How do you find your first Board of Directors?

This is one of the questions that comes up fairly often when I'm working with an aspiring  nonprofit founder.

 

First , understand that the board is a governing body. You don't want to put your sister or your Mom on the board unless they are actively involved in your charity and they understand their legal and leadership role.

Before you recruit board members, read up on what the board (as a body) is supposed to be doing.  Typically, and aside from the legal and fiduciary requirements, the board facilitates the culture and direction for the organization relative to its mission.

   

That means they all should be on the same page when it comes to the mission and vision statement. They should know what the end game is, and have a basic understanding of what it will take to get there.

They should also be able to get along. All boards have times when someone disagrees with the majority, but that person or persons need to be able to do it politely and with respect for other viewpoints. Stay away from divas and drama junkies.

So, where DO you find board members?  There is no one right way, but in general, your first board will probably have at least some members that have helped you get started; in short they will be people you know well.

After that, try to approach people you may know about or who have specific skills to add to the board.  Although there is no rule, it is always good to contact people with  experience on nonprofit boards, but be sure that they are genuinely interested in your organization. Some people are what I call professional joiners.

For the sake of argument, let's say you are new to town and don't have many contacts.  Try asking local groups if you can present your organization at one of their meetings.  Some places to start are the local Chamber of Commerce, and trade or industry groups that might have some connection with your mission, churches, and your local elected officials. These are great places to use your elevator speech.

Let them know you are looking for board members and ask them to pass the word along to their friends and connections if they aren't interested. And don't forget co-workers.  The more people that know about you, the more likely you are to have a well-rounded group of applicants to interview.

One  other way is to take out a small ad in your local paper.  It doesn't have to be fancy…just a heading that says you will be interviewing for board membership, the name of your organization and your mission statement, as in this example:

ABC Charity will be accepting applications for board membership from M/D/Y to M/D/Y.

Our mission is to (Insert mission statement here).

For more information please call 555-555-5555 or email (your name@xxxxx).

Don't forget the lowly flyer.  Post them at grocery stores, restaurants or other places where people tend to gather. Always ask permission though, or the flyer may be removed before anyone sees it.

Be ready to answer questions. Be sure you have a written description of your expectations, a job description, if you will. Many times you will attract someone who is very interested but has no board experience, so you will need to start with the basics.

If you are not already a 501(c)(3), you may also want to try to attract someone in the legal and accounting fields, or at least with a business background to help guide the organization through its first few years.

   

Many, many nonprofits start out with just a group of friends or family.  As long as they understand that they have to take those hats off and put on their board member's hat for meetings, that can work out just fine. In your bylaws, have an out for them in the form of specific terms or lengths of service.  Serving on the board shouldn't be and shouldn't feel like a life sentence.

If you have further questions, feel free to email me at:   mailto:granthelp@ida.net.

Is your board helping you pay the bills?

Judging from the number of nonprofit founders that tell me they need a grant because they have maxed out their personal ability to support their nonprofit, I'd have to say the answer is a resounding "no".

In my white paper, "Climbing the Ladder to Nonprofit Success" (you can get a copy by requesting one here) I explain why depending on getting grants to start a nonprofit, or even winning grant funding in the first year or two, is not a very wise financial plan.

So where do you get your initial funding after you have put all the personal money you can afford into the mission? Normally, it is going to be from your board, your immediate friends and family, small local events or a combination of all three.

Everyone seems to get the friends and family and the small events part, but they don't want to make fundraising a board duty.

There will probably always be a philosophical discussion about whether to set fundraising goals for each board member. I don't understand why that is even a point for discussion.

Admittedly, many people start nonprofits and  ask people they know to be on the board, just to satisfy the legal requirement that they have a board. It is a good bet that some of the people they pick say something like "OK, but I won't have to do anything, right?"

 

Wrong.

The board should be initially a development group. First and foremost they should care passionately about accomplishing the mission, and believe that they can do it. Right after they affirm their allegiance to that idea, they need to understand that missions need money to succeed. Making the board an integral part of that aspect of being a nonprofit right at the start shouldn't be optional.

If founders would sit down and figure out how much money they need in the first two years, cross grants off the list of possible sources, and then approach perspective board members with a honest inquiry as to whether they can contribute to the organization, or at the very least, be willing to go out individually and raise funds to meet those goals, there would be fewer failing nonprofits.

When someone asks me to write a grant and then says the organization is essentially a one-man or woman show, I know that no matter what I do, the grant thing isn't going to happen. That just isn't a model that grantors can support.

Increasingly, prospective funders are starting to ask for a statement as to how much money the board members contribute personally to the organization. At the very least, they may ask for the amount the board as a whole has personally contributed in the past year.

The reasoning behind that question is first, to judge how committed  the board  is to the organization's survival and whether they are taking personal responsibility to ensure that success. Second, if all they see is zeroes or a few dollars from each board member, it tells them that the organizational strength may not be good enough for them to trust with their money. Third, they want to know that the nonprofit has enough reasonably stable funding to stay in business.

Underlying all of those questions is another big one…if your board doesn't support the nonprofit financially, why should anyone else do so?

Many more funding sources are starting to require proof of matching funds before they will fund a program, or they are making an award into a challenge grant. Very new nonprofits usually have a tough time with that, but if the board is willing and able to gather a few thousand dollars toward that requirement, it can open the door to more funding.

For those that feel that accepting board members on the basis of their ability to contribute monetarily leaves out  some otherwise well-qualified prospects, then consider setting a fundraising goal for those worthy but financially challenged people. If asking them to go out and solicit donations puts them off, they will probably never be fully committed in other areas either.

Like it or not, your organization will always be chasing the next dollar. If your board is so passive that they can ignore that immutable fact, it is probably the wrong board.

Having this conversation with your board can be tricky. You don't want to start off by saying "OK, you lazy pot-lickers, it's time to pony up", even if that's the way you feel. Sometimes all board members need is a firm goal to chase instead of a never-ending whine about how broke you are, and they will amaze you. By setting an attainable goal for board contributions, you maximize the chance that they will put some effort into reaching it.

If you aren't sure how to have this conversation with your existing board, or frame it in a recruiting pitch, drop me a line and I can help you present it in a firm but non-accusatory manner. 

Growing Your Board

Every successful nonprofit can trace its success back to a founder that had the foresight to assemble an effective board of directors. Good boards are not born, they are cultivated and grown.

There are boards, and then there are BOARDS. Good boards are not like a pile of cut lumber. They are more like branches of a tree, in that they constantly nurture the mother plant, evolve to meet changing conditions, and send out seeds or runners to stay alive and viable. Once a pile of lumber is used up, it's just gone. It's static, because the pile will only produce a pre-conceived structure. A tree keeps producing living tissue for decades, even centuries.

Developing good boards takes the skill of a master arborist. You have to know how to select the right seed stock, when to prune away the dead wood, and how to nurture it so it can produce the best fruit, before your nonprofit can collect a successful crop. Here are some of the indicators that your board is growing well. 

A good board provides structure for the nonprofit.

It maintains a coherent mission-centered direction, imposes reasonable limitations on behavior and finances, and oversees and guides mission accomplishment. Board members are legally responsible for the conduct and financial integrity of the nonprofit, as well as the success of the mission.

Good boards participate financially.

Every board member should have some financial investment in the organization. That doesn't mean the board is, should, or can be the sole support of your NPO. It does mean that they should give an annual sum that shows they are personally invested in success. Grantors often ask for the amount each board member contributes annually. That amount should show real commitment relative to the size of the nonprofit and its mission. For very small or new nonprofits maybe that's a few hundred dollars a year for the whole board, while larger organizations might expect a minimum four-figure donation from each member. After all, if the board doesn't support their own organization, why should anyone else?

Good boards set goals and make decisions.

The board must have performance standards and clear goals for the organization. If the same action items are on every agenda, or there is no or little progress being made in achieving predetermined goals, the board must be willing and able to take corrective action.

 Good boards understand the requirements of fundraising.

Every board member should understand how much needs to be raised, why it needs to be raised, and have a basic understanding of the process involved in soliciting funds.

Good boards get involved in fundraising.

There are many ways for the board to participate in fundraising. Perhaps they show up at events and pressers. Maybe they sign thank-you letters to donors. They can publicize the nonprofit through their business and personal connections. They can serve on phone lines at telethons. They may plan fundraising events. Whatever their contributions, they are active in the fundraising process at some point.

Good boards understand that there is a cost to fundraising.

"Free" money doesn't exist. Someone has to write the grants, research funding opportunities, attend events where there may be sympathetic prospective contributors, and manage the grants. Paper, printing, and distribution of fundraising documents or other marketing costs actual money. Controlling  fundraising costs can't be limited to "if it costs money we ain't doin' it". Pick a reasonable percentage of the budget to devote to fundraising, monitor its ROI effectiveness, and accept that cost without complaint.

Good boards show up.

Good boards have strict meeting attendance and conduct policies and enforce them. The board chair must take attendance and educate, caution, and finally eliminate no-show, unreasonably disruptive or overly passive board members and recruit new ones that will take their responsibilities more seriously.

Good boards invite civil discussions on issues.

Boards should not be rubber-stamps for the founder, board chair or president. No member should feel that they can't offer a suggestion or request clarification of a point. On the other hand, a good board chair does not allow these discussions to degenerate into shouting matches. Meetings should be run under Robert's Rules of Order, and after a reasonable discussion period any new information or dissenting opinions should be either voted upon, tabled and considered in the next meeting, or assigned to a committee for further investigation.

Growing your board is a learning experience, but the end result will be well worth the effort.

About that board of yours

There are generally three types of boards.

•             Committed and effective
•            Committed but ineffective
•            Disinterested and ineffective

If your organization has a committed and effective board, you are truly blessed. Unfortunately, the clients I deal with usually seem to have one of the latter two boards. What are the characteristics of these boards?

What makes a good board?

A good board works well together. They respect each other's views. There are no prima donnas. They each have skills and strengths that make the organization more effective as a whole, and provide stability, control, and guidance, as well as passion. They support the nonprofit and the mission in every way that they can. They give freely of their time, and their money if they have it. They are better ambassadors for the organization than any PR firm you can hire. Planning, dispassionately evaluating results, and applying corrective action are the strong points of this type of board.

Committed but ineffective boards

Committed but ineffective boards have the same type of passion for the mission, and very often are the hardest workers for the cause. Their weakness is that they tend to work hard, not smart. Sometimes they are so focused on success that they don't have the patience to follow through with strategies or do in-depth planning. They may not have useful skills, and by that I mean things that come from experience in meeting or solving ordinary business problems. They are what I call big-picture boards. They know exactly what result they want, but have no idea how to get there.

They often don't even recognize that they may be the problem. This type of board finds it easy to blame outside influences. Failure is always someone else's fault.

These are the boards that over-commit available resources, start programs without any idea of how to sustain them, hate fundraising, and don't understand the day-to-day process of running an effective nonprofit. If a grantor asks how they intend to meet their goal, they don't have a series of step-by-step, measurable goals. If something isn't succeeding, they don't know how to find the cause and correct it.

Fortunately, as long as this board has the desire and capacity to learn, they can almost always evolve into that dream board every nonprofit dreams about having.

Disinterested and ineffective boards

The third category is the hardest to deal with, primarily because the reasons for being disinterested and ineffective are so varied.

These boards can be poorly formed in the beginning. By that I mean that they were conned into serving on the board just so the nonprofit founder could say there was a board in place. They may have only a passing interest or even no interest at all in the mission. They may not have understood that they were making a commitment of time and/or money that they now find is insupportable in their life. The members may not have the skills necessary to run an organization. They may have no interest in, or ability to begin acquiring those skills.

They may be frustrated in their attempts to govern and guide by a single strong personality, either the founder or a single member that doesn't work well with dissenting points of view. After a while, the board feels like a well-used rubber stamp.

The board may be too well entrenched. While continuity is a great thing, when I see a board primarily comprised of a dozen or so twenty-year members complaining about lack of results, I worry. After a while, continuity can become stagnation. Any new members learn quickly that the old way is the only way.

The board could be made up of what I call "bio padders". They just like to say they belong to a board, any board, because it looks good in their biography. They join and that's just about the last time you see them unless the food is especially good.

Whatever the cause, this type of board needs a make-over, or even a do-over. The root cause for their situation has to be discovered and corrected. Sometimes it is up to the founder/president to get new members, and sometimes the board may have to deal with the disruptive member. Sometimes it is necessary to bring in a coach or consultant to get things moving again.

Judging from the number of people that say " I do everything and the board doesn't help", getting this type of board on the right track is difficult.

If you think you may have a board problem, give me a shout. Sometimes all it takes is a fresh set of eyes to begin to find the right path. You can reach me at granthelp@ida.net.

©R.L. Baisch October 2013