Amrita Bhandari, Former Chief of Insights and Strategy, Acumen

When a nonprofit organization, you can build your board. It doesn't have to be funders. It could be people who understand your work, people who understand you, and are committed to your vision. 

With for profit social enterprises, your board is typically a founding team plus investors, then you’re bringing in an independent. Other board members have to agree on who because you also want to be very thoughtful about who is being brought into this mix.

Why is it that we need another voice? What is that value that it will add?

Typically what we see is, expertise in the area that the organization is working in, deep expertise or deep expertise from a geographic perspective to help them navigate the complexities of that next stage of growth that they're working towards.

With BURN, for example, when we were looking at an independent, the board was all western investors, and founders. We really wanted to have a leader in the Kenyan context that would have the ability to navigate the complexities and really understand and really bring the perspective of the market, in a way that only management was bringing that perspective in. 

Similarly, with Warc, we’ve seen the same thing, the investors are all, western board members. So the independent is either an agronomist who really understands the work and is able to provide that strategic support or somebody who's able to provide more specific contextual support.

Key takeaways 

• Align with your board on the need, value, and unique contribution before appointing an independent member.

• Bring in voices that complement the current board and offer diverse, fresh perspectives.

• Choose individuals with deep sector knowledge or geographic expertise to help guide growth.