Posts Tagged ‘boards’
Posted by Gayle Gifford on April 10, 2011 in Better Boards
Twice a year I’m part of nonprofit day for the clients of New Directions, The Life Portfolio Company that helps senior level executives navigate transitions.
I love participating in the day because each time I get a fresh business person’s perspective on the nonprofit sector.
This past Thursday, during a discussion about board roles and responsibilities, one of the participants asked if the following situation was typical:
“I went onto the board of a few nonprofits as part of the expectation of my job. It seems it wasn’t enough that I was attending board meetings, and bringing with me a pretty significant corporate gift and my own personal donation. In no short order, I started getting all kinds of additional requests from the staff … like attending events to requests to help open doors or solicit others. They acted like all of this was expected of me.
“I was overwhelmed by the hidden expectations of serving on a board. I had no idea what I was getting into.”
I’d say, unfortunately, that this was the norm, wouldn’t you? Obviously the organization failed to disclose to the board member when he was being recruited what they expected of him. But even if they had, I’ll bet that he still would have received many more requests than he bargained for.
Why is it that once an individual joins a board that staff feel that the board member has made an open-ended commitment to their organization? “It’s their job to…” I hear staff say all the time.
While I love my board members to be thinking 24/7 how their daily contacts might also benefit my organization, realistically, I get it that my organization is likely 2nd or even 3rd on my directors’ priority list for their time, with family, work and maybe even play, ahead of me.
It’s time for our sector’s staff to stop acting like board members are indentured servants and remember them for the volunteers that they are. Sometimes it doesn’t even matter how much time they do put it, it’s never enough.
Take the board member who just did a full sprint on a project you gave them. I’m sure they’d like to take a deep breath before jumping into something else. If you immediately go after them for another time-consuming project, you’re very likely to make that board member feel that the time commitment is too much… and the risks of losing that board member are pretty high.
So what to do? Here’s a tip that the New Directions exec offered. Read More >>
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Posted by Gayle Gifford on February 6, 2011 in Better Boards
In my last post, Recruiting board members, make a list, I shared this tip for coming up with candidate names:
“If you are really stuck, you can ask people who know people to help you brainstorm (more about that in a later post).”
As promised, let me say a bit more about asking for help.
It’s ideal to have your next board recruits ready-to-pick from an in-house farm team of committees volunteers, and donors. But most boards that find themselves asking for our help to build a stronger board haven’t created that team (if they had, they probably wouldn’t need our help.)
Even if you have built a farm team, it may be pretty homogeneous, lacking the rich diversity of backgrounds, ethnicity and experiences that you desire.
So, many boards can benefit from recruiting members beyond their inner circle. Here’s an example of how one organization went about it.
I’m working with a neighborhood scale organization that through a series of circumstances, has a board of just a few members. With very few paid staff, this organization needs a true working board willing to take on a number of projects itself. So it is interested in recruiting board members and also volunteers to roll up their sleeves and take on some very practical assignments.
Once we clarified the work ahead, we developed ideal candidate profiles and translated those into a “Call for Board members.” Knowing who we were looking for helped us think about who we wanted to ask for help.
Who we invited.
We brainstormed a list of everything that we could think of, whether we knew them or not, who might know someone who had the qualifications that we were looking for. We made sure that this list reflected the diversity of perspectives we were looking for. Read More >>
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Posted by Gayle Gifford on January 31, 2011 in Better Boards
I’ve found that one of the reasons nonprofits have such a hard time recruiting good board members is that they start from scratch every time nomination season rolls around.
Here’s a small tip that can help: Keep an ongoing list of candidates.
Who should we put on the list?
Anyone you have or might ever want to consider to be on your board.
How do we come up with the names?
First, create profiles of the ideal candidates you are looking for. (See the Call for Board Members in our Toolbox for an idea of what this might look like.)
Then, start looking for anyone you think might fit one of those profiles. The best place to start is in your own donor or volunteer base. Usually your best prospects are people who have already shown interest in you.
Ask board members to submit names that might fit the profile. Brainstorm within your governance committee.
Throughout the year, keep your eyes open for others — they might have been mentioned in a newspaper or radio article, or you met them at a networking or other event. Read More >>
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Posted by Gayle Gifford on January 17, 2011 in Better Boards
I am not a big fan of a board chairperson serving as the direct supervisor of a nonprofit’s executive director.
I’ve seen too much that can go wrong:
- An overbearing, micro-managing board chair can make a CEO absolutely miserable, driving many a CEO out of his or her organization.
- It’s too tempting for a Board chair to make decisions when asked by the CEO that are rightly those for the full board’s deliberation.
- There is something about the elevation of the position that enables a board chair, when asked by the CEO, to offer advice on issues that he or she isn’t really sufficiently qualified to answer.
- Executive directors can skillfully use their relationships with board chairs to bypass consultation with the full board.
- Board chairs are too willing to set the priorities for the Executive Director, instead of consulting with the full board on where it would like the focus to be.
- Executive directors can avoid responsibility for tough management decisions, passing them off to the board chair to make.
It’s hard to get strong board member engagement when important issues come to the board already decided. Or even worse, when the board is kept in the dark on important issues — only to unearth them at a later date.
In my board playbook, the full board and only the full board is the boss of the executive director. But then I’m a big advocate of many aspects of John Carver’s policy governance ® model where the board instructs the CEO only through the creation of policies that outline priorities and frame management decision boundaries.
I believe that we would have much stronger boards if the board chair spent more of her or his time mentoring and engaging the other board Read More >>
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Posted by Gayle Gifford on October 4, 2010 in Better Boards, Fundraising
Last week I found myself in a very interesting conversation about the “profession” of fundraising.
A colleague was sharing ideas from a workshop she attended. The presenter had described a common situation that many directors of development experience.
You know the one. The development director has just laid out a carefully crafted strategy based on best practices and research. Immediately a board member or other leadership volunteer challenges the elements of the plan.
I’ve found that this scenario is very common when planning events or personal solicitation campaigns.
Usually, the challenge reflects the anxiety of the volunteer at being asked to step outside of his or her comfort zone. The volunteer/board member, fearful of the task ahead, comes up with dozens of reasons why the carefully developed strategy won’t work. Why, another organization he volunteered at just sent out a glossy letter instead of asking him to make phone calls.
So my colleague noted that the workshop presenter made the case that fundraising is a profession. One of the ways to tell a true profession is whether or not it has a body of knowledge that is “unique and specific to its practice and function.” (AFP). She made the case that fundraising does in fact have an established and growing body of knowledge.
The presenter then described a few scenarios of other professions with established bodies of knowledge where it would be unimaginable to find the amateur telling the professional how to do that job. Here are two that came to mind:
- Could you imagine a board member telling the chief of surgery at a nonprofit hospital a better way to perform an upcoming operation?
- Or a committee chair telling the head coach at an independent school a better way to train his basketball players? (Well, maybe you could imagine that, but you get the picture.)
So why do board members feel they can tell fundraising “professionals” how to do their job?
But here was my counterpoint.
Before we get a little self-righteous about all that profession stuff, maybe we need to look into the mirror.
Perhaps our board members don’t treat us as the professionals we are because we act like amateurs can do our jobs.
Case in point:
Why do development directors and executive directors act like their board members rose from the primordial ooze as trained fundraisers?
I find way too much agony and even anger in this profession at board members about fundraising. I’ve written about this time and again (see Banishing your expectation of board fundraising). How, if we believe that fund development is a profession, can we expect good-hearted people with no fund development background to spontaneously do our jobs for us?
We can’t both complain that we aren’t respected for the professionals we are and then simultaneously gripe and moan when the amateurs on our boards don’t act like professional fundraisers.
Find the willing, equip them with compelling cases for support, train them, and hold their hands all the way through the process. In essence, put those professional skills to work.
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Posted by Gayle Gifford on September 15, 2010 in Better Boards
Here’s my challenge to you:
In one minute or less, explain to a complete stranger what a nonprofit board does.
Now make it sound interesting enough that they’d want to serve on it.
A few years ago I came upon a report on nonprofit governance with the following statistic:
- 90% of nonprofits find it ‘somewhat difficult’ or ‘very difficult’ to find qualified board members (1)
In the last sentences of the report, the author made this observation:
“Additional research is needed to better understand the barriers to obtaining board members.”
I might be going way out on a limb here 
, but here are six based on my own experiences.
Six barriers to recruiting board members for nonprofits
1. We don’t have great “word of mouth” working for us on the rewards of board service, mainly because most board members don’t experience any. Instead of engaging board members in the exciting, strategic work of community change making, we stick them in meetings where they fuss over ministrivia or get reported at. Read More >>
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Posted by Gayle Gifford on April 15, 2010 in Better Boards
For the last week, every time I leave my house I step out to a front yard radiant with spring bulbs and flowers. A few years ago we ripped out the sad looking front lawn and replaced it with raised beds filled with summer perennials, spring bulbs and ground covers. 
While I love all of my flowers, I think I love the spring bulbs most of all.
Last fall, as the flowers were fading and the temperatures falling, I dug the holes, dropped in the bulbs, a little organic bone meal, a little water, and waited for spring.
I plant the bulbs knowing that it will take months before I’ll reap the rewards. Yet I do it anyway, craving their beauty and anticipating their arrival throughout the coldest and snowiest months of winter.
And voila! here they are. First the crocuses, then the tulips and daffodils to take their place. I’m rarely disappointed (having learned to select varieties that the squirrels won’t eat).
Monday I was facilitating a planning meeting with some board members and staff of a nonprofit that I worked with on board development the previous year. Before our work together, the board was tired and ineffectively turning in circles.
We began our work together in in the fall, right around bulb planting time. In June, we elected five new community members who have been an incredible addition to the board, bringing hope, energy, new friends and growing commitment.
As I arrived at the meeting Monday, I stopped to say hello to one of the staff. He looked to the room where we were meeting and smiled, reminding me of the renewal of the board.
Like the bulbs of spring.
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Posted by Gayle Gifford on April 9, 2010 in Better Boards, Big ideas, Strategic Thinking
With the extremely poor financial condition that states are experiencing and the coming wave of dramatic cutbacks in state and local funding of services delivered through nonprofits (one colleague noted close to 15 nonprofits on the financial brink in her Florida community), one would think that boards would crave new thinking around program delivery, organizational structure, partnership or cost reduction.
But a conversation yesterday brought back to me a dynamic that I’ve been observing for many years: the role of boards as conservators.
A little background.
Yesterday I made my bi-annual trek to life portfolio company New Directions to discuss life in the nonprofit sector with their clients. New Directions clients are accomplished people in business or the professions who are designing the next stage of their life journeys.
My portion of the conversation was “The rewarding and confounding world of the nonprofit sector,” which is partly nonprofit 101 and partly DEEP THOUGHTS.
A fellow “interpreter of the sector” was the Executive Director of a capacity building (smallish, $500K budget) nonprofit. He mentioned that for the last two years he had been a co-executive director, a leadership team that resulted from a merger. He mentioned that the other ED was winding up his term and he would soon be the sole ED. When I asked how the co-directorship worked for him, he shared he really liked the arrangement, but his Board just wasn’t comfortable with the shared leadership model.
Boards as Conservators
At first a bit surprised by this tale, it reminded me that many boards are naturally suited to their role as conservators.
Here I’m using conservator in its definition as someone who conserves or keeps safe. Like a custodian, guardian, or protector.
The words we use to describe board duties — like prudent, loyalty, care, fiduciary — imply moderation and caution. Another word I might use would be “conservative.”
In my experience, most Boards of Directors are loathe, and rightfully so, to take big risks. In their conservator role, boards put the breaks on reckless spending. Because boards usually reflect the mindset of the communities they serve, they often restrain choices, decisions or actions Read More >>
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Posted by Gayle Gifford on April 2, 2010 in Better Boards
- Only choose board service if you are willing to carry the moral obligation of societal betterment on your shoulders.
- Serve organizations whose vision and values you are passionate about (or will quickly grow to be).
- Limit your board service – two boards at one time is usually enough.
- Know what you are getting into. Vet the organization as it vets you.
- There are many organizations of many sizes that need your help. Choose the one where your talents and passion align with its needs and vision.
- Generously leverage your wisdom, strategic sensibility, connections and expertise on behalf of the organization you serve.
- Value service, collaborative and consultation.
- Keep your eye on community outcomes, insist on high standards of performance and legal and ethical behavior regardless of organization size.
- Hold fast to a philanthropic moral compass.
- Study the nonprofit sector and the issues you serve.
- Observe and respect the boundaries between board roles and staff roles.
- Donate at your leadership level (make this organization the top 1 or 2 in your giving).
5 Comments »
Posted by Gayle Gifford on October 27, 2009 in 100 Things We've Learned, Better Boards
Advice to business people joining nonprofit boards.
Congratulations! You’ve just joined the board of directors of a charitable nonprofit.
If this is a new experience for you, you are in good company. Many businesses today encourage their staff to serve on nonprofit boards. You’ll share the experience of board service with individuals from all walks of life.
A few of your fellow board members may already be old hands at nonprofit governance. A rarer few have attended workshops or studied some of the literature on nonprofit board governance.
Many, however, are learning on-the-job…just like you.
… Perhaps your organization provided you with a comprehensive orientation to help you start your work on the board
… Maybe you were teamed with a more experienced director who is serving as your mentor?
With luck, you joined a superb board that’s filled with great role models.
It’s not unusual to feel a little unsure of yourself at first.
You should find the reception welcoming, as most nonprofit staff and directors relish the opportunity to benefit from the business savvy, strategic mindset, professional connections, and access to resources that directors from corporate backgrounds can contribute.
Yet, I frequently hear complaints that all of those desired qualities seem to evaporate as soon as a business person is elected to a board. And I often hear business people describe their frustration with their board service.
So here are a few insights about nonprofits that I’ve realized over the last 30 years — and a few tips to help make your board service more rewarding.
Let me start with the insights.
Nonprofits have a different bottom line.
In business, the bottom line is easy to understand – it’s all about profit. Even if your business advocates a dual bottom line (social responsibility and profit), profit doesn’t take second place.
In a nonprofit, there is no private inurement. The bottom line is the delivery of a public benefit – for example, an artistic contribution, environmental protection, or health promotion.
Determining what that public benefit is, how to deliver it and how to evaluate performance isn’t always easy. Imagine you are on the board of an organization dedicated to the promotion of practices for good mental health. Can you concretely define what success looks like? What evidence would you point to? What changes would your small agency claim responsibility for? These are the challenges that will face you as a director of a nonprofit board.
Nonprofits are valued for their prudence, commitment to service and fiscal restraint, yet are expected to produce significant community benefits.
In the for-profit world, business owners are rewarded for taking risks – usually with other people’s money (venture capital). Under-capitalization is warned against. And a personality like Donald Trump is lionized for his opulent lifestyle and forgiven for past business failures.
Not so in the nonprofit world. Here, individuals are expected to make sacrifices for the common good in the name of service. 
Making do with less is a familiar mantra. Pick up a business publication, and the virtuous charities are the ones with the lowest overhead.
Meanwhile, nonprofits are being admonished to “act more like businesses.” In reality, most nonprofits are extraordinarily small, much more comparable to “micro-enterprises.” According to data available through the National Center for Charitable Statistics, over 80% of registered US public charities had annual revenues below $250,000 in 2004.
At these smallest of nonprofits, nominally-paid staff or their volunteer leadership often have limited experience in nonprofit management and resource development — yet they are expected to operate as efficiently and effectively as multimillion dollar, professionally staffed organizations.
It’s surprising that these tiny organizations get anything accomplished at all. But they do! From the neighborhood soup kitchen feeding the hungry to the volunteer land trust preserving hundreds of acres of open space to the volunteer ethnic organization staging an annual cultural festival for 20,000 participants, many tiny nonprofits are making significant and valuable contributions to their communities.
Nonprofits are expected to consult with their stakeholders and to collaborate with their colleagues.
It’s not unusual for business people to comment on the pace of decision-making that occurs at many nonprofits. Change may happen more slowly than they are used to.
Because nonprofits are accountable to their community for doing good, stakeholders (like consumers, funders, politicians) expect to have some say in their functioning. Read More >>
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