 Imagine this scene: Having recognized that they share a common
need, a group of well-intended parents gather and decide to found a Montessori
school. They lease classroom space, they buy the necessary materials and
furniture, they hire an experienced Montessorian to do the teaching,
and they contract with other specialty firms to keep the place clean and in good repair.Â
Then one of the parents, says, “Wait. You know what we really need to make this
work? We need to find a bunch of people who know nothing about Montessori or
running small private schools and put them in charge!” Â
If you’ve
ever been involved with a church, a social agency or a school of any kind, you
are likely to you are likely to have seen up close that most misbegotten
creature, the non-profit board of directors. Their roles are unclear, their
powers arbitrary, their expertise usually nonexistent.
 Boards that seek to serve as a mini-congress can, like our
real Congress, be held hostage by disaffected minorities, obstructionists or
single-issue fanatics. In most private schools, for instance, boards can’t find
a majority, much less consensus fundamental questions. Which is the customer –
the parent or the child? is the business model of organization even
appropriate? What is the product provided? To do for the parent what the parent
would do if she had the time? To produce a responsible, able adult? A happy,
popular child? Good test scores?
It is the level of government that affects most people most intimately.
After all, raising a city sales tax by a half of a percent doesn’t actually
change your life much; a coup at your church that results in the sacking of an
incumbent minister on which you have come to rely for counsel affect your life
great deal. Yet the non-profit board is the level of government over which you
have the least control.
They exist because of state government fiat. It is hopeless
to try to eliminate the requirement that non-profits be overseen by directors. But
could we not at least replace amateur boards with professional ones? A couple
of bright lights, Â Stephen M. Bainbridge of the UCLA School of Law and M. Todd Henderson
 of the University of Chicago Law School — have proposed allowing specialized governance firms offering expert versions of the same kinds
of services to take the seats now kept warm by human directors. (I owe Tyler
Cowen for alerting me to the article.)
 I would go farther,
and replace whole boards, jobbing out governance to professionals whose specialize
in helping run such organizations. Unlike their human counterparts, these
corporate elves would be disinterested (the worst board member is one who has
an ax to grind), informed (the second worst board member is usually the one who
thinks the school/church/agency ought to be run the way he runs his business) and
informed about accounting and managerial best practices.
 Ah, but would they care? No, but they
could be competent, and offer a way to deal with the inevitable disputes that
doesn’t involve back-biting, plotting and politicking. I’d vote for it.
This article appears in Aug 7-13, 2014.
