Free · Certificate included
Executive Director Relationships
Build a healthy, accountable partnership between the board and your ED.
What you’ll learn
- Clarify board and executive director roles
- Support and supervise the ED at the same time
- Run a fair annual ED evaluation
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Create a free account →Course outline
- 1
The board hires ONE employee
Here is the single most clarifying idea in all of nonprofit governance: the board has exactly one employee — the executive director (sometimes titled CEO).
5 min Quiz Interactive - 2
Governance vs. management: stay in your lane
The healthiest board–ED relationships share one habit: each side respects the line between governance and management.
5 min Quiz Interactive - 3
Support AND supervise — at the same time
New board members often feel a tension: "Are we the ED’s boss, or the ED’s biggest fan?" The answer is both, at once.
5 min Quiz Interactive - 4
The chair–ED relationship: the central hinge
While the full board supervises the ED, the day-to-day relationship runs through one person: the board chair.
4 min Quiz Interactive - 5
Setting ED goals and compensation
You cannot fairly evaluate an ED against goals nobody set.
5 min Quiz Interactive - 6
The annual ED evaluation
The annual review is the board’s most avoided — and most important — supervisory duty.
5 min Quiz Interactive - 7
Supporting the ED through hard times
Leading a nonprofit is exhausting work. The board’s job in the hard seasons isn’t to look the other way — it’s to support the ED through the difficulty without…
4 min Quiz Interactive - 8
Succession: planning for the ED’s exit
Every ED relationship ends eventually — by promotion, retirement, burnout, or the unexpected.
4 min Quiz Interactive
Sources & further reading
- BoardSource — The Board–Staff Partnership & Board Chair–Chief Executive Partnership
- National Council of Nonprofits — Board Roles and Responsibilities
- National Council of Nonprofits — Executive Compensation
- Internal Revenue Service — Rebuttable Presumption — Intermediate Sanctions
- CompassPoint — Daring to Lead — National Study of Nonprofit Executive Leadership
- National Council of Nonprofits — Succession Planning for Nonprofits / Managing Leadership Transitions
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