I spent 14 of my 22 years of nonprofit leadership reporting directly to a nonprofit board of directors. Most of that time was smooth sailing, but not all of it. Not all boards are created equal.

Through it all, I learned a valuable lesson: It is the CEO’s job to engage the board. Simple, right? I didn’t always believe it. I believed it was the board chair’s job. After all, the chair is the highest-ranking official in the organization and should therefore be held responsible for getting a board to behave the way it should. I thought the chair should be the chief engager — that only a peer could successfully draw out the kind of engagement a CEO would want in a board. I was wrong.

First, we have to define board engagement. Many CEOs complain about having a disengaged board, but when I coach them and ask what it is they want to see, they have difficulty defining it. “I’ll just know,” they often say. But they often confuse engagement with involvement. They sound synonymous, but they are not. Involved can mean too involved. Nobody wants a micromanaging board. Engaged means something slightly different.

I have come to define board engagement the same way I define employee engagement. Engagement is about the level of intellectual, physical and emotional commitment a board consistently demonstrates to the organization and its mission. Engagement takes many shapes and sizes, from a financial contribution to a meaningful presence at board meetings and from community ambassadorship to stakeholder door-opening and relationship-building. But there is a reality that CEOs must learn to face when it comes to the commitment demonstration of their boards.

The Jinks Perspective conducted a survey last year of over 100 nonprofit leaders across the United States. They varied in size and ranged from arts organizations to foundations or health and human service organizations. Among the results was a finding that over 70% of organizations’ boards meet less frequently than monthly. Most boards meet around six times a year, for about an hour or so. Eighty-five percent of those leaders said their boards spend less than half of their time together focused on strategy. This means that boards, on average, spend less than three hours a year together, focused on shaping, monitoring, adjusting or contemplating the organization’s primary strategy.

Before you scream, “Those lazy, ignorant boards,” consider this: The CEO is the only one who can realistically change this reality and is the primary one responsible for allowing it to continue on its current path. Why is this? Here are some reasons:

• The CEO’s leadership transcends board terms and shapes culture over the long term.

• The CEO is the one who has the time and expertise to shape a better path forward for the board.

• The board looks to the CEO as its leader, even though the CEO reports to them.

Ideally, the CEO and board chair work in concert. They are partners working to lead the board and the organization. Each one brings value to the table. But as board chairs come and go, the CEO remains over a longer period to train, shape and cultivate those relationships and behaviors.