Developing an Exceptionally Strong Board

[Aeronaut]

I’d budget a concise help-wanted ad for the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Fortune, or Inc magazine. Perhaps as many as 10 CEOs and CFOs from leading international corporations who can influence large numbers of contributors as well as co-ordinate engineering and legal operations of a clean energy pioneer.

Should that cost too much or take too long, the alternative could be an SEO-friendly press release with all of the supporting documents to tell the stories of what we’re doing, why we’re doing it, why we need their help, and what’s in it for them. This $280 investment can be best leveraged with a squeeze page putting responders on their own email list, which can be further qualified over a year or few.

[Rezwan]

Before we advertise for a board, it might be a good idea to develop our criteria for a board member.

And also keep in mind that this is the board for FFS. LPP would also be well advised to develop a stronger board – and it seems like you’re drawn in that direction, Aeronaut. Just keep in mind a board for a for profit company and a nonprofit are different.

This raises issues about LPP – because LPP would rather be a nonprofit and develop and give fusion away. Unfortunately, it was unable to raise money as a nonprofit, and has gone the for-profit route:

Nonprofit organizations exist for public service; they live by donations and they answer to the general public they serve. Companies, on the other hand, are in business to make money; they live by sales and profits; they answer to their stockholders.

Budgets of nonprofit organizations are designed to assure satisfactory services and to keep institutions alive; budgets for companies assure profits.

corporations have boards of directors who are paid handsomely for their efforts; nonprofit organizations have boards of trustees who are unpaid volunteers.

It would be great if FFS grew big enough to underwrite the research entirely. We tried this before and it didn’t work, but we didn’t have a strong board then. We were going off member donations, and those were less than $5000 a year, which pays for a week or two of research. What happened instead is that investors came on board, a very interesting class of investor, because they are to some extent philanthropic pioneers interested in the bigger picture and not just a possible profit. LPP then made a charitable donation to support FFS continued work – so it does feel a bit too much like the marketing department of LPP. And for legal reasons, it really can’t be. It must be a broader organization with a nonprofit goal.

All this leads back to the need for an effective, world class board.

[Rezwan]

Responsibilities of the nonprofit board:

The board of a nonprofit organization is responsible for governing the organization and ensuring that it succeeds in its mission.

That means seeing that the organization has the resources required to carry out the mission. E.g., the board is the key place for fundraising. Strong boards mean strong finances, weak boards mean weak finances.

Per “The Board Member’s Guide to Fund Raising, this responsibility is 3fold, fiduciary, programmatic and financial:

Fiduciary involves protecting the public interest. In this respect, the board must fulfill the legal requirements, such as incorporation and framing of bylaws; maintaining the integrity of the institution through audits and avoidance of conflicts of interest; select, pay, evaluate and if necessary dismiss the chief executive; and ensure its own leadership effectiveness by responsibly selecting members and officers and by establishing constructive board procedures.

Programmatic means to satisfy the needs and expectations of the constituent community in fulfilling its mission. That is, the board must define the organization’s mission and purposes; what it is to do and (often neglected) what it is not to do; see to the plans – for the short and long run – and the setting of priorities; approve policies and major commitments through involvement in the budget process; and ensure periodic evaluation of program performance.

Financial means to assure the viability of the organization. Here, the board must see that adequate funding resources are obtained to sustain the organization and its program and oversee the financial operations through appropriate budgetary, investment, and accounting procedures.

Faith, hope and charity – the greatest of these is charity:

Board members may take particular interest in, and make their greatest contribution to, one or another of these responsibilities. But every member must recognize all of them and realize that fund raising is often the most vital and inescapable. The buck starts and stops with the board. Members must be fully involved.

[Rezwan]

Board Size & Composition

From the same book:

Corporate boards tend to be small and efficient, with members selected for what they can contribute to the profit-making potential.

Boards of trustees of charitable organizations, on the other hand, are generally large in order to enlist the many skills a board needs, to reach a wide spectrum of the community, and to get widespread personal involvement in the fundraising effort.

With this in mind, where do we want to draw our board from? What kind of people do we want, what communities do we want to tap into?

We need people who are passionate about focus fusion, but can also reach for people interested in aneutronic fusion, and fusion in general.

We could have people who are passionate about the future – space, science, physics, the environment. We need to uncover different crossover interests.

[Aeronaut]

My real interest is in securing a manufacturing license, but I subscribe to and devour Forbes and Inc., so I may be able to help target those who best fit the bill for each Board.

[Author]

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