The purpose of this article is to present an initial framework for understanding nonprofit board governance and then, using findings from the Urban Institute National Survey of Nonprofit Governance, explore relationships between variables presented in the framework. The framework is based on a recent review of the literature and highlights the ways in which internal organizational characteristics, board attributes, and the external environment influence board roles and responsibilities. In brief, our results confirm the importance of developing a more systematic body of knowledge about relationships between specific elements of context and board practices. The results suggest that the proposed contingency-based framework is a useful beginning point for future research.
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