Oct 12, 2026 · 12 min · 8 segments
That one sentence says a lot about how many organizations think about governance. Sean explains why difficulty recruiting can't be the reason someone holds a seat indefinitely, and why board…
First, I want to be fair to her because I understand the challenge.
Finding people who care about the mission, understand their responsibilities, and actually show up takes real work.
And when you do have good board members, you want to keep them.
Nobody wants to lose a great treasurer or a well-connected chair because a rule says it's time for them to go, and her concern is not imaginary.
When you read the pros and cons that governance experts lay out for term limits, the downside they list is exactly what she described: more time needed spent identifying, recruiting, and orienting new board members.
But difficulty recruiting cannot become the reason that someone holds a board seat indefinitely.
Think about what that actually protects.
What happens when a member stops participating? What happens when the organization needs expertise on the board that they do not currently have? What happens when everyone has become so comfortable with one another that the difficult questions go unasked? When a seat is permanent, none of those problems have a built-in solution.
You're left hoping that the person decides to leave on their own, and in my experience, people who have stopped participating are rarely the ones who volunteer to step down.
One of the commonly cited advantages of term limits is exactly that.
They give you a built-in, impersonal way to rotate people off.
Nobody has to be the bad guy.
The calendar does it, and rotating off the board doesn't mean walking out the door.
Strong, committed members can keep contributing through committee work, advisory roles, and introductions after their board service ends.
You keep the relationship and the knowledge.
You just open the seat.
A board seat carries responsibility to the mission and to the community being served, and we should be asking regularly whether the people in those seats are fulfilling it.
Now, I'm not going to tell you term limits are going to fix everything because they certainly don't.
BoardSource, which has tracked nonprofit board practices for years, recommends that boards adopt them, and the most common structure in their research is two consecutive three-year terms.
But term limits alone won't give you a strong board.
Recruitment, orientation, clear expectations and accountability, mentoring, all of those need attention too.
And here's the part that I keep coming back to.
Board recruitment deserves the same intentional effort that we put into donor cultivation.
Think about how you'd approach a major donor.
You'd identify them early.
First, I want to be fair to her because I understand the challenge.
Finding people who care about the mission, understand their responsibilities, and actually show up takes real work.
And when you do have good board members, you want to keep them.
Nobody wants to lose a great treasurer or a well-connected chair because a rule says it's time for them to go, and her concern is not imaginary.
When you read the pros and cons that governance experts lay out for term limits, the downside they list is exactly what she described: more time needed spent identifying, recruiting, and orienting new board members.
But difficulty recruiting cannot become the reason that someone holds a board seat indefinitely.
Think about what that actually protects.
What happens when a member stops participating? What happens when the organization needs expertise on the board that they do not currently have? What happens when everyone has become so comfortable with one another that the difficult questions go unasked? When a seat is permanent, none of those problems have a built-in solution.
You're left hoping that the person decides to leave on their own, and in my experience, people who have stopped participating are rarely the ones who volunteer to step down.
One of the commonly cited advantages of term limits is exactly that.
They give you a built-in, impersonal way to rotate people off.
Nobody has to be the bad guy.
The calendar does it, and rotating off the board doesn't mean walking out the door.
Strong, committed members can keep contributing through committee work, advisory roles, and introductions after their board service ends.
You keep the relationship and the knowledge.
You just open the seat.
A board seat carries responsibility to the mission and to the community being served, and we should be asking regularly whether the people in those seats are fulfilling it.
Now, I'm not going to tell you term limits are going to fix everything because they certainly don't.
BoardSource, which has tracked nonprofit board practices for years, recommends that boards adopt them, and the most common structure in their research is two consecutive three-year terms.
But term limits alone won't give you a strong board.
Recruitment, orientation, clear expectations and accountability, mentoring, all of those need attention too.
And here's the part that I keep coming back to.
Board recruitment deserves the same intentional effort that we put into donor cultivation.
Think about how you'd approach a major donor.
You'd identify them early.
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