Hasta La Gadget!

Today, BoardSource launched Leading with Intent: A National Index of Nonprofit Board Practices, which is a comprehensive scan of current nonprofit board practices, policies, and performance.

While there is lots of good news to share, the bottom line is that nonprofit leaders give nonprofit boards a “B minus” grade in overall performance. Leading with Intent explores why that is, and — more importantly — what we can do about it.

Here are a few of Leading with Intent’s key findings, and some advice about how we can get beyond B-minus:

Getting the people right is fundamental

Leading with Intent found that if a board isn’t thoughtfully comprised as it relates to skill sets, leadership styles, and diversity of thought and background, it is less likely to excel in other areas of board performance. But unfortunately:

• Only 1 in 5 chief executives strongly agree that they have the right board members.
• 58 percent of chief executives say it is difficult to find people to serve on the board — up from 44 percent in 2012.
• Board diversity has improved slightly, but a full 25 percent of boards remain exclusively White.

What boards can do:

• Make strategic board recruitment a priority. Make sure that your recruiting efforts are connected to your overall strategic vision and plan, and that you’re thinking through the skills, backgrounds, and networks you need to have as a part of your board’s composition. For step-by-step guidance on strategic board recruitment, check out BoardSource’s Board Recruitment Center.
• Structure yourself for success. If your board doesn’t already have a governance committee responsible for leading and managing board recruitment and performance, consider creating one.

Boards need to get outside of their comfort zones

Leading with Intent found that boards do well at functions related to compliance and oversight, but face challenges with their strategic and external work. In an operating environment that is characterized by constant change, this is a wake-up call: Boards need to get outside of their comfort zones and provide stronger external leadership — especially in fundraising and advocacy — that enables their organizations to adapt and adjust to change.

What boards can do:

• Set strong expectations. When talking to current and potential board members, be clear about the important external role that board members need to play in supporting your mission. Make sure that each individual board member is comfortable reaching out to his or her networks and spheres of influence, whether it’s about policy decisions that impact your mission, charitable support that you need to fuel your work, or community partnerships that you could build to magnify your impact. For more on the important role that board members can play in advocating for their missions, visit here.
• Celebrate success. One of the secrets to engaging board members in activities that they may be nervous about is to thoughtfully celebrate successes whenever they take place. It reinforces how important those activities are, and creates pride of ownership and positive peer pressure within your board’s culture.

Investments in board development are worth the effort

Building and strengthening a board takes ongoing, intentional effort. Leading with Intent explores the pain points that many boards are experiencing, and highlights the important role that board self-assessment can play in improving board performance.

What boards can do:

• Get serious about board development. Challenge your governance committee to craft a holistic board development program for your board, with thoughtful goals around recruitment, orientation and education, regular assessment, and board succession planning. BoardSource’s year-round board development program for organizational members provides a great foundation for this work, including an annual assessment tool.
• Share your commitment to strong board performance. Organizations that take board leadership and governance seriously are stronger and more sustainable, and that’s something that donors and the public care about. Take a moment to share your board’s commitment to essential board leadership practices by updating the “People & Governance” section of your GuideStar Exchange Profile.

If we want nonprofit organizations positioned to deliver the kind of impact and results that our world needs, then B- boards aren’t going to cut it. We need to focus our energies and resources to support boards that are working diligently to strengthen their performance, and we need to challenge those that are not to set a higher bar for themselves and their missions.

We need our boards to strive to be A+ boards. That’s what our missions need, it’s what they deserve, and it’s what is within our reach if we commit to making it happen.

This post originally appeared on Bustle.

By Kat George

One thing that really irks me about feminism is that sometimes, feminists try to tell other feminists how to do feminism correctly. I’m going to clarify right now: feminism is belief in gender equality. That’s it. Beyond that, you’re talking about the infinite off-shoots of feminism that solve for the specific inequalities that manifest within different populations and groups of women. But, when you get down to it, feminism itself is nothing more complicated than a belief that equality between genders should exist.

If you identify as a feminist, all you need to do is believe that men and women should be equals, and then try to put that into practice. It doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy Keeping Up With The Kardashians (which doesn’t make you anti-feminist, it just makes you a bit of an idiot, but that’s okay too). You don’t have to grow your underarm hair to be a feminist (but if you do, that’s totally fine). You can be whoever you want to be: that’s the point of feminism.

Part of gender equality is affording women the right to be able to make their own choices, the way we do with men. You’ve never heard anyone tell a dude, “You have a career and a family? You’re not a proper man!” People are more likely to say things to men like, “You came home from work and cleaned the house and cooked dinner for your wife? WOW, YOU ARE AMAZING!” But you do hear people say things like, “How do you reconcile being a career woman with your desire to have children?” and, “You cook for your man? Isn’t that kind of antiquated?” A feminist can be whatever she wants to be, and it’s not up to anyone to tell her she’s doing feminism wrong. She can be strong, she can be wily, she can be superficial or mean or funny or sweet or up or down or fat and thin.

The truth is this that one of the only “bad” things a feminist can do is to force his or her definition of appropriate feminist conduct onto another person. We should certainly all strive to be each other’s teachers (if we want to be; no one is required to exert their own energy for the betterment of someone else, but it’s a very generous thing if you do), but we are not each other’s police officers. So, given that we’re not only living in the age of feminism, but the age of arguing about what makes someone a “good” feminist, here are six things people commonly call feminists out on that do not make them a “bad” feminist:

1. Changing your last name when you get married

I’ll never change my last name. Not because of any feminist reason, just because I like it, it suits me and it’s mine. I think Beyoncé’s officially made it “okay” for feminists to desire marriage. Not that it wasn’t okay before, but certain schools of feminist thought absolutely found the identity of wife and mother problematically at odds with the quest for equality. But Bey turned that domestic narrative around, positioning her role as a wife and mother as a platform of power, complementing her career, independence and admirably strong body.

But feminists still give women a hard time about wanting to change their name when they get married. Whatever. Change your name or don’t change your name. Feminism is about empowering women to make their own choices — not to make choices for them. If you want your husband’s name, take it. If he wants yours, great. If you want to abandon all established names and make up a new one, do to that. Or don’t. A feminist by any other name is still a feminist.

2. Letting a man pay for you

This seems to come as a shock to many, but it is possible to be a strong, financially and socially independent feminist and also let a man who likes you do something nice for you every so often. I get that there’s an undeniable amount of truth to the fact that some people do try to use money to gain power in a relationship, and that sometimes, a man’s insistence on paying for things is more about asserting control than it is about showering affection. That said, there’s nothing constructive about seeing malignancy where none exists. Sometimes, people are just being nice, with no agenda.

And it’s perfectly okay, if you’re a woman, to enjoy that. There’s a massive distance between “abandoning your belief system and becoming dependent on a dude” and “allowing your significant other to show that he cares by treating you to a nice meal.” Yes, there are other ways a man can do that (i.e., “being nice,” “listening,” etc., and I hope your partners all do those things too), but it’s not necessary to bring your politics to the dinner table when someone is showing kindness and appreciation through generosity. Since when did free food become such a taboo anyway? Women buying meals for men is also a sweet way to do a nice thing for someone you love.

3. Caring about your looks

Being a feminist is about choice. If you choose to exercise, follow fashion, have you hair and nails done, shave/wax and care about what you eat, you can STILL fight for/believe in/advocate/scream about feminism. You are still a feminist, so long as you’re choosing to do those things because you want to. I remember once watching Germaine Greer tell Cheryl Cole that she couldn’t be a feminist because she was “too thin” and screaming at the television set. You don’t have to be a hairy, unwashed vegan in order to promote feminist belief. That’s the wonderful thing about feminism: Anyone can do it! And if you ask me, the most un-feminist thing a “feminist” can do is exclude another woman from being a feminist based on her looks. That’s in complete opposition to what feminism actually represents.

4. Listening to rap music

As a feminist, I find rap music really problematic. I hate the lyrics that promote violence against and objectification of women. But I do love rap music. It’s something of a quandary, but then, there are ways of avoiding truly disgusting songs without entirely abandoning a genre you like. For instance, don’t listen to Eminem! That helps. But some of my favorite rappers, like Jay-Z and Biggie, have plenty of great songs that don’t involve murdering their wives. There are also female rappers like Lil Kim, Missy Elliot and Erykah Badu (and so, so many more rising up out of the ranks) whose lyrics are decidedly pro-woman. There’s pretty much nothing as satisfying as seeing talented women take a genre that used to embody their oppression and making it their own tool of empowerment. Like feminism, rap doesn’t have to be any one thing. Just take the parts of it you like and leave the parts you don’t. Which is basically just a really great way to live your life.

5. Enjoying domestic chores

I love cleaning. I love cleaning. I love cleaning. I just love it. I am Monica Geller. Cleaning. I love just typing the word. Clean. Cleaner. Cleaning. I love cooking too. I love making delicious meals. I love the process, I love the outcome, I love the way people feel when they eat food I’ve made for them. I work from home and I love having dinner ready when my boyfriend gets back from work. I love his excitement. I love that I was the cause of his excitement. I love caring for him and putting in effort to make our tiny apartment a lovely, warm, comfortable place to be. It makes me so happy. I also believe women should have equal pay, be free from the fear of rape and have easy and free access to birth control. THESE THINGS ARE NOT MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE.

Homemaking and caring for the person you’re making that home with and feminism are not only allowed to co-exist, they easily go hand-in-hand. You’re allowed to be a domestic Goddess living in co-habitated bliss while still fighting the good fight. You’re just fighting it from the luxury of a freshly-bleached bathroom floor and a lovingly prepared eight-hour stew. In fact, part of independence is being able to take care of yourself and your environment. A career woman who can roast a perfect chicken too? Now you’re talking. If you ask me, that makes you even better equipped to deal with gender-based challenges when out in the world.

For the record, it’s also perfectly okay to not want any of the things I just mentioned and to hate them all, and to live alone, order takeout, hire a male housekeeper and be a badass in accordance with the things you like. That’s awesome. That’s the point. Do the things you love, and don’t tell someone else that they aren’t doing a good enough job at life for doing the things they love. When I start cooking my boyfriend meals because he makes me feel obligated to do it based on my possession of a vagina, then you can start telling me that my domestic existence upholds damaging gender roles.

6. Disagreeing with something “feminist” someone said

This actually makes you a better feminist. Thinking critically and investigating ideas serves to make you better at having any opinion. Just because you have strong philosophical ideals doesn’t mean you have to adhere dogmatically to each and every other person in that school’s take on it. If you believe in equality between the sexes, you are a feminist. Whatever you attach to that is up to you, and can be as nuanced as suits you. For instance, if someone tells you “all heterosexual sex is rape” (an actual feminist theory), you’re allowed to disagree with that. It doesn’t diminish your feminism, it just means that you have different opinions on some of the details, and that’s just fine.

Images: Elijah Rodney/Flickr; Giphy (5); GifSoup

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There has been a lot of talk about balls lately. Tom Brady has been accused of fiddling with them in #DeflateGate, NFL officials have been investigated about checking them, and Marshawn Lynch and Chris Matthews have been fined for touching them. While the NFL vows to throw the flag at others for grabbing them, they’ve actually had pictures of the crotch grab up for sale.

No wonder why young men are so confused. Unfortunately, despite all of the talk about balls, young men are not checking their own.

A January survey by the Testicular Cancer Society indicated that only 1 out of 3 young men know how to do a self-testicular exam. The survey included 500 men in the U.S. age 18-34, an age group at higher risk for testicular cancer. While testicular cancer can occur at any age, it is the leading cause of cancer in guys age 15-35.

The lack of knowledge about how to do a self-testicular exam could be in direct correlation with a lack of education about testicular cancer.

In a separate survey this month, 1,000 guys, age 18-34 in the U.S., were asked about who had spoken to them about testicular cancer. Nineteen percent responded that they had been spoken to about testicular cancer by their doctor, 8 percent by their parent, 8 percent by their high school teacher/nurse, 5 percent by their sports coach, 5 percent by their college professor/nurse and 67 percent replied none of the above.

A lack of testicular cancer education is apparent when two-thirds of guys, in the age group at highest risk for testicular cancer, say none of the people that should be close to them have mentioned the disease.

To help overcome this lack of education and to reach guys directly about how to do self-testicular exams, the Testicular Cancer Society does have a free Ball Checker app available on iTunes and Google Play. More information is also available at www.BallChecker.com.

The Ball Checker app also has monthly reminders to do the self-testicular exam and could help young men like Marshawn Lynch and Chris Matthews by reminding them to do their crotch grabbing other than during Sunday game time.

My lover flew us in his private plane to Las Vegas. A limo delivered us to whichever casino was comping our current trip: the Riviera, the Flamingo, the Stardust or the Sands. The Strip beckoned with dazzling light in the desert night. It was difficult for me to keep from hanging my head out the window like a dog, so I mimicked the sophisticated composure of ’40s movie stars — Bacall, Hayward, Crawford, Stanwyck — I’d watched on late night TV in New Mexico. I was 19, a sophomore in college. Garry was 20 years my senior.

We’d usually head right for our room, bathe and make love. Dinner followed and then a late show. Rat Pack? Of course. Add Elvis, Tom Jones and Charo to the list. Back at school, the Love-Lust poem was the latest subject of protest marches. The entire English department went on strike and you couldn’t walk across campus without hearing Lenore Kandel’s ode to a particular part of her husband’s anatomy. Garry did his level best to make me fall in love with his. It was 1969; no pun intended.

He liked blackjack, but he’d also roll the dice. I stood behind him dressed in my latest cocktail dress and heels, bought on sale with money earned from working the front desk at my dorm. It was worth the sacrifice of a few meals to feel so glamorous, beautiful and desirable. Every showgirl and cocktail waitress was gorgeous. I never heard any slot machines, although I’m sure they existed.

Fast-forward 12 years and my new husband wanted to honeymoon in Vegas. Anything with showgirls interested him. Comedians were okay. This time around, I noticed gray-haired old ladies sitting at the slots with their oxygen machines next to them. We met Joan Rivers after her show. In typical Rivers’ style, she told me that I was completely “different from what I imagined Gerald’s wife would be.” Hmm.

In the ’90s, my Las Vegas experience was the polar opposite of my youthful adventures. I had my sons with me, aged 11 and 7. We stopped in Vegas for one night going to and returning from Lake Powell in Utah. It was on this trip that I noticed people with families, even pushing strollers, and how casual the dress code had become. We stayed at the Luxor and did everything you could do for free in Vegas: visit the White Tigers on display at the Mirage, watch the Pirates of the Caribbean enactment at Treasure Island, and marvel at the acrobats performing above us as we walked through the Circus Circus casino.

At Circus Circus my sons asked me to drop a quarter into a slot machine. We played until an officious woman came up and told me to stop. Children could pass through the casino with parents, but not actually gamble. Thereafter, asking me to play a slot became my boys’ most fervent desire. I complied. Someone always asked us to please stop, which I did because I’m a role model, right? My sons thought Vegas was wonderful and wanted to move there. They had also wanted to move near the truck stop in Barstow where there were video games and five junk food places in a row.

Altogether, I count at least 15 trips to Las Vegas in my lifetime, most of which I don’t remember. That’s either a sign of a rollicking vacation or that I’ve repressed the memories. My husband and I usually take a long weekend for our anniversary. He had business in Vegas so off we went to celebrate 33 years together.

It’s not easy trying to avoid humanity in a crowded and noisy Las Vegas casino. Slot machines flashed and beckoned with discordant sounds meant to sound fun. People laughed and moaned around card tables. There was no flow, no symmetry to the human movement. An odd lurch, a mismatched gait caught my eye: a cocktail waitress carrying a tray of drinks moved past me. She wore the sleeveless low-cut top and short skirt mandated by the casino. The flesh on her arms was wrinkled as well as on her chest. There were fishnet stockings, but mercifully her feet were encased in orthopedic shoes your grandma would wear. Didn’t help with her limp. Thin and haggard, her dowager’s hump emphasized by a stoop, she returned my amused stare. Her eyes were dark and angry. Every line on her sagging face expressed hateful defiance. One in four Vegas cocktail waitresses has worked at her job for 15 years or more.

Notes: At the casino buffet I watch a couple with a child across the room. The adults don’t speak, but bow their heads over iPhones. The kid has some sort of device, too. Not unique to Vegas, happens everywhere in the U.S. The father goes to get food. The mother stares off into space, looking pissed. Her eyes sweep the room and find mine. I smile. Her scowl deepens and we have a stare-off. She dismisses me with a flick of her shoulders and lovingly gazes at her iPhone, giving it the smile I wanted.

They leave and are soon replaced by another couple, ex-hippie rock star types. The male is tall and severely overweight in a huge shouldered way. He bends over his food, a leather headband holding back his long silver hair. The woman with him has softly coiffed blond hair. They don’t speak, either. Her eyes are abandoned pools of hopelessness. Life clearly didn’t turn out the way she expected. Settled in, selling out, settling for less.

My husband suggests I try the shrimp. A tattooed couple is making out in front of the seafood. Both of them are muscular, the woman buxom with a leather halter-top and hip-hugger pants. They move down to the salad bar and start again. By make out I don’t mean just a sloppy kiss, but full on wrap one leg around the guy and then the other so that he has to hold her by cupping her butt. This last is in front of the dessert section. I take my time picking the perfect slice of pie.

Back at the table, I describe the couple and my husband gets up to check them out. We share similar interests. Later, we stroll the strip which is a festive place filled with a diverse mix of people, all looking for the right ingredients for fun, the kind movies and ads promise. My view of Las Vegas is no longer rose-colored and romantic, nor do I see it as a child would, all madcap rides and sparkly lights. I see the people in extremity, wild and ruthless in their pursuit of joy, their lives ahead of them. For others, each action is endlessly repetitious; they’ve overdrawn on their joy accounts. Their lives are over. They just don’t know it.

Throughout the next few months, HuffPost Teen is highlighting the way teens think and feel about sex through anecdotes written for our series, “Teen Sex: It’s Complicated.” All of the authors are teenagers who have agreed to be published anonymously. If you want to share your thoughts, join the conversation here.

By Brooke, 18

To me, sex means… well, waiting. I know that may seem strange to people, and the urge to disagree may immediately come to mind, but to me, that’s what I always think of. I come from a Christian family so having sex outside of marriage is highly frowned upon. However, although I disagree with the way it comes across from some uneducated Christian’s points of view (for example, “you’re going to hell if you have sex before you’re married”), I do believe that it’s backed up with good intentions.

I admit, even as a teenage Christian female, the urge to have sex in the generation and society I live in is quite the struggle to deal with. Whether your friends are believers or not, everyone is going to wonder whether or not you’re a virgin. Some more “godly” people will expect you to be one and look down upon you if you’re not, yet people with different beliefs will tell me that “it’s a must…” or “you’re missing out!” Society tends to degrade you whether you choose to be a virgin or not.

For me, I’m proud to say I’m still a virgin. Go ahead… laugh! I don’t mind one bit. Want to know why? Because I could choose to lose my virginity now and be intimate with some guy who clearly isn’t the one I’m going to marry, have it all be a good time for a little while, and then move on to the next one. I could give my body away to guys who will eventually mature, become more wise, and actually fall in love for real later down the road. And hopefully, the same will happen for me as well. Then, we’ll both have to walk the painful walk of shame and explain to our partner how we didn’t wait for them because we chose someone over them before we even met, which I’m sure for them is going to be just as painful (if they waited for you all that time) when they have to hear you explain it all to them.

Or I could choose to wait for the one I’m going to marry and spend the rest of my life with and be intimate with him and only him. I’ll proudly be able to give him the gift I waited “x” amount of years for: my virginity. And youa know what? It’s gonna be awesome! I know he will be thankful at the thought that I saved my entire body and emotionally intimate attachment for him my entire life.

Quite honestly, as a girl whose hormones rage for a good week every other month or so, the last thing I need to worry about is sex. Why get so emotionally and intimately attached with someone who most likely won’t be with you (or maybe even remember you) a week, maybe a month down the road? To me, it’s not worth the pain. I’d rather say I waited for my husband and took on the struggle of practicing patience then deal with that emotional and physical destruction later on. If that means that I’ll get looked down upon by my friends or society now… then so be it. I won’t care what their opinions are about my sex life when I’m happily in love and married when the time comes.

The fact of the matter is, sex isn’t everything. At least for me, it seems like more pain then gain as of right now. When I’m married and with the love of my life forever, then it’s going to be awesome because I know it’s going to be with the person it was meant to be with all along. Sometimes, we need to look past our own selfish, lustful desires and just… be patient.

I would rather skip the “okay” for the “best” any day.

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Read more from “Teen Sex: It’s Complicated”:

• “My Boyfriend Broke Up With Me Because I Wanted To Have Sex“
• “I Found Out I Was Pregnant On The Last Day Of 8th Grade“
• “To Me, Sex Is An Art Form“
• “I Wish I Had Loved Myself Enough To Wait For Sex“
• “Confessions Of A Half-Virgin“
• “Why I Lie About Being A Virgin“
• “I Became Hell-Bent On Losing My Virginity“
• “I Had A Baby At 14, And Here’s What I Now Know About Sex“
• “Why I Now Feel Confident, Not Terrified, About Losing My Virginity“
• “I’m Gay, But I Don’t Regret Having Sex With My High School Girlfriend“
• “I’m Demisexual — Here’s What That Means“
• “What Losing My Virginity Made Me Realize“
• “My ‘First Time’ Was Really Embarrassing“
• “I Wanted To Wait For Marriage — Then I Changed My Mind“
• “Sex Was Mysterious, Intriguing And Terrifying“
• “I Expected A Monumental Change In Myself After Sex“
• “Immediately After Sex, He Stopped Talking To Me“
• “The Act Of Sex Scares Me“
• “I Slept Around Because Sex Didn’t Feel Like A Big Deal“
• “Being A Virgin Sucks, But I’m Still Waiting“
• “There’s No One I Can Talk To About Sex“
• “In Eighth Grade, I Signed A Celibacy Contract“
• “I Feel Like I’m The Only One Who Doesn’t Regret Having Sex“
• “I Thought I Was Ready To Lose My Virginity“
• “Sex Is A Symbol Of Popularity At My School“
• “It Seemed Like Sex Was Some Kind Of Boulder Hanging Over Us“
• “I Argue With Myself Every Day About Losing My Virginity“
• “I’m Staying A Virgin So I Don’t Disappoint My Family“
• “Sex Was Nothing To Me“
• “Sometimes, I Don’t Know What To Believe When It Comes To Sex“

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