Board of Directors
The governing body of a nonprofit organization responsible for oversight, strategic direction, and fiduciary accountability.
Board of Directors is a term from U.S. nonprofit financial reporting — typically a line item or schedule on IRS Form 990, the annual disclosure tax-exempt organizations file. The definition here is the IRS-file usage, which can differ from how the term is used in general financial writing or accounting standards. On the LakeQuality nonprofit efficiency rubric, Board of Directors feeds into one of the four scoring factors (program ratio, revenue growth, reserves, or CEO compensation). Understanding how the term is computed at IRS is part of reading nonprofit pages defensibly.
Each nonprofit page on the site surfaces the specific Board of Directors value for that organization (when Form 990 reports one), so the general definition here translates into a concrete data point on the per-nonprofit pages you actually use.
The board of directors is the governing body that holds ultimate fiduciary responsibility for a nonprofit organization. Board members (also called directors or trustees) are typically unpaid volunteers who serve defined terms and are tasked with setting the organization's strategic direction, hiring and evaluating the CEO/executive director, approving the annual budget, ensuring financial accountability, and safeguarding the organization's mission. IRS Form 990 Part VI asks detailed questions about governance practices, including whether the organization has independent voting members, whether it has a written conflict of interest policy, and whether the board reviews the Form 990 before filing. The IRS considers strong governance a factor in maintaining tax-exempt status and has issued governance best practices for nonprofits. Best practices recommend that a majority of board members be independent (no financial relationship with the organization beyond their board service), that the board include an audit or finance committee, and that the board conduct regular self-assessments. Nonprofit governance failures, such as the scandals at the United Way of America and the Wounded Warrior Project, often stem from weak board oversight. NonprofitTruth's data from Form 990 includes information about the number of board members and governance policies, which donors can use to assess organizational accountability alongside financial metrics.