Building an Effective Board

For most nonprofit organizations, building an effective board is one of their greatest challenges. How do you find good board members, how do you get them to join the board, to become active, and to keep them involved once they are on the board?  

Often, good board members are hard to find and sometimes it is difficult to assess their commitment to the organization until they are on the board, and it may be too late to avoid problems. Some boards flounder because there is no clear direction for them and they haven't bought into the vision of the club. Finding committed, dedicated board leadership is often a challenge. Board members are often reluctant to fundraise because they have not been recruited with that purpose in mind. Even if the organization originally intended for its board to be involved in fundraising, many times board recruiters are reluctant to use the "F" word for fear of scaring off potential board members. Many well-intentioned boards operate under the noble idea that, "once they get on our board and see the great work we are doing, they will want to go out and ask for money." Wrong! If they have not been told up front that fundraising is a part of their role, they will not embrace it later when you decide to "slip it into" their job description.

Recruiting the Right Way

One key concept to consider is who does the recruiting for new board members. Instead of a Nominating Committee that meets once a year to fill vacant seats, one recommended approach is to have a year round Board Resource Committee. (This committee can also be called the Governance Committee or the Committee on Directorship or any name with which your club feels comfortable.) Whatever the title, the important things to remember about this committee are:

• It needs to meet year round;
• It should be chaired by the strongest person on the board;
• Its duties include doing an assessment of board performance, both the board as a whole and individual board members;
• It is responsible for developing or refining board position descriptions;
• It evaluates the needs of the board and develops a profile of the kinds of people that are needed to fill vacancies on the board;
• It works with the whole board to help find the right people to fill vacant board positions;
• It assures diversity on the board;
• It implements, along with senior staff members of the organization, board orientation;
• It is responsible for ongoing education of the board.

A Board Resource Committee, working thoughtfully, diligently and on an ongoing basis can make all the difference in the world between an effective, enthused, and inspired board and a lackadaisical board that does not understand its role in advancing the organization's mission and is reluctant to involve them in the fundraising process. One of the key roles of this important committee is to develop a board position description that includes a required financial contribution from each board member as well as the expectation that each board member be involved in the organization's fundraising efforts through attendance at events, planning development activities, and helping to identify, cultivate and solicit potential donors.

This committee is also responsible for assuring that the position descriptions are not glossed over during the recruitment process and to make sure that each potential board member understands the role of a board member. They must be expected to deal with potential board members that are obviously reluctant to accept their responsibility. It is better to turn away a prospective board member who is not willing to accept their full responsibilities, including that of fundraising, than to "fill a seat with a warm body" just so the committee can say it has met its expectation to bring on a certain number of new board members each year. The reluctant prospective board member may instead be invited to serve on a committee or in some other volunteer position, other than being invited to serve as on the board.

So, where does one find the right board members and convince them to get involved on the board, and even to accept a leadership role? The best place to find good board members is to have active committees in your club. Serving on a committee gives both the volunteer and the club to "get to know each other." If the committee members are faithful in attending meetings, accepting responsibility, and delivering on promises, they will be likely to do the same when serving as board members. The committee process, in addition to helping your club gets things done, can often be a sort of refining process to sort out the wheat from the chaff and identify the volunteers who will be good board members.

Once you've built the board you want, how do you keep them? A few hints:

• Have a sufficient number of committee members to share the work load;
• Make sure meetings are productive;
• Assure that meetings start and end on time;
• Send agendas and committee reports in advance of the meeting;
• Have term limits and enforce them to avoid "perpetual" board members;
• Provide education and training for the board in areas in which they need to be knowledgeable.

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