Board Term Limits

An interesting posting on The Chronicle of Philanthropy blog site lists Five Reasons Board Leaders Should Have Term Limits. The author's reasons include:  recruitment, new leadership development, fundraising, healthier boards, and best of all, a way to phase out underperforming or difficult board members.

In addition to the above benefits, I would add that setting term limits avoids founder's syndrome - particularly when implemented at the time of agency formation. However, this is likely a primary reason why a surprising number of nonprofit boards do not establish term limits on board member years of service.* From a BoardSource posting on a nonprofit accounting site:

Term limits may seem threatening to founders. A founder often has limitless devotion and attachment to the organization and easily becomes fearful of losing control.

A study by Block and Rosenberg on aspects of founder's syndrome, published in Nonprofit Management & Leadership, addresses the issue of term limits with respect to founder's syndrome:

Enforcing term limits might mean that the founder would have to face the prospect of being forced off the board. Perhaps this explains why 78 percent of founding board chairs did not employ term limits within their nonprofit organizations.

 Although I certainly see the benefits of limiting board member service, and am a proponent of the practice, I can understand that it would be extremely difficult to invest so much into starting a nonprofit organization and then walk away. It takes preparation not only on an a logistical, but also an emotional level.

As listed in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People:  Begin with the end in mind. I think this is the essence behind being accepting of term limits and utilizing them in the organization.


*A 2007 survey by BoardSource found that 32 percent of respondents stated their boards allow members to serve an unlimited number of consecutive terms.