Board of directors

Jack Marsh (Chairman)
Former president of the Al Neuharth Media Center, University of South Dakota (retired)

Kevin Kirby
Co-Founder, Face It TOGETHER (retired)

Joe Henkin
Partner, HenkinSchultz Communication Arts (retired)

Jim Johnson
CEO, GE Johnson Construction Co.

Philosophy of Governance

In the years since Face It TOGETHER’s inception, we have embraced and nurtured a culture that has attracted the right people for the right roles.

Jim Collins, the author of “Good to Great,” calls this “getting the right people on the bus.” He notes, however, that doing this is tricky in the social sector. Once people are on the team, it has been traditionally difficult to get the wrong people off the bus in the social enterprise; due largely to a lack of objective criteria that make it easy to remove people.

Business has had evaluative mechanisms in place for decades. Without the right people, business cannot be efficient and cannot maximize profits for shareholders. In the social sector, on the other hand, there isn't a clear-cut method for measuring impact upon which individuals can be evaluated. That, of course, is changing as the social sector becomes more outcomes-based.

Still, the key to maximize social enterprise success is by implementing a rigorous, highly selective hiring process. The right talent can improve the financial position of the social enterprise, but “money cannot ever compensate for the lack of the right people.”

Why start with the “right people” orientation for our philosophy of governance? We believe that with the right people operating the organization, the Board of Directors can focus on governance and strategy. With the right people on the board, its focus can remain strategic.

It is the role of the Board to be the primary force pressing the organization’s leadership to greatness by focusing on organizational outputs of:

• Maintaining strategic alliance with the mission;
• Delivering superior performance;
• Making a distinctive impact; and
• Achieving lasting endurance.

The Board must be committed to a continual process of discernment and application of “best practices” in corporate governance. This includes stern attention to risk oversight; understanding the organization’s risk philosophy and applying a robust process of enterprise risk management. While not a traditional practice of nonprofit organizations, risk management is a key function of all great organizations.

Collins defines a “great organization” as one “that delivers superior performance and makes distinctive impact over a long period of time.” Financial returns drive greatness for business, but for the social enterprise, greatness is assessed relative to effective delivery of our mission and distinctive impact of our resources.

As a social entrepreneurial organization, with the right people executing the mission and the right people governing the strategic direction of the organization, we can have the distinctive social impact that will not only get individual addiction sufferers well, but will solve addiction in the many communities where we are present. 

Kevin Kirby, CEO
Face It TOGETHER