I agree with many of the prior comments. AB's can be helpful but with lack of clarity about purpose and membership, they can fizzle out and/or become a burden for leadership. I've been on a handful of AB's and have used them in a couple orgs that I led, with mixed results. Some of the elements that led to more success and value included: a stated clear purpose or purposes that can also shift over time and/or arise from circumstances in the org; more diverse membership; regular meeting cadence mostly quarterly; taking advantage of open discussions vs Board formality which made the meetings a source of engagement and stimulation that was a "kind of reward" for AB members. The ED or deputy has generally been the point person for the AB. An AB can be a way to create broader more diverse community engagement, while also being a cultivation vehicle for new Board members, but be careful about using an AB for too many purposes or cross purposes....that's when they can get fuzzy and lose energy.

Annually, during Board retreats and/or strategic planning meetings. Succession planning efforts are also opportunities to visit goals and mission.

Crystal clear on one Board. A bit fuzzy and unclear on another Board. It seems that when there is financial stress and/or leadership transition the line becomes less clear and this fuzziness can carry over beyond the immediate stressors.

Thanks for sharing this article. It stimulated a couple thoughts...organizations and funders need to recognize that talking about collaboration is easy, but actually considering and implementing real collaboration is tough, requiring deep planning, a willingness to depart from long standing habits and patterns, and the full buy in from all stakeholders. My other thought about "too many non-profits" is the wide range of organizational effectiveness among the universe of non-profits. I support the idea of having some sort of dynamic rating/mapping system about the effectiveness of a communities' non-profits that speaks to user satisfaction and organizational responsiveness and health. This would not be a static one time scorecard, but rather a dynamic system that allows for continuous user feedback and updates. This would have value for funders, users, and entire communities. It would also inform considerations of mergers, collaborations, and redundancies.