The Source: Twelve Principles of Governance That Power Exceptional Boards

The Source reflects the collective wisdom of an extraordinary group of experts who have decades of experience researching, analyzing, counseling, advising, and serving on boards in both the nonprofit and for-profit sectors.   BoardSource is deeply grateful for their insight and acumen.

Nancy Axelrod, Consultant
Nancy Axelrod is an independent consultant who provides services to foundations, associations and other national nonprofit organizations in nonprofit leadership strategies including: board education, development and self-assessment; leadership transitions; strategic planning; and meeting facilitation.

Axelrod is the founding president of the National Center for Nonprofit Boards (now known as BoardSource), where she served as the chief executive officer from 1987 to 1996.  Prior to establishing her own consulting practice, Axelrod served as vice president in the nonprofit practice of A.T. Kearney, a global management consulting and executive search firm, where she provided consultation for boards and senior management and managed searches for chief executives and senior managers of foundations, national nonprofit organizations and associations.

Axelrod has served as a governing and advisory board member and board development consultant to numerous nonprofit organizations.  She currently serves as a member of the advisory board of the Initiative on Social Enterprise at the Harvard Business School.  She is on the faculty of the Institute for Presidents and Board Chairs of Independent Colleges and Universities as well as the Center for Association Leadership, a national learning center and think tank in Washington, D.C.  She is a former member of the board of directors of Independent Sector and the steering committee charged with reviewing and revising the most recent accreditation standards of the Commission on Higher Education of the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools.

Axelrod is the author of Chief Executive Succession Planning: The Board's Role in Securing Your Organization's Future; Advisory Councils; numerous articles and op-ed pieces; and is a contributing author to The Jossey Bass Handbook of Nonprofit Leadership and Management

Marla J. Bobowick, Vice President of Products, BoardSource
Marla J. Bobowick is vice president of products for BoardSource, and also serves as a BoardSource senior consultant.

Marla brings to BoardSource a wealth of nonprofit experience, as well as a history of creative problem solving. As a consultant, Marla works on governance issues with organizations of all types and sizes by conducting workshops and board retreats. She has focused on board self-assessments of their own governance practices and engaging the whole board in the CEO's performance review. She also devised economic development plans for Cleveland Tomorrow and marketing, membership, and fundraising strategies for the Cleveland Zoological Society. Her other clients include AARP, the Marion I. and Henry J. Knott Foundation, Council on Foundations, and United Way of America.

She has coordinated several research projects on behalf of BoardSource. She managed the multi-year project, Governance Future: New Perspectives on Nonprofit Governance, undertaken in collaboration with the Hauser Center at Harvard University. Designed to discover, develop, and disseminate new and different governance strategies, that project resulted in Governance as Leadership: Reframing the Work of Nonprofit Boards, published by John Wiley & Sons. She has also been involved with "Understanding the Strategic Decision-Making Behavior of Community Foundation Boards," undertaken in collaboration with Ohio University and funded by the Aspen Institute's Nonprofit Sector Research Fund, and BoardSource's 2004 "Governance Index," a census of current board practices.

Previously, Marla lent her expertise to John Wiley & Sons, where she served as an acquisitions editor. There, Marla developed Wiley's Nonprofit Law, Finance, and Management Series and the National Society for Fund Raising Executives (now Association of Fundraising Professionals) Fund Development Series. She has co-authored several nonprofit governance publications, including Transforming Board Structure, The Board Building Cycle, and feature articles for the BoardSource member newsletter, Board Member.

Marla holds a bachelor's degree in English from Amherst College, a master's degree in business administration from the Weatherhead School of Management, and a certificate in nonprofit management from the Mandel Center for Nonprofit Organizations, both at Case Western Reserve University. Marla served on the board of Calvary Women's Services in Washington, D.C.

Richard P. Chait, Harvard Graduate School of Education
Richard P. Chait, a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, has studied nonprofit governance for more than 20 years. He is a member of the board of directors of BoardSource and a trustee and member of the executive committee of the governing board of Wheaton College. He was previously a trustee of Goucher College and Maryville College. Chait has served as a consultant to the boards and executives of more than 100 nonprofit organizations, particularly in education and the arts. The Fulbright New Zealand Board of Directors selected him as a Fulbright U.S. Distinguished American Scholar, and he was named one of Harvard University’s “outstanding teachers” in 2004.  Chait is co-author of the book, Governance as Leadership: Reframing the Work of Nonprofit Boards (Wiley, 2005).

Anne Cohn Donnelly, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University
Anne Cohn Donnelly is a resident fellow and visiting scholar in nonprofit management at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University. She teaches nonprofit board management in the school’s graduate program and through its executive education courses.

Donnelly formerly served as executive director of Prevent Child Abuse America (formerly the National Committee to Prevent Child Abuse), overseeing the activities of a 50-state network of chapters, a nationwide public education media campaign, a national center on child abuse prevention research, the national Healthy Families America effort and various training and advocacy efforts.

She currently chairs the board of the Jane Addams Juvenile Court Foundation, and has served on numerous nonprofit and for profit boards, including Independent Sector, the International Society to Prevent Child Abuse and Neglect and the National Congress of Parents and Teachers.  

Donnelly received her bachelor’s degree in sociology from the University of Michigan, her master’s degree in medical sociology from Tufts University and both master’s and doctorate of public health degrees in health administration and planning from the University of California at Berkeley School of Public Health.

Melissa Davis, YMCA of the USA
Melissa Davis is the director, Knowledge Publishing and Products, Association Resources of the YMCA of the USA.

Davis has worked with the YMCA for more than 25 years as both a volunteer and staff member. Before joining the YMCA of the USA in 1997 as associate director for volunteer development, she was vice president for community relations at The Community YMCA in Red Bank, New Jersey, and executive director of its newly incorporated foundation.

She has chaired the Lake Champlain Committee, a New York/Vermont advocacy board; served as a trustee of the smallest chartered library in New York; drafted the founding bylaws for the Asbury Park Consortium; and also served as the first female on the board of a national bank. In 1990 through a grant from the Ford Foundation she spoke to senior Chinese officials in Beijing to explain Western views on the value of non-governmental organizations in national policy making. 

Davis holds a bachelor’s degree in linguistics from Georgetown University and a master’s degree in liberal arts from the University of Chicago.

Deborah S. Hechinger, President and CEO, BoardSource
Deborah S. Hechinger is the president and CEO of BoardSource, the national voice of nonprofit governance and premier resource for practical information, tools and best practices, training and leadership development for nonprofit board members worldwide.

Hechinger joined BoardSource in October 2003, after serving as executive vice president of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), an international conservation organization with revenues of $117.9 million in fiscal year 2003. There she was responsible for all fundraising, communication and operations activities and was credited with helping WWF exceed its $150 million fundraising goal by $27 million in the course of a three-year campaign.

Prior to joining the World Wildlife Fund in 1994, Hechinger was deputy comptroller and director of the Securities and Corporate Practices Division at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and held senior executive positions in the Division of Enforcement at the Securities and Exchange Commission.

In addition to her extensive national and international experience, Hechinger also has held key leadership positions on the boards of Sidwell Friends School and the Children's National Medical Center, and has served on the boards of the Washington Scholarship Fund and the Black Student Fund.

She received a B.A. from Brown University and a J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center. She is currently a member in good standing of the District of Columbia Bar.

Richard L. Moyers, The Meyer Foundation
Richard L. Moyers is the program officer for the Meyer Foundation’s Nonprofit Sector Advancement Fund.

Formerly Moyers served as the executive director of the Ohio Association of Nonprofit Organizations, a statewide coalition of more than 650 nonprofits that provided leadership, education and advocacy to strengthen Ohio’s nonprofit sector. Prior to his work with OANO, Moyers spent several years at BoardSource, concluding his tenure as vice president for programs and services

Moyers is a frequent speaker on nonprofit management and leadership issues, has authored articles for leading nonprofit trade publications and was the co-author of A Snapshot of America’s Nonprofit Boards, the first national nonprofit governance survey.

He has served on the boards of the Bethesda Academy of Performing Arts and the Support Center of Washington, and as a committee member for Independent Sector, United Way of Central Ohio, the First Nonprofit Unemployment Savings Program and the Maryland Association of Nonprofit Organizations’ Standards of Excellence initiative.

Moyers holds a bachelor’s degree from Columbia Union College and a master’s degree from the University of Baltimore.

Roger Raber, National Association of Corporate Directors
Roger W. Raber is president and CEO of the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD), the only professional organization devoted exclusively to providing information, research and education for corporate directors and boards.

As the chief spokesman for corporate boards, Dr. Raber has testified before Congress on the recent corporate governance legislation and reforms and has provided commentary on board governance principles and policies to a variety of policymakers, including the Securities and Exchange Commission, Nasdaq and the New York Stock Exchange. He has also advised professional organizations representing corporate counsels, internal auditors and institutional investors, among others. He has provided board advisory services for public, private and nonprofit boards. His governance views appear regularly in professional publications, national press and media.  

Dr. Raber has served on corporate boards and audit committees in the financial services industry.  He also has served on the board of a private college and was elected chairman of the board for a public school district.  He was appointed by the U.S. Secretary of Commerce to serve on the Board of Overseers of the Malcolm Baldrige Award Program.  He speaks frequently to national and international groups, including the American Red Cross, Japanese Management Association and the World Bank Group. He has been influential in shaping the founding of new governance institutes in a variety of regions, including Asia, Central Europe and Latin America.

Dr. Raber received his doctorate in education from Columbia University and has taught in graduate and professional development programs at Johns Hopkins University, Dartmouth College and the University of Virginia.

Celia Roady, Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP
Celia Roady is a partner in the tax practice of the global law firm Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP. Her practice is focused on federal and state income taxation, primarily involving tax-exempt organizations including charities, foundations, trade associations and other nonprofit coalitions.

Roady has published extensively in various journals on exempt organizations and is a frequent speaker for the America Bar Association (ABA), American Law Institute, American Society of Association Executives and other nonprofit conferences and symposia. She chairs the annual conference on “Representing and Managing Tax-Exempt Organizations.”

She is a past chair of the Exempt Organizations Committee of the ABA’s Taxation Section and currently serves as vice-chair of communications. Previously Roady served as a chair of the District of Columbia Bar Association Tax Section’s Exempt Organizations Committee, chair of the D.C. Bar’s Council on Sections and as a member of the Steering Committee of the D.C. Bar Tax Section.

She received an A.B. from Duke University, a J.D. from Duke University School of Law and a L.L.M. from Georgetown University Law Center.