Nonprofit boards not as effective with proxy members

Minnesota is weighing legal action against a well known Minneapolis nonprofit after a state audit found the organization -- Community Action of Minneapolis -- misspent hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars.

• More: Questions raised for years about Community Action's spending

The audit placed much of the blame on the organization's board, which included several prominent DFL politicians, among them Congressman Keith Ellison. But the politicians say they had little direct involvement with its actual governance because they each sent someone else to attend meetings and cast votes.

MPR News' Cathy Wurzer spoke with Jon Pratt, executive director of the Minnesota Council of Nonprofits, about that practice.