The right talents
Expertise areas – You need to find people with
skills and abilities that relate to nonprofit management.
These include at least one CPA or financial expert,
an attorney or legal expert, a marketing / pr person,
someone with fundraising experience, someone with human
resources experience, someone with experience in your
program area, someone with a technology background and
someone with some overall board / nonprofit experience.
This can be a tall order but if you don’t get
a mix that meshes with the typical activities a board
encounters, you can end up with major gaps in your strategic
plan, programs or other processes. I’ve seen boards
with no legal experts that have left themselves open
to lawsuits because of improperly worded contracts or
other documents; boards with no program expertise that
have strategic plans that don’t address any programs
or program needs; boards with no human resources expertise
that continuously make poor choices in hiring and evaluating
executive directors; Boards with no technology expertise
that don’t understand the importance of a website
or how software can help them pursue their mission.
The list goes on and on and people tend to not see the
gaps, what is missing, until some problem arises. |
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Fresh Blood
another important component of board development is
to shake up the status quo. Setting term limits and
constantly recruiting new people keeps the board from
stagnating which often prevents growth for the nonprofit
– these nonprofits are easily recognizable –
they have board members that have been on for a very
long time and even when the board changes – it’s
just the same small group of people shuffling around
to new positions. These nonprofits tend to grow very
slowly and often have had no real budget increase in
years, hitting a fundraising ceiling. Many of these
boards have a tough time recruiting new board members
because they have become entrenched into a certain way
of doing things that unless changed will not attract
anyone new. These types of boards can sustain themselves
for many many years but won’t really grow until
they shake things up a bit – Adding board members
NOT like yourself is the biggest cure. Think about the
age range, social background, and other factors other
than skills and abilities that will make your board
fresh! |
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| Screening Members
Of course, shaking things up can be traumatizing –
so devise a system for accepting board members that
allows you to get to know them first before having
them become voting members of the board. You can make
it a requirement that prospective board members must
serve on a committee or advisory board for a particular
length of time before they are qualified to apply
for board membership. This allows you a chance to
get to know people first and help both parties determine
if the fit is right before they take such an active
role in the nonprofit, voting on important board issues.
Many boards seem to be in a rush to meet some magical
number they have set for board membership when they
may be better served by having a smaller board of
directors and more volunteers and committees doing
the work on the board. Ideally, you don’t want
your board members overcommitted by serving on multiple
committees – it’s better to have board
members head or serve on one committee and then recruit
outside volunteers to fill out the rest of the committees.
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