'Designated contrarians' could improve nonprofit boards by disrupting the kind of consensus and groupthink that contributed to the NRA's woes

• And yet, the NRA had a 76-member board of directors, as well as a designated audit committee, which both had mandates to monitor the organization’s financial health.
• By reviewing transactions involving the NRA and its leaders more skeptically, the board might have helped the NRA avert some of its current legal troubles.
• Together with Claire Hill, a University of Minnesota law professor, I’ve explored one way nonprofits might theoretically avert debacles, both large and small, in the future.

Board culture

• They’re responsible for everything from weighing in on strategies to advance the organization’s mission, to hiring and evaluating top executives and setting their salaries.
• The NRA’s board, like all nonprofit boards, had an obligation to detect the alleged wrongdoing and intervene to stop it.
• But in general, it appears that NRA board members did little to oversee or restrain LaPierre, even when one top leader unsuccessfully sought big changes.

Too passive

• But it’s too easy for their members to be too passive.
• One reason for this is that nonprofit directors usually volunteer their time and don’t get paid for their contributions.
• Sometimes, overly passive and deferential boards turn into rubber stamps that fail to challenge sloppy bookkeeping or question unwise hires.

What should they do?

• We propose that trustees take turns being a designated contrarian, temporarily becoming a devil’s advocate obliged to challenge proposed board actions.
• They would instead ask probing questions and offer feedback on reports by executives and officers.
• The duration of this role would probably depend on how big a given board is and how often it meets.

Rare examples among nonprofits

• Although using designated contrarians is not yet a widely used practice, a few nonprofit boards may have already embraced this concept.
• For example, I’ve been told but have been unable to confirm that one major grantmaker’s investment committee tasks one of its members with challenging particular investment decisions.

No sure thing

• And even for nonprofit boards in less dire circumstances, using rotating contrarians has its challenges.
• Most serious among these is whether rotating contrarians will offer only inauthentic dissent, which studies show provides limited benefits.
• To be sure, organizations that adopt this approach would need to be patient.

Dana Brakman Reiser does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.