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.

Instead of continuing throwing unexpected requests to your board members, sit down with each one and disclose the full list of  requests and tasks that you’d like that person to  take on that year. Then negotiate what your member is willing to commit to. Be realistic.

And once you’ve reached an agreement, stick to it. That way, your board member will feel successful, not overwhelmed. And you won’t be disappointed by what your board members can and cannot do.

Once this exec did that with his organization, he said that he felt much more in control, and much happier about his board service. Which is what we all wish for, right?

P.S. This board member also learned to limit his board service to no more than 2 boards at a time.

And of course, we’re here to help you right-size the expectations for your board.

Related posts:

Can mere mortals be successful board members?

Remember that your board members are volunteers too.

“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.

We included the clergy or social action committee chairs of local houses of worship.  We included particularly active past board members, volunteers or donors. We added the names of program partners, local elected officials, the nearby colleges, the neighborhood association, PTOs, local businesses, neighbors, and even friends of board members.

By the time we were done, we had a list of 20-30 people to ask for help.

How did this list differ from people we might have considered candidates for the board? Some of them might be great board candidates. But we knew many were already committed to other organizations. But that’s why we knew they could be helpful… because they were active and knew people we didn’t know.

Instead of a big commitment, we hoped they could give us an hour of their time.

How it worked.

Most were invited to a brainstorming session but a few we put aside to talk to in person (e.g. elected officials). Board members divvied up the names and sent out invites through email, by phone, or even a more formal letter (the method depended on how well the current board knew each person). Each person received a one page backgrounder on the organization and the call for nominations.

About 15 people came to help! We had food and beverages, gave them a quick tour of the facilities, and then the Executive Director and Board Chair gave them more background on why we were looking and who we were looking for.

We handed out a nominations sheet, asked them to list people they thought would fit our categories and why. And of course, we asked them to let us know whether they would be willing to help us contact any of the people they recommended (most did). We gave them the option of recommending people for the board or even a committee assignment.

This group was so eager to help out that we must have received 100 names that night. One of the helpers even contacted by text  a person she was recommending while we were sitting there and got a quick response back that this person would be very interested in hearing about the board. (The committee is right on it).

Another helper volunteered herself, even though we truly weren’t trying to put people on the spot or ask them to be board members. Both nominees fit our profile perfectly!

Not only did we get names, but we also received many new leads for volunteers and inkind services. And we introduced a dozen new people to the organization who didn’t know much about it before.

Other options

Some organizations choose to do this process in two steps: 1) bring a group together to explain what they are looking for, then after giving them a week or so to think and maybe even put out a few feelers, to 2) bring the group back together to offer names and vet candidates together.

Some organizations put outside people on their nominations committee to achieve the same purpose.

Next steps

Don’t forget to send out thank you notes right away, letting people know how grateful you are for their help and that you’ll be following up with them.

A week later, we gathered together to look through all the recommendations. One of the board members volunteered to put all the prospective candidates into a spreadsheet by name, background, who referred them, any contact information that we had, and more columns for follow up.

The board identified about 5 or 6 priority candidates to talk to right away.

But every name is important. So each board member agreed to call a person who came to our brainstorming session to thank them again and to get a little more background information about each person they suggested. (And any contact information they might have).

Then the Board members will get together again to make a short list of candidates for this board cycle. And to connect with other recommended people for volunteer needs for for future committee work (once the chairs are recruited).

One thing that I’ve found to be true over and over again: many people are willing to help, if you just ask them.

Here are a few related posts:

Recruiting board members? Make a list

Six Roadblocks to Board Recruiting

Helping Working Boards Work Better, Here’s a Start

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.

If you are really stuck, you can ask people who know people to help you brainstorm. (More on that in a later post).

Now is not the time to start qualifying people. You can do that later.

What should be in the list?

• Basic contact data. Include the name, title and organization (if any) and email, phone and any other contact information you have.
• The reason why you are interested in this candidate. You might write: “Has attended many events, great passion for our issue. Knows nonprofit financial structures. Brings geographic diversity. Also,  youth. “
• Notes on your outreach to this candidate: Who met with them? When? What happened at that meeting? Did he or she have any interest in serving on the board or a board committee? This next cycle? Sometime in the future? Keep a running ledger of contacts so that future governance committees can refer to your work.
• Any other information you think would be relevant to making good decisions, now or in the future. You may want to list other boards that your candidate is serving on, when those terms will expire, if they’ve ever served as an officer or never been on a board before. Or maybe indicate that someone might make a great officer someday.

Where should we keep the list?

The list should be for the “eyes only” of your Governance (or nominating) Committee. Find a protected place that is accessible only to your committee members. With luck, your board has already established an online hub. You can set it up as a collaborative document so that committee members can add updates to the profiles. If you don’t have a dedicated hub for board members, there are free tools such as Google Documents or paid services such as Basecamp or BoardEffect that you can use. (We’d love to hear what your board members are using to collaborate online).

How long should we keep the list?

Forever. Well, maybe not forever, but for a long time. Each year you can add new candidates, check for candidates who suggested that they were too busy at the time but wanted to be contacted again, or move people to an “inactive” or “on board” status. You’ll create a useful legacy for governance committees to come.

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 members rather than focusing all of his or her attention on the relationship with the CEO. And vice versa… rather than expending so much energy on the board chair, a CEO’s time would be better spent building relationships with and enabling other board members.

That doesn’t mean that there aren’t reasons for a strong partnership between the board chair and the executive director. Often board chairs will team up with the CEO for community or government relations, or donor cultivation and solicitation. CEOs should consult with their chair when they aren’t sure whether an action or decision falls within their prerogative or if it is one that needs full board consultation.

I’ve heard board chairs say that they have a good mentoring relationship with their CEOs. While I don’t doubt that is true in some cases, I wonder if that is a good thing or not. I’d much rather see a CEO assemble his or her own kitchen cabinet or find an experienced colleague to serve as the mentor than to invest that responsibility with the board chair. Besides, I happen to think that we’ve made the job of the board chair so impossibly big that few want to take it, and that this practice is one of the primary reasons for that.

But that’s what I think. How about you?

He couldn’t really eliminate the board entirely — most states require board members in order to have a nonprofit corporation. To meet the requirement, he invited two friends to make up a three person board, including himself.

Why did he do this? Because he found as CEO of a previous nonprofit that the board was an incredible time sink for his attention. And that the board seemed satisfied with the status quo (quality programs delivered to a small cohort of needy kids) rather than demanding bolder action to meet what was such a bigger need.

Many of you commented, sympathizing with his plight yet worrying both about the long-term sustainability of the organization as well as the oversight to donors.

I promised I’d weigh in after giving you an  opportunity to comment.

I agree with him on two accounts:

1. Boards can be a real drag on Executive Director time.
2. Boards are often timid and unclear on what value they create.

And where I disagree:

1. Boards protect the public’s interests
2. Nonprofit ownership belongs in the community, not one person.

Let me explain.

First, where we agree:

Too many boards are a big time sink for their Executive Directors.

Executive Directors routinely say that they spend countless hours “managing” the board. This includes creating the agenda for monthly board meetings, making sure board materials are distributed in advance of the meeting, managing the minutes, preparing reports, coaching board leadership, filling in for lack of board leadership, recruiting new board members, etc. etc.

Ask your CEO how much time they spend on your board.

Yet, the work I just described has to be done. I fault the board chair for abdicating his or her management responsibilities to lead the formation of meeting agendas and to hold committee chairs and other officers accountable for their assigned tasks.

Most nonprofits lack dedicated administrative support for their board. But would you rather have your top staff member as your clerk or your peer and staff leader? Boards not only need to be self-managing, but also smart about the use of web tools and other technology that can dramatically reduce time and expenses.

And, if your board really wants to reduce the staff time to board tending, cut back the number of board meetings you have. If you’ve created a well-led and well-run organization and good monitoring practices, you shouldn’t notice a difference.

Boards are too timid and don’t know how they really add value to their organizations.

Most boards are at sea in what they should be doing beyond their fiduciary  roles. An Executive Director I know longed for “a big, bold, innovative thinking board.”

Like this CEO, I see too few boards framing the next BIG questions. Questions like “why are we content with delivering quality programs to a few hundred when there are thousands more who need our help?  What would it take to actually solve the need? Who would be our partners?” In their book Governance as Leadership, Richard Chait et al call this “generative leadership.”

In my humble opinion, I think too many boards are afraid to ask the BIG questions because they are fearful of what the answers might mean in terms of their own commitment.  We need more passionate advocates creating bold and fearless (though not reckless) boards.

Where I think he’s wrong:

Boards protect the public’s interest.

While execution is often imperfect, the board model should remind everyone that the continued privileges of the entire nonprofit sector depends on the faith of the public that organizations will deliver both a public benefit and wisely steward the gifts and privileges society allows.

Just about every founding CEO believes that he or she will always be honest and only act in the best interests of their organization and their constituents. Unfortunately, the newspapers provide us with too many cases of Executive Directors gone awry. And yes, while in those cases board members have either been lazy or complicit, who knows how many more cases of self-dealing might arise if we didn’t have any boards at all?

Nonprofit ownership belongs with the community, not one person.

I happen to take seriously the legal and moral foundation that nonprofit entities are not the property of any one individual, but are truly of the community. This is the toughest challenge for entrepreneurial individual founders to ask themselves. While “built to last” may not be a realistic goal for every organization in these dynamic times, built to last is more likely to come about when the weight of ownership, the responsibility for the mission, resides in a bigger pool of people than just the founder. And I do regularly meet founders who, when they hit a turn in the road — whether that’s a change in their funding model or a personal desire to do something else — lament that they never built an ownership board from the start.

Some may want to leave them behind, but for me, I’ll take the board for now.

P.S. I’d love to hear more stories from founders. Or from boards that have creatively handled some of these challenges.

The CEO of a year old start up public charity — I’d say he fit the description of a “social entrepreneur”  — was describing his leadership and management framework to a group of top level corporate types. He was confident, brash, passionate about his mission, and business oriented. He referenced  Jim Collins and Good to Great in his approach.

The business people loved him. Me too… until…

He explained how in starting this new organization he had learned many lessons from the previous organization he had founded (which had enjoyed both great program outcomes and growth).

• Like the need for a clear business model
• The importance of having great people in their jobs
• A commitment to the mission, including not settling for too small an impact on a big problem

All good, and then..

• Getting rid of unproductive time sinks, including the Board of Directors.

Whoa! Like throwing a firebomb into the room.

Hearing the collective gasp, he went on to explain. At the first organization he had founded, he spent 30% or more of his time managing the  Board of Directors. A  board that was complacent with the number of kids they were serving, which was barely a drop in the bucket of need.

So, this time around, he wasn’t going to waste precious time when there was important work to be done. Though he really couldn’t really abolish the Board (state law does require a board of directors for a nonprofit, usually with more than one trustee), he could make it small and manageable. Which he did by composing the board with two good friends and himself.

I noted that this is all perfectly legal. And frequently done. Think of the typical founder board, usually a family and friend affair.

Needless to say, lots of questions followed:

Don’t you need the Board to assist in fundraising? No, the business model is built on federal funds.

Who decides Executive Compensation? How do you ensure that you don’t get in trouble with the IRS over excess compensation? We do an regular market survey of salaries, I get paid under the top, and I recuse myself from the discussion and vote.

How do you build community ownership? Get contrary advice? We have an advisory board of community leaders and others.

Why didn’t you just create a for profit organization? Because this is the corporate structure I’m most familiar with and to leave open the possibility for philanthropy, even though the business model doesn’t currently depend on it.

What happens if something happens to you? That is a question, but my guess is that the board will find someone to replace me. Plus, as we grow, there will be staff under me who could step into my shoes.

I had lot of thoughts about this. But before I share them, I’d love to hear from you.

What do you think? A good idea or not?

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.

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.

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 that could put their organization ideologically too far in front of the constituencies and communities they serve. I’ve seen boards wisely put the kabosh on ill-conceived public policy actions that could threaten public good will.

When conservator = ill-conceived road block

Too frequently, however, the conservator role of boards holds back innovation.

Staff often find themselves far ahead of their part time leadership volunteers when it comes to mission implementation. As the professionals, they interact with their peers and seek out new research and best practices. They are immersed every day in the work, thinking what comes next, how can I do this better (or at least we hope they are).

But their board members aren’t. They have other lives, other jobs, other concerns that take precedence. Few, if any, are traveling in the same professional spaces. They only know what is, and may have no clue about what might be and why that is important. So when staff bring forward these big new concepts, it takes time for board members to digest them.

Many years ago I was Director of Development and Communications at Plan International USA. During my tenure, we launched a soul searching strategic planning process. For a number of reasons that included maintaining our standing among our peers and funders, a commitment to fostering better international understanding, and our need to deepen the global understanding and thus the retention of our donors, staff were interested in expanding our fledgling development education programming and making it an important, though always small, part of our program mix.

A small cadre of academic board members were extremely resistant to the idea that we could educate donors through such a populist (for lack of a better word) approach to development education. After many frustrating conversations, the Board chose to delete development education from the strategic plan, sending it back to committee for discussion and reconsideration at a later date. Needless to say, staff were extremely frustrated (angry?). Ultimately, after many more months of give and take, we finally found a compromise that enabled us to proceed forward, albeit in very tiny steps. (Outcome: Our new, grant-funded development education program was hugely successful and achieved the strategic objectives that underpinned our initial reasoning).

Now, more than ever, we need our boards to look forward with vision, radical rethinking, insatiable curiosity, and the judgment to know when conservatism is called for and when disruption is essential.

While more organizations are ripening to the idea of doing business somewhat differently, I’m still finding too many boards oblivious at best and resistant at worst to newer ideas — like  joint ventures with other nonprofits. While due caution is needed for big changes like mergers or subsidiary relationships, others –like outsourcing financial management or the case I described above of co-directors — seem to be resisted for no apparent reason.

Unfortunately, these dynamic and perilous times require us to reconsider all historic assumptions and brutally question every aspect of the way we do business. Now, more than ever, we need to maximize the energy and resources that go into serving our communities and constituents. We can no longer assume that something that worked well enough in the past has any hope of surviving the future.

I don’t know if this is possible. Do you?