My Executive Director clients have two types of struggles with their Board of Directors.
They struggle to find a way to motivate their Board members to get involved in supporting the agency or they do not know how to channel their Board’s desire to get involved.
Managing your Board so that they are informed, effective, and engaged is a priority for any nonprofit leader.
An effective Board would make your life so much easier, but it takes a lot of work.
When you have so many other things to deal with, it often gets put on the back burner.
Today’s episode will look at one strategy to strengthen your Board involvement- by matching their skills and interests with your agency’s needs.
You can find the episode at https://relishyourrole/com/26
As always if you found this episode helpful, please leave a review on your favorite podcast app.
Getting to Know Your Board Member
Way back in episode 4, I talked about the importance of setting time aside to develop a three-dimensional relationship with your Board members. By that, I mean developing a relationship where you get to know each other past your professional roles.
When you learn about Board members’ interests, their families, what motivates them.
In learning those things, you have a deeper sense of what they bring to your agency.
When you find areas of commonality between you and your Board member, the conversations are richer and deeper.
It sounds so basic, but you want to know them as a person first- and as a Board member second.
Find out what they like to do in their spare time, what groups they belong to, and what brings them joy.
Make it your business to know why they joined the Board and what they hope to gain from the experience.
Please find the time to have coffee with them, get to know them, and use that information to figure out how they can best support your agency.
Ask The Board Member
The best way to figure out how to engage a Board member with your agency is to ask them.
Usually, Board members are asked what committee they want to serve on and not how they want to serve when they first come on the Board.
These are two very different questions and often do not allow them the chance to think through how they see themselves supporting the agency.
What skills and interests can they identify that they would like to put to use as Board member?
They may have creative ideas that you have not thought of.
When asking them how they want to contribute you are signaling to them how much you value them.
It is an ongoing process, helping them figure out their place on the Board.
Narrow the Board Member’s Focus
Once you have some initial sense of what makes your board member tick, it is time to think about how you can leverage their interests and skills on behalf of your agency.
Sometimes it is very straightforward. You have a person who just joined the Rotary and loves to do public speaking and your agency has a speaker’s bureau, viola, a match is made.
Usually, it is a bit more complicated.
Board members want to bring value to the agency, but often they do not know how.
We all have the CPA who sits on our Board and serves as the Finance chair, but there are others with less easily translatable skills or interests who are just waiting for the opportunity to make a difference.
I suggest finding out what the Board person likes to do, and what areas would they like to grow their skill sets or experience and start there.
So often we approach the Board from the perspective of what the agency needs and not what the Board member can give.
For example, maybe they have gotten very interested in graphic design, and perhaps there is a role for them in working on the design of the invitations for the fundraiser.
Is there a shy member who is an expert on architecture? Could they offer a walking tour of the buildings in your community as another fundraiser event?
If you can start with what they like to do, you are building a relationship that is not solely transactional. When you get to know the person, you are focused on matching their self-professed interests with your needs. It becomes a mutually satisfactory endeavor.
Is there someone well-connected to a local decision-maker? Could that Board member ask the decision-maker out to lunch to catch up and talk to them about the work of your agency?
You are only able to answer those questions if you have taken the time to get to know the individual Board members and learn about them.
These are not a one-and-done activity, as they learn more about the agency, as they grow in their professional world, their interests, and what they can contribute to changes, and should be assessed throughout their tenure on the board.
Maintaining a Governance Focus
As you have these conversations you need to make sure you help the Board member maintain a governance focus.
We have all had Board members who want to get involved in programming.
This is always a bad idea.
The Board plays a governance role, helping steer the agency from a policy and financial perspective.
Even though you have a Board who has a passion for the services your agency provides, your role is to direct that passion in a way that is appropriate for the Board role.
These roles usually break down into activities around raising funds for the agency, using their social capital to make connections and provide support on behalf of the agency, or using their technical skills to assist with the compliance element of the Board’s role.
The Price You Pay
If you do not take the time to elicit from the board member what their interests are and how they want to participate on the Board, two things may happen.
They begin to slowly disengage because they have not found a way to make a meaningful contribution.
They start involving themselves in things that are inappropriate for a board member, like programming concerns or being overly involved in personnel issues.
We have all seen it on our Boards. You have to continually attend to the quality of Board engagement and the way to start that process is by learning their skills and preferences and steering them in ways that support the work of your agency.
You can do it and I am here to help.
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