The unfortunate situation at the Durham Crisis Response Center (see article here) provides an excellent case study of what can happen to a nonprofit organization when a bad board goes off the deep end.
Let this be a lesson to all nonprofits of the necessity of having provisions in their bylaws that can protect the organization from its board when the board’s actions demonstrate that it doesn’t have the agency’s best interests at heart. The DCRC board will be able to walk away from this mess without consequence (indeed, the agency board chair just resigned and the former vice chair has taken her seat), but DCRC and its clients will suffer the board’s ill-conceived actions for months, maybe years, to come.
Shawn Aldridge
Chapel Hill
