The New York Times among others reported on Tuesday the 19th that the "Board of Regents voted Monday to undertake a major capital campaign to help raise the $2.5 billion needed to improve and repair its buildings. It is the first large-scale private fund-raising effort in the organization’s history."  According to the article, this is a significant commitment for an institution that to date "gets 70 percent of its $1 billion operating budget from the federal government."

But, the Smithsonian and its Board of Regents (kind of its board of directors -- the caretakers for the public of all that lies within the Smithsonian) have had a hard year with lots of controversy over its chief executive (getting or taking too many perks and too large a salary (not my opinion); governance issues (who does what and for how much and how to report this); and even the acceptance of money for specific exhibits or changing exhibits considering the donor source..... And, to top it off, a fairly gross failure to make ends meet from the revenues generated through a fairly vast and significant ventures strategy.   Will this never end?

At minimum of course, many of these failings and challenges are merely symptoms of a failure to govern well which entails at minimum the development and oversight of good policy, planning and evaluation. 

But, is the Smithsonian too much for any one (nonprofit) board to govern?  Perhaps yes and yet there are those who would argue otherwise -- perhaps the Guggenheim for instance.  But maybe this really is the question the Smithsonian's Board of Regents should ask and answer.  Maybe the Regents' purview is just too much for any reasonable board.  Maybe.....