100 books like The Little Book of Boards

By Erik Hanberg,

Here are 100 books that The Little Book of Boards fans have personally recommended if you like The Little Book of Boards. Shepherd is a community of 10,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of The Best of Boards: Sound Governance and Leadership for Nonprofit Organizations

Melisa Galasso Author Of Money Matters for Nonprofits: How Board Members Can Harness the Power of Financial Statements by Understanding Basic Accounting

From my list on someone new to a nonprofit board.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a CPA with nearly 20 years of experience in the accounting profession and I provide continuing education to CPA firms in the area of accounting and auditing. One of my areas of specialization is government and nonprofit accounting. I serve on the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB’s) Not-for-Profit Advisory Committee and the AICPA’s Governing Council. I am passionate about the standard setting process and ensuring financial reporting is accurate and presented in a way to help the user make financial decisions. I have a BSBA from Georgetown University with a concentration in Accounting and International Business. 

Melisa's book list on someone new to a nonprofit board

Melisa Galasso Why did Melisa love this book?

This book builds on the information provided by The Little Book of Boards by going into more details into the nitty gritty. This book addresses the legal responsibilities of the board risk management and ethics. It also has a chapter on financial statements and internal controls. Each chapter provides just enough details that the reader can start to get a great understanding of the big picture of a board member’s responsibilities. The book closes with a focus on change management and useful case studies to get the reader thinking about their responsibilities for the nonprofit organization. I’d definitely recommend reading this after the Little Book of Boards to continue to grow the knowledge base without getting overwhelmed.

By Marci S. Thomas,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Best of Boards as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Nonprofit organizations boards are justifiably passionate about their causes and eager to help their organizations. However, in today s increasingly regulated climate, board members, who come from diverse backgrounds and may have little financial expertise, can feel overwhelmed by the regulations that are their duty to follow. The Best of Boards: Sound Governance and Leadership for Nonprofit Organizations provides not-for-profit board members and financial managers with the essential fiduciary knowledge and indispensable leadership guidance that they need to meet the challenges of the current not-for-profit environment. This book contains: * Financial and ethical guidance for real-life situations * Practical leadership…


Book cover of The Nonprofit Board Answer Book: A Practical Guide for Board Members and Chief Executives

Melisa Galasso Author Of Money Matters for Nonprofits: How Board Members Can Harness the Power of Financial Statements by Understanding Basic Accounting

From my list on someone new to a nonprofit board.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a CPA with nearly 20 years of experience in the accounting profession and I provide continuing education to CPA firms in the area of accounting and auditing. One of my areas of specialization is government and nonprofit accounting. I serve on the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB’s) Not-for-Profit Advisory Committee and the AICPA’s Governing Council. I am passionate about the standard setting process and ensuring financial reporting is accurate and presented in a way to help the user make financial decisions. I have a BSBA from Georgetown University with a concentration in Accounting and International Business. 

Melisa's book list on someone new to a nonprofit board

Melisa Galasso Why did Melisa love this book?

The Nonprofit Board Answer Book is a question-and-answer style book that takes the learnings from The Best of Boards one step further. It addresses board functions and structure with a section on board member selection and development. Oftentimes nonprofit boards aren’t intentional about these items. The Q&A addresses all the common questions that persons new to a board would ask or need to know. Board Source is a phenomenal organization whose aim is to help boards succeed. When I was researching governance for chapter 1 of my book, I cited several Board Source tools as they really do have the experience with nonprofit governance through their research. I love that each chapter of the text closes with suggested action steps to make the book more hands-on and practical. 

By BoardSource,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Nonprofit Board Answer Book as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

An essential guide to good governance for board leaders at all levels of experience and expertise This third edition of the bestselling book for nonprofit board members and professionals offers a thoroughly revised and updated resource that answers the most-commonly asked question on board governance. The book covers such topics as board structure and process, board member recruitment and orientation, board-staff relations, and financial management. This new edition includes updated information on topics that have recently increased in importance including new Form 990; dealing with the financial crisis, risk management, and mergers.
* Shows executives and board members how to…


Book cover of Embezzlement: How to Detect, Prevent, and Investigate Pink-Collar Crime

Mary S. Schaeffer Author Of 127 Best Practices for Accounts Payable

From my list on to build excellence in accounting and finance.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m obsessed with spreading the word about best practices when it comes to the accounts payable function. It’s a lot more complicated than you might imagine – if you want to avoid fraud, excess costs, duplicate payments, problems with the IRS, etc. I regularly speak at both online and live events. As the host of the AP Now YouTube channel, I’m able to share opinions, interview industry thought leaders, and share the latest business intelligence needed to run an efficient, cost-effective accounts payable and payment function. I’ve written over 20 business books, most of them focusing on various aspects of the accounts payable function.

Mary's book list on to build excellence in accounting and finance

Mary S. Schaeffer Why did Mary love this book?

Did you know that women excel when it comes to embezzlement?

It’s the one type of fraud that is more likely to be committed by a woman than a man. That’s why embezzlement is often referred to as pink-collar crime. But, as Paxton points out, the crime has more to do with position rather than gender as most embezzlement is committed by lower-level employees, such as the bookkeeper who runs the accounting and finance side of an office.

This is especially true in smaller businesses. Packed with numerous real-life stories, Paxton shares tips every organization should use to ensure this type of crime does not happen on their watch. She also is known for creating fraud-related hashtags, my favorite being #trustisnotaninternalcontrol.

By Kelly Paxton,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Embezzlement as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Your most trusted employee. Your right hand. However, something just doesn’t feel right about your business. Could an employee be stealing from you? Certainly you’re mistaken, right?

After all, this person helped you grow your business, has full access to everything from passwords to bank statements. Sure, that gives your employee the opportunity, but he or she would never take advantage of it.

We lock our cars and our houses to protect ourselves. What do you do to protect your business? This book is designed to help you prevent, detect, and investigate embezzlement. You will learn how opportunity, pressure, and…


Book cover of Asking Styles: Revolutionize Your Fundraising

Melisa Galasso Author Of Money Matters for Nonprofits: How Board Members Can Harness the Power of Financial Statements by Understanding Basic Accounting

From my list on someone new to a nonprofit board.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a CPA with nearly 20 years of experience in the accounting profession and I provide continuing education to CPA firms in the area of accounting and auditing. One of my areas of specialization is government and nonprofit accounting. I serve on the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB’s) Not-for-Profit Advisory Committee and the AICPA’s Governing Council. I am passionate about the standard setting process and ensuring financial reporting is accurate and presented in a way to help the user make financial decisions. I have a BSBA from Georgetown University with a concentration in Accounting and International Business. 

Melisa's book list on someone new to a nonprofit board

Melisa Galasso Why did Melisa love this book?

While governance is a key aspect of any board member's responsibilities, often nonprofit board members are surprised or even disheartened by the requirement to fundraise on behalf of the organization. Some people are afraid that they can’t ask for money or are uncomfortable asking certain people and decide they don’t want to serve on the board. While there are a lot of books on fundraising, Asking Styles helps board members identify their asking style and what would be the most effective fundraising methods for them. It also helps understand how others feel about fundraising and how to work as a team to bring the most success to the organization. The book is a short read but full of great examples and practical guidance. 

By Brian Saber,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Asking Styles as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This could very well become one of the most important books in our field. It is a breakthrough of a methodology that really works. It’s the best antidote I’ve read on taking the fear out of asking. It will make you successful. If you already are, it will make you more so. (From the foreword by Jerold Panas.)

The breakthrough concept of the Asking Styles makes it possible for anyone to become a more effective fundraiser. Your Asking Style is based on your personality and unique set of strengths when asking for gifts.

If you’ve ever said to yourself “I’m…


Book cover of Joan Garry's Guide to Nonprofit Leadership: Because the World Is Counting on You

Ed Mishrell Author Of The 5 Truths for Transformational Leaders: How Nonprofit Organizations Thrive, Grow, and Make a Profound Difference

From my list on leaders with the courage to be transformational.

Why am I passionate about this?

I've been fascinated throughout my career by what makes an effective leader. I read about leadership; I carefully observed effective leaders; and I worked hard to become a leader. After a 40-year career, I concluded that nonprofit leaders required a leadership model that met the unique challenges of leading a nonprofit organization and that I was the right person to write the book. I'm proud of The 5 Truths for Transformational Leaders. I believe the book addresses the unique challenges of leading a nonprofit organization. I hope you discover how to use its principles to make a bigger difference in achieving your organization’s mission. Nothing could be more important for the future of our nation.

Ed's book list on leaders with the courage to be transformational

Ed Mishrell Why did Ed love this book?

While there are thousands of books on leadership there are few that specifically address the challenges of leading a nonprofit organization. 

Leading a nonprofit is different; authority is diffused and widely shared, success is difficult to define and competition for resources is intense. Or, as Joan states “nonprofits are messy.” Joan provides a practical guide to leaders based on her experience as a leader and consultant.  

Her approach is down to earth straight forward and sprinkled with a dash of humor. Hearing Joan speak and subsequently reading her book several years ago was the first impetus for me to explore writing about nonprofit leadership. Thank you Joan.

By Joan Garry,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Joan Garry's Guide to Nonprofit Leadership as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In a world where the old rules no longer apply, nonprofit leadership is more important than ever

Now in its second edition, Joan Garry's Guide to Nonprofit Leadership is a must-have resource for organizations of all shapes and sizes wanting to make a bigger difference in the world. Filled with real-life stories and concrete strategies, this practical guide helps develop the specialized skills and mindset needed to successfully lead and manage a stable and impactful world-class organization.

A lot has happened since Joan Garry's Guide to Nonprofit Leadership was first published in 2017. The COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 election cycle,…


Book cover of How To Solve The Mismanagement Crisis

Donald Summers Author Of Scaling Altruism: A Proven Pathway for Accelerating Nonprofit Growth and Impact

From my list on essential reading for nonprofit leaders.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have spent most of my adult life using entrepreneurial business practices and principles to redesign and transform nonprofits. From my very first nonprofit organizational acceleration, I was hooked. The wealth one receives from helping other people is so much richer and more satisfying than money–altruism is truly life's greatest pleasure. You know the movie The Sixth Sense where the little kid sees dead people everywhere? I am the same way, except everywhere I look, I see uncaptured opportunities for social impact. I live and breathe social impact strategy, governance, financing, evaluation, and change management. Because by fixing problems in those areas, organizations are able to do more to make the world a better place.  

Donald's book list on essential reading for nonprofit leaders

Donald Summers Why did Donald love this book?

Business management guru Ichak Adizes lays out a simple, memorable formula for helping you create high-performing teams.

As he deftly explains, conflict among teams comes from the failure to recognize that everyone brings different concerns and priorities to the workplace. These four "thinking styles" are embedded in our brains, and good teamwork requires 1) we learn what these styles are, 2) how to recognize coworkers' different styles, and 3) how to meet them in the middle. Critically, organizational leadership teams need all four styles.

Nothing replaces reading this fascinating and critically important guide to understanding your own strengths and executing on job #1 for management: selecting and building successful teams. So while Collins says, “Get the right people on the bus,” Asizes gives you actionable insights on how to do that. 

Book cover of Reinventing Organizations: A Guide to Creating Organizations Inspired by the Next Stage of Human Consciousness

Lorraine Flower Author Of Heartful Business: Leading with the World in Mind

From my list on leading business consciously to create a better world for all.

Why am I passionate about this?

I love businesses and have been lucky enough to work for and with some great ones in my career in senior leadership positions. For me, leadership is an extraordinary privilege, so we have a responsibility to do it well and keep learning and improving ourselves and the organisations we lead. My journey into more conscious leadership began over 30 years ago, well ahead of the current movement, and it has progressively become the passion driving my work to help leaders and organisations contribute to building a better world. This passion also drives my service with a number of spiritual communities, including Sundial House and the Community of Living Ethics.

Lorraine's book list on leading business consciously to create a better world for all

Lorraine Flower Why did Lorraine love this book?

This is a book that has sparked a movement, and rightly so. I love the challenge to hierarchy opening to true inclusion and interdependent autonomy linked to shared purpose.

Laloux brings an exploration of the different levels of consciousness organisations can reach, and what I really appreciated about this book is the hope it gives through its case studies–real organisations that have reinvented themselves successfully and created very different and positive work experiences for their people.

Reinventing Organization groups and consultants around the world are working with its principles. For me, that says much about the level of yearning for a different, better work experience and for organisations that contribute more positively to society. Though it has captured people’s imaginations, we still await the full-on workplace revolution.

By Frederic Laloux,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Reinventing Organizations as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The way we manage organizations seems increasingly out of date. Survey after survey shows that a majority of employees feel disengaged from their companies. The epidemic of organizational disillusionment goes way beyond Corporate America-teachers, doctors, and nurses are leaving their professions in record numbers because the way we run schools and hospitals kills their vocation. Government agencies and nonprofits have a noble purpose, but working for these entities often feels soulless and lifeless just the same. All these organizations suffer from power games played at the top and powerlessness at lower levels, from infighting and bureaucracy, from endless meetings and…


Book cover of The Promise of a Pencil: How an Ordinary Person Can Create Extraordinary Change

Dale Hanson Bourke Author Of Strong Girls, Strong World: A Practical Guide to Helping Them Soar--and Creating a Better Future for Us All

From my list on helping you make the world a better place.

Why am I passionate about this?

When I lost a baby late in my pregnancy, I was overwhelmed by grief. And then I learned that tens of thousands of babies died every day from preventable causes. I couldn’t save my own baby, but I wanted to know how to help others. I joined the board of World Vision and then other groups, including Opportunity International, MAP International, and International Justice Mission. I took numerous trips to developing countries and eventually headed a foundation dedicated to maternal health. I listened to the stories of women and tried to tell them to the world through a variety of international publications. I'm forever grateful to those who changed the way I see the world.

Dale's book list on helping you make the world a better place

Dale Hanson Bourke Why did Dale love this book?

When Adam Braun asked a young boy begging on the streets of India what he wanted most in the world, he said, “A pencil.”

That simple request changed the path of the author from a career on Wall Street to a grassroots effort to build schools in some of the poorest places on earth. This very practical and inspirational book shows how anyone can help change the world. It’s especially good for young people who want to find meaning in their careers.

By Adam Braun,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Promise of a Pencil as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Adam Braun began working summers at hedge funds when he was just sixteen years old, sprinting down the path to a successful Wall Street career. But while traveling as a college student, he met a young boy begging on the streets of India who would change his life. When Braun asked the boy what he wanted most in the world, he simply answered, "a pencil."

This small request became the inspiration for the organisation Braun would one day start, taking him on a journey through more than fifty countries and into the heart of self-discovery. His unique "for-purpose" approach reversed…


Book cover of Uncharitable: How Restraints on Nonprofits Undermine Their Potential

Doug White Author Of Wounded Charity: Lessons Learned from the Wounded Warrior Project Crisis

From my list on the complex worlds of philanthropy and nonprofits.

Why am I passionate about this?

The nonprofit sector is important to society and I often marvel at how many of us – which is to say all of us – have been touched by the generosity of others. With few exceptions, anyone who has graduated from college, who has been admitted to a hospital, who has attended a faith-based service, who has examined art at a gallery, who – literally, and there are no exceptions here – breathes air has benefited from the work of nonprofit organizations and the philanthropists who support them. It is therefore important to me to understand how the system works and how important charities are to society and a functioning democracy. 

Doug's book list on the complex worlds of philanthropy and nonprofits

Doug White Why did Doug love this book?

In Uncharitable Dan Pallotta challenges the way most people think about charity. 

Many people have been told that the less charities spend on overhead, fundraising, and salaries, the better the charities are. But this is not a healthy way to understand a charity’s impact, and Uncharitable refutes this myth. 

Pallotta describes what he calls an “economic apartheid,” a mindset that denies charities the critical tools that the for-profit sector is allowed to use without restraint: incentives to take risks, counterproductive limits on compensation, and moral objections to the use of donated dollars for anything other than program expenditures. 

I like this book not because Pallotta has a fully fleshed-out roadmap to energize the nonprofit sector, but because he is one of the few to articulate important problems facing the sector.

By Dan Pallotta,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Uncharitable as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Uncharitable investigates how for-profit strategies could and should be used by nonprofits.

Uncharitable goes where no other book on the nonprofit sector has dared to tread. Where other texts suggest ways to optimize performance inside the existing charity paradigm, Uncharitable suggests that the paradigm itself is the problem and calls into question our fundamental canons about charity. Dan Pallotta argues that society's nonprofit ethic creates an inequality that denies the nonprofit sector critical tools and permissions that the for-profit sector is allowed to use without restraint. These double standards place the nonprofit sector at an extreme disadvantage. While the for-profit…


Book cover of Scaling Leadership: Building Organizational Capability and Capacity to Create Outcomes That Matter Most

Lyssa Adkins Author Of Lead Together: The Bold, Brave, Intentional Path to Scaling Your Business

From my list on for leaders scaling themselves for their business.

Why am I passionate about this?

For over a decade I helped people develop their skills and expand their leaderful-ness in Agile Coaching and I kept hearing the same blocker: “This is great and all, but my leaders don’t get it. They are the impediment.” After working with many thousands of Agilists I decided to go into the “belly of the beast” and personally coach leadership teams. What I found were not beasts or even garden variety egomaniacs. Instead, I found well-meaning people who are genuinely confounded by the complexity of today’s business landscape and who struggle with performance-killing team dynamics. Good news: the human technology to “solve” these issues is widely available. We know how.

Lyssa's book list on for leaders scaling themselves for their business

Lyssa Adkins Why did Lyssa love this book?

This book posits that the most important function of an organizational leader is to create other leaders throughout the organization. That’s right…not problem-solving, not clever strategy, not vision but leadership development. That’s because those other aspects are “table stakes” for the game of leadership in today’s complex business world. What I like about this book is that it is based on a huge pool of data about what makes leaders effective in the 21st-century and many of the insights are drawn from leaders themselves….from the feedback they give when they evaluate other leaders using the Leadership Circle Profile 360° assessment. It’s a nice marriage of relatable info “from the horse’s mouth” and decades of leadership theory borne out by insights from the assessment of hundreds of thousands of leaders. If you want to very specifically know what it takes to be a 21st-century leader, this book is a…

By Robert J. Anderson, William A. Adams,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Scaling Leadership as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Transform Your Organization by Scaling Leadership

How do senior leaders, in their own words, describe the most effective leaders-the ones that get results, grow the business, enhance the culture and leave in their wake a trail of other really effective leaders? Conversely, how do senior leaders describe the kind of leader that undercuts the organization's capacity and capability to create its future? This book, based on groundbreaking research, shows how senior leaders describe and develop leadership that works, that does not, that scales, and that limits scale.

Is your leadership built for scale as you advance in today's volatile, uncertain,…


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