05/07/2020

When to “Return:" Questions Nonprofit Executives Need to Ponder

A decision like this demands careful reflection

Right now, state and local governments across the country have started to consider re-opening certain businesses and, what a phased re-entry might look like. As a nonprofit leader, you may be wondering what this process will look like for your organization and how you will know when it is the right time for you to return to a physical work space. During a global crisis like this, when there are so many variables at play, it’s difficult to plan for the future when we don’t know what the next week or month will look like. All nonprofit CEO’s and executive directors are working hard to make the best decisions they can for their organizations — this is not an easy task.

A decision like this demands careful strategy and reflection; CEO’s will need to consider the short term and long term effects of re-opening. In some cases, that will be a shared decision between boards and executives, particularly as it relates to reopening public programming spaces that are “non-essential” in nature. In many other cases, though, it will be an executive-level decision, of which the board simply needs to be informed.

In response to the questions we have been receiving from boards and executives alike — acknowledging that this is not an area of specific expertise for us — we worked to identify some resources and guiding thoughts that may be helpful to nonprofit leaders. As CEO’s develop a road-map to reopening, we suggest considering the following questions in order to make the most informed decision you can.

Please select this link to read the complete blog post from BoardSource.