and hosted events locally. I couldn’t give the board the level of commitment it deserved, so I moved on.

I left another board after one term because the organization shifted its priorities, and the direction they decided to pursue wasn’t one I was passionate about. Again, I finished my term but did not renew.

Then there was the board I left mid-term. Boards have fiduciary responsibility, and in this case, a serious issue was not being addressed, even though I raised it with leadership more than once. One day, after not being heard one too many times, I gave notice. I wasn’t willing to stay and ignore behavior I believed put the organization at risk. I’m sad to say I was right. Some bad things happened after I left, with grave consequences, just as I’d predicted.

Here’s another story, from a fellow board member who shared it with me.

When I Knew It Was Time to Leave

As told by a Board Member somewhere in the USA.

I’ve been on a lot of boards, and I’ve also left a few, sometimes after less than a year. I don’t say that as a badge of honor. I say it because I think it’s one of the most useful things I can tell another board member: sometimes leaving is the responsible thing to do, not something you failed to prevent.

Being a Board Member Means Identifying Risk

I left one board because I raised what I saw as a serious risk and the ED just didn’t want to hear it.

It was a financial concentration issue — they were relying on one high-level donor to the point where it was genuinely about to cross into the territory of being classified as a private foundation. did the math and showed them exactly where the ratio would cross the threshold. I said, “Here’s the line. Here’s when we’ll hit it. We need to diversify our funding.” The ED’s response was basically that math is just too hard for her.

I remember thinking, then you shouldn’t be an ED. You cannot refuse to look at the numbers because it’s too hard for you. You’re legally responsible, whether or not you understand them. If you’re not strong in something, you hire someone who is. But you don’t get to simply not look.

That was it for me. I couldn’t be part of something where I could see the risk clearly, had said so, and was being ignored. It was a small enough organization that it probably wouldn’t have been flagged right away, or maybe ever. I suspect that was part of her calculus: nobody’s going to notice us. But I don’t want any part of that, whether anyone notices or not. The ethical piece on its own was enough for me. I didn’t want to be explaining myself years down the line about something I knew was wrong and had warned them about.

If I’m telling the ED about a problem and they choose not to listen, I have to ask myself why I’m still here. Not that a board member should get their way on everything — that’s not the point. I’m not saying a board member should get their way on everything. But a real compliance risk that gets waved off is a very different thing from a disagreement over strategy.

Friends-and-Family Boards Struggle with Accountability

Part of the problem is that the other board members were not stepping up either. Most of them were selected by the ED. The board was made up mostly of the ED’s friends, family, or close personal relationships. In that kind of setting, people are much less likely to hold the ED accountable. The relationships get muddied, professionalism slips, and there is a fear of challenging the ED because of what it could do to the relationship outside the boardroom.

That was part of why I left. I couldn’t show up professionally in that environment. A board should not exist to rubber-stamp everything the ED wants. When you join a board or bring on new board members, one skill that is often overlooked is the ability to recognize what’s right and what’s wrong, and to offer guidance that genuinely helps the organization and its leadership succeed. But you can’t do that if half the people around the table are worried about what happens at Thanksgiving if they push back too hard.

I don’t think this makes those board members bad people. It’s a structural problem. When personal relationships are the reason someone’s in the room, the incentives point away from accountability, not toward it. Nobody sets out to build a board that can’t say no to its ED. But it happens all the time, especially with smaller nonprofits where the board sort of assembles itself from whoever the ED already knows and trusts.

Lessons Learned

• Leaving is not a failure. Leaving a board isn’t a failure of commitment. Sometimes it’s the only honest response left.
• Don’t ignore risk. A real risk, ignored, is a reason to leave — not a reason to stay quiet and hope for the best.

• Ignorance is not an excuse. You’re still responsible even if you say you don’t understand something. Competence is something you can build or delegate, but you cannot opt out of it.
• Friends-and-family boards are fraught. Friends-and-family boards have a much harder time asking hard questions and holding the ED accountable.
• Rubber-stamping cedes your responsibility. A board that only rubber-stamps isn’t doing its job, even if everyone in the room likes each other