It goes without saying that nonprofit organizations of all types are important. But what does need to be stated repeatedly is the importance of good leadership for those organizations. That’s what Edgar Stoesz clearly and concisely does in the new edition of Doing Good Better: How to Be an Effective Board Member of a Nonprofit Organization.

The first edition came out in 1994 to much acclaim. At that time, there were about 1.1 million nonprofits in the United States. Two decades later, that number has increased to more than 1.5 million, according to the National Center for Charitable Statistics.

One constant, however, is that the best of intentions are still too often accompanied by fiduciary naïveté, ignorance and even incompetence. Doing Good Better is a terrific handbook for individuals wanting to translate their charitable concerns and interests to the boardroom in order to make their nonprofits not only functional but thriving. “The world is filled with people of goodwill, but goodwill alone won’t cut it,” Stoesz writes.

To better equip those people, he has revamped Doing Good Better. The content — some of it new, some of it rewritten and reorganized — has been expanded while, remarkably, the size of the book hasn’t. The first edition had 15 chapters in 152 pages. Now the book has eight more chapters in four fewer pages.

The chapters are obviously shorter — usually four to six pages each — but on a wider range of topics. That doesn’t mean they are inadequately addressed. Stoesz has an extraordinarily economical writing style: sharp and succinct, yet almost conversational and, thankfully, devoid of jargon. He has amazingly transformed essential, even complex lessons into an easy read.

But make no mistake, Stoesz’s lessons are imperative for an organization to effectively fulfill its purpose. A theme throughout the book is the board functioning not as a passive rubber stamp for the CEO but proactively claiming its leadership responsibilities.

One of them is monitoring and evaluating the CEO but, just as important, also themselves as board members. Stoesz calls it one of the board’s most basic duties but, alas, also one of the most neglected.

A lack of self-analysis can leave a nonprofit not only ineffective but plagued with low morale. Stoesz compares organizations to trees, which die from the top down. “Harboring dead wood is not just an inert place at the table. It’s a negative,” Stoesz writes. “It suggests that poor performance is tolerated at the highest organizational level.”

Another vital but overlooked responsibility that can imperil an organization is visioning and planning, Stoesz says. Board tendencies “to live too much in the present and the past” can leave a nonprofit unprepared. “The board’s domain . . . is the future,” he says.

Among other topics covered in Doing Good Better are defining a nonprofit’s mission, how a board relates to management, writing policies, fundraising, conducting meetings and term limits for directors. The book also includes helpful self-assessment forms, an outline for a CEO’s annual review and a checklist for CEO search.

Stoesz is exceedingly qualified to write on these issues. He has been board chair for noted nonprofits Habitat for Humanity International, the Heifer Project, Hospital Albert Schweitzer and American Leprosy Missions. Now retired, he spent most of his professional career in church-related positions, including 35 years with Mennonite Central Committee.

While the new edition of Doing Good Better improves on the great work already done in the first, a list of recommended readings unfortunately has been omitted from the new version. The book does not, and cannot, dive deeply into any single aspect of board governance and nonprofit management. So it would have been useful to have a list of some of the best of the many works available on those subjects.

But that shortcoming does nothing to detract from Doing Good Better. It should be on the bookshelf of each member of a nonprofit board.

Rich Preheim, of Elkhart, Ind., is a freelance writer and historian. His book In Pursuit of Faithfulness: Conviction, Conflict and Compromise in Indiana-Michigan Mennonite Conference will be published in spring 2016 by Herald Press.