Culture, Core Values, and the Role of the Board
A nonprofit’s mission explains why it exists.
A nonprofit’s goals detail the path it intends to take to fulfill that mission.
But, what about core values? For too many nonprofits, a list of core values is an afterthought, thrown together because some consultant said the nonprofit needed to adopt them. Too often, core values are like the middle child—crammed in between the mission and goals, feeling misunderstood and left out.
However, determining and monitoring a nonprofit’s core values allows the nonprofit Board of Directors to create a culture and answer a question left unanswered by the mission statement and strategic plan. If the mission explains why and goals explain what, core values explain how. When a nonprofit develops and implements core values, it says, “This is how we operate—within the organization and with those our organization seeks to serve.”
Benefits of Core Values
Core values, when adopted and practiced, create the desired culture.
Mike Kryzewski, the Hall of Fame basketball coach at Duke University, laid out a few core values for the Duke basketball program in a talk I listened to years ago. He said the team has very few rules. In fact, he said there are only two. First, when we talk to each other, we look at each other in the eye. Second, when we look at each other in the eye, we tell the truth. Those two rules serve as the core values of the Duke program that (next to Kentucky, of course) has been the most successful program of the past few decades.
When a nonprofit adopts and practices core values, those core values help create a culture in the organization. And, that culture determines how people inside and outside the organization are impacted by the nonprofit. That impact will either help or hinder the nonprofit in achieving its goals and mission.
The role of the Board of Directors is to oversee the adoption of core values and monitor the goals, programs, and personnel to assure that they align with the core values.
2. Core values answer the how question.
Let’s take HCI’s vision of Chesapeake becoming the healthiest city in Virginia. That goal is clear, and it is easily discernible whether it has been met or not. While it answers the what we do question, it does not answer the how we do it.
The HCI website alludes to core values but does not list them fully or expressly. For example, the website states, “Healthy Chesapeake and partners are working together to build a culture of health that provides everyone in Chesapeake a fair and just opportunity for health.”
The implied core value that I have seen at work in the organization is one of collaboration. Other core values that are not mentioned on the website, but that I have seen could include excellence as an attainable goal, innovation in implementing programming, and taking a holistic approach to health as evidenced by the four key areas of focus for HCI.
In the end, working through to developing core values helps a nonprofit determine how they do what they do!
The Board’s Role
First, core values must be developed by the Board of Directors in cooperation with the nonprofit’s staff and other important stakeholders.
Second, just like with the mission, a nonprofit can drift from its core values. Almost every person who buys a new car determines that it will be kept clean—no eating, no drinking, no trash. But, over time, the rules get lax and before long the car is a mobile closet, trash can, and depository of fast food leftovers. It’s easy to drift from core values over time. The job of the Board of Directors is to monitor the organization’s goals, programs, and personnel to make sure that drift doesn’t happen.
Third, hire according to the core values. As we discussed last time, the most important decision a nonprofit board ever makes is most often the hiring of the executive director. Here, HCI has an opportunity to hire a director who aligns with the organization’s core values.
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