Mike Burns
Partner of BWB Solutions
BWBSolutions (formerly Brody Weiser Burns) works with nonprofits to address governance and management challenges and make decisions about their future.
Why did you get involved in charitable work?
I was raised to be doing charitable work, beginning with 17 years of Catholic education integrated with serious doses of service-learning. All these service-learning years developed a passion and even a love for the nonprofit sector being the path to creating the community and world I want to live in.
How can charitable giving be improved?
Charitable giving can be improved with more "outcome-focused" demands -- donors have both the right and responsibility to demand that charities be results- and outcome-focused with transparent reporting that ensures donors understand how their gifts are used and what results are achieved.
What makes an effective leader?
An effective leader (board member or manager) is one who is passionate; and passionate about their theory of change and mission; a fully informed plan for how to approach the mission (that results from the theory of change); and an ability to identify, recruit inspire and support "talent" to help execute the plan.
I'd most like to see more management and governance standards that reflect organizational stages of development and that are agreed upon universally; governance and executive/board relations where there are many opinions about what is the "best" standard or practice; and to improve or even the relationship between donors and nonprofits such that they are true equals and partners.
