ABSTRACT
It has become increasingly clear within the nonprofit sector that traditional governance models are often inadequate in effectively responding to the rapidly changing environment and other challenges faced by many nonprofits and their communities. While board dysfunction continues to be among the most common causes for complaint by nonprofits' managers, most nonprofits and practitioners continue to rely on the traditional approaches to governance, which focus on the role of the board. While they do so hoping that more board training or better board recruitment will transform how their organizations are governed, the underlying problems remain. In fact, an increasing number of researchers and capacity-builders in the nonprofit sector have concluded that the problem lies with the traditional governance models themselves (Bradshaw 1998, 2009, Freiwirth 2005).
