Posts Tagged ‘nonprofit governance’
Posted by Gayle Gifford on June 30, 2009 in 100 Things We've Learned, Better Boards
Vision matters. It inspires. It enables. It overcomes. It achieves.
Your founders most likely shared powerful dreams…
They saw people who were hungry and set out to feed them.
They saw people stricken by disease and were compelled to heal them.
They were outraged by the burning river and resolved to make it clean.
They saw a community without spirit and promised it art and music.
They saw their heritage at risk and vowed to preserve it.
Imagine those founding days of your organization.
Can you picture the founders, conspiring around a kitchen table? Can you hear them talking? Passionate, outraged, inspirational? Can you see them working tirelessly, day and night, in service to their cause, despite overwhelming obstacles, hungry to make a difference?
If you polled your board members today and asked why they serve, would they echo the passion of your founding vision?
Or would they describe their purpose in more mundane terms — attending meetings, monitoring finances, raising money, creating policies, supervising the CEO?
While these routine tasks are important components of the Board’s duties, they only have value as they enable the means to achieving the greater vision.
It’s not enough to outfit and command a tight little ship. That ship has to deliver its passengers to their desired destination or you’ve failed your mission.
Ultimately, your performance as a board isn’t judged by the health of your balance sheet, or the sparkle of your facility, no matter how important these may be.
The real measure is the difference you make in the lives you save, the natural resources you protect, the beauty you create, or the spiritual comfort you provide.
Whether you describe it as a vision, a mission, or just your promise to your community, achieving that vision is what truly matters.
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Adapted from the opening chapter of Gayle’s book How Are We Doing? A 1 Hour Guide to Evaluating Your Performance as a Nonprofit Board
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Posted by Gayle Gifford on May 26, 2009 in 100 Things We've Learned, Better Boards
What enables change in a nonprofit board of directors?
- A critical mass of directors, including key leadership, perceive a need for change.
- The rest of the board is willing to go along.
- Directors find an inspiring new vision to rally around.
- Directors are actively involved in and agree with the “diagnosis.”
- Directors believe that the change is possible and will make life significantly better.
- Directors are open to trying new ways of acting.
- Directors believe that the benefits of change outweigh the costs.
- Directors are willing to, and learn, the new skills needed to perform the new behaviors.
- Directors believe that they personally can do it differently.
- The Board itself supports and reinforces the change over time.
- Directors are willing to commit the time to working on the change and to changing over time.
- Directors trust each other (and the change agent).
- Directors are willing to commit resources to support new ways of behaving.
What else have you found necessary to enable major improvements in your nonprofit board of directors?
And if you are thinking about launching board development, you might want to start by assessing just how many conditions for successful change are already in place.
For more about behavioral change and organization development, check out this helpful summary of Change Theory courtesy of University of Twente, Netherlands.
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Posted by Gayle Gifford on May 13, 2009 in Better Boards, Communicating, Tidbits, Upcoming Events, Speaking and Training
Purpose. Vision. Wisdom. Humor. Joy. Passion. Shared Values. Dedication. Generosity. Insight. Productive. Patience. Flexibility. Common Ground. Perseverance. Investment. Struggle. Eye-opening. Community-building. Caring. Deep Caring. Collaboration. Diversity. Gratitude. Leadership. Creative. Integrity. Teamwork. Unity. Heaven. Rewarding. Brainstorming. Listening. Support. Respect. Commitment. Interactive. Different. Communication.
These words emerged from a workshop I facilitated this morning called “boards that lead.” To get us started I asked everyone to think of a great board experience they have had and then to share one word that characterized that experience.
In just a few minutes, the 40+ board members, executive directors and staff who attended shared the words above. Together, they described the perfect board experience. What a gift. Thank you.
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Posted by Gayle Gifford on March 27, 2009 in 100 Things We've Learned, Better Boards, Communicating, Little ideas
Most people say they hate role playing. But it can be really helpful.
I spent this morning rehearsing interview questions with a few board members and staff of one of my clients. This small nonprofit came to me looking for help building its board. In that initial discussion, it became clear to me that the organization was running a few programs but was pretty unclear as to how relevant and valuable it was to the community it had traditionally served.
Board members agreed to get out and interview about 20 community members face to face over the next month or so. As we talked about who they might interview, I was impressed by their connections within their community … and curious as to when they had stopped having ongoing conversations with all of these people. Unfortunately, I no longer find this unusual among groups that come seeking my help.
So we practiced interviewing each other to test our questions. This helped us structure a nice flow as well as highlighting missing questions or confusing ones.
AND, even though this was just practice with each other, I think we learned a lot about the two people who were interviewed this morning… and a lot about each other’s perceptions of the community and their own organization’s role in it. Just by role playing.
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Posted by Gayle Gifford on January 12, 2009 in 100 Things We've Learned, Better Boards
We have such high expectations for our board members. (see my previous post “Can mere mortals be successful board members?” ) Of course, they have a unique legal responsibility for your organization, so their responsibility and accountabiity is significantly higher than other volunteers. (Though I can think of volunteers whose actions immediately affect the life or death of clients.)
But as a board member myself, I find that life’s other demands — family, work — usually come first. While I’m pretty self-motivated as a board member, I still need nudging from time to time.
Here are just a few of the things I’ve found very helpful to keep me engaged: Read More >>
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Posted by Gayle Gifford on November 5, 2008 in Upcoming Events, Speaking and Training
I frequently consult with and have occasionally served on the board of a lot of very small nonprofit organizations. By very small, I mean organizations that have no staff or just a tiny handful of staff, often part-time.
These tiny organizations often need to rely on their board members to serve staff functions. That’s clearly obvious for organizations that have no staff at all… but may not be so clear once you’ve hired an executive director or one or two more staff positions.
It takes a lot of human-power to make our organizations run. One or two people, while they can do a lot, can’t do everything that needs to be done to be a thriving nonprofit. It’s pretty near 
impossible for one person to run quality programs, raise all the revenues, reach out to the larger community, and manage the operations and finances.
Board members in small nonprofits usually need to wear two hats… the hat they wear to govern the organization and? the hat they wear to serve a staff function… that is, to take on one of the many jobs that fall under the “staff” side of the organization and get them done.? Other non-board members can also be recruited to get the work accomplished.
How do you do this? You can start by making a comprehensive list of all that you hope to achieve this year. Then break those objectives down into the tasks that are needed to get them accomplished. Think about what skills and knowledge are essential to get this work done.
Knowing what needs to happen, recruit board members (or other volunteers) with the expectation that they will produce one of those desired outcomes.
Here’s an example. My local chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals runs a series of educational workshops, an annual conference on fundraising, and a huge celebration for National Philanthropy Day, among others. With just one part time administrator, the chapter relies on its board members and volunteer to get things done. When board members are recruited, they are asked at the time of recruitment to chair a committee that is charged with the responsibility of achieving one of these very large tasks. ? I myself have served as chair of the Annual Conference, the scholarship committee, and the mentoring committee (not at the same time!)
So, to make a working? board work, every board member should have a job and outcome that he or she is responsible for achieving.
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Posted by Gayle Gifford on August 1, 2008 in Better Boards
I had the pleasure of presenting a three-hour workshop called “Revitalizing your Board” on July 16th and July 26th through New Roots Providence.
We had a great crowd for both workshops. What was really amazing to me was that almost 30 people turned out on a sunny Saturday morning in the summer to explore ways to pump up their board of directors.
It was great to see the wonderful array of faces in the audience… young and old, teeny tiny organizations and some larger ones, and staff and volunteers. I’d like to thank the New Roots Providence staff (shown here from left to right Monsurat Ottun, Director Nzinga Misgana, Sabina Matos & Bernadette Tavares) 
for inviting me to present. You make it easy!
I always enjoy the opportunity to meet many new people and learn about the challenges of organizations I haven’t encountered before. New Roots reaches out to small faith based and community based organizations.
Despite their size or geographic location, what I’ve found that all nonprofits have in common is the desire to create a board that adds real value to their organization, while at the same time making board service fulfilling and enjoyable.
The training materials from the workshop are posted on the New Roots web site. Just click here to download a copy.
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Posted by Gayle Gifford on July 31, 2008 in Better Boards
Highly recommended on my list of things that nonprofits can do to improve the work of the board of directors is to create a full-blown Governance Committee.
Also known as a Board Development Committee, the Governance Committee is much more than a nominating committee. While recruiting new board members is a big part of the job of this committee, other assignments can include:
- Developing and recommending the “recruitment matrix” or board composition strategy for full board approval. This serves as the guide to recruitment — and gives Read More >>
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Posted by Gayle Gifford on July 21, 2008 in Better Boards
So many organizations find themselves with lackluster boards. There are lots of reasons for this, from a focus on the trivial at board meetings to unskilled chair persons that drive good people away.
But in most of the lackluster boards I’ve worked with, the real reason has to do with who is sitting around that board table.
We’ve all run into boards where people were recruited simply to fill the slot — what I might call the “any warm body” syndrome. These directors were told on recruitment that Read More >>
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Posted by Gayle Gifford on July 11, 2008 in Better Boards
I’ve been thinking a lot about our expectations of volunteer board members and at times I do have to wonder if any mere mortal is up to the task.
We expect board members to:
- Give us time, lots of it. (Most nonprofits want attendance at a monthly board meeting, a monthly committee meeting, and whatever out-of-meeting time it takes to achieve the tasks a board member has been assigned.)
- To develop an in depth understanding of the technical issues facing this particular organization
- To understand the nonprofit’s financial structure AND to read complex (and sometimes incomprehensible) financial statements Read More >>
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