Your Board of Directors Should Be One of Your Greatest Assets

You built the organization. You held the vision when nobody else could see it. You did the work of earning your community's trust and showing up consistently for people who were counting on you to get it right.

And then you inherited—or built—a board that doesn’t quite get what any of that requires.

You are not imagining it. The research confirms what many Black women founders already know from experience.

A study from the Washington Area Women's Foundation found that a fundamental lack of trust in their leadership cuts across the most common barriers and challenges Black women and Black gender-expansive leaders experience, and that this lack of trust shows up with funders and in boardrooms.

In addition, ninety percent of Black women leaders surveyed reported that their work had negatively impacted their health and well-being, and seventy percent agreed that Black women in leadership had been under attack in recent years. The board relationship is one of the places where the weight of this reality is either shared or left entirely on the founder. For too many Black women founders, it has been the latter, and that is a structural problem.

The leadership-board dynamic has the potential to be one of the most sustaining parts of your organizational infrastructure or one of the most depleting. Which one it becomes depends largely on how intentionally it is built.

Here is what building a board that genuinely supports you looks like:

• Recruiting for alignment, not just credentials. A board full of lawyers, accountants, and former executives sounds strong on paper. A board full of people who understand your community, believe in your mission without needing it explained, and are willing to use their networks on your behalf is the board that will sustain your organization. Credentials matter, but so does alignment.

• Being explicit about what you need from them. Most board dysfunction starts with unclear expectations. Before someone joins your board, they should know exactly what is required financially, relationally, and strategically. A board member who understands their role from day one is exponentially more useful than one who has been guessing for two years.

• Building a board that reflects your community. A 2024 Candid report found that boards with broader demographics outperform peers in fundraising growth and constituent trust. Representation is a governance and fundraising strategy.

• Protecting the executive director's relationship. The healthiest board-executive leadership relationships are rooted in trust, respect, and consistent communication with regular evaluations, open conversations about compensation, and a genuine partnership rather than oversight alone. You deserve a board that champions you, not one that manages you.

Your board of directors should be one of your organization's most powerful assets. If it is not, that is worth examining and changing. Because the weight of this work is real, and the right board does not add to it — it helps you carry it.