In speaking with my nonprofit clients, skimming nonprofit Facebook groups, and generally keeping tabs on nonprofit concerns, one topic emerges quite a bit: the board of directors. Who should you recruit? What are their responsibilities? How do you engage them? And, um, how do you replace them? Those are just a few of the many questions people have about their board members.
And while we can’t answer all of these questions here today, I’d love to introduce to Terri Theisen, who will answer at least one of them for you. Terri is a nonprofit board consultant who partners with my friends over at the Atlanta Women’s Foundation for their Women on Board program.
I’ve asked her to share about some common board member responsibilities and best practices. Specifically, she’s going to explain six things your nonprofit board can do to support your organization—even if the board is already doing great work. Her advice will give you a good idea of what your next step can be to keep your board active, engaged, and supportive.
The nonprofit sector is filled with generous, giving, and smart people who spend countless hours of their time and donate their hard-earned, personal financial resources to nonprofit organizations. We refer to these people as “volunteers,” and a certain subset of these volunteers take on the legal and fiduciary responsibilities of being part of the board of directors for nonprofit organizations that they care so deeply about.
Since 2000, the Women on Board program of the Atlanta Women’s Foundation has been training and supporting these volunteers who are interested in serving on—and are already serving on—the boards of nonprofit organizations and preparing them for positions of leadership. And, to date, more than 3,500 women have been trained in board governance and leadership skills.
Below you’ll find a few of the principles we teach for making the best use of your nonprofit board of directors.
WHAT DOES A NONPROFIT BOARD MEMBER DO?
The position of “nonprofit board member” is more complex than ever before. The roles of “board member” and “professional staff” continue to evolve and change. The pace of learning and knowledge within the nonprofit sector is moving at lightning speed, too, making it difficult for board members to keep up with trends.
There are regulatory requirements for board members to understand, policy requirements for board members to know about, and funding competition for board members to strategize around. It takes a lot of dedication and diligence to be a nonprofit board member!
But there are a few things that board members can do, even in already-high-functioning organizations, that will make a difference for their board colleagues, for the staff, and most of all, for the nonprofit whose mission they care so deeply about.
WHAT ARE SOME NONPROFIT BOARD MEMBER RESPONSIBILITIES AND BEST PRACTICES?
This is not a complete list, but here are six things to start your board’s conversation.
1) Work from facts.
Insist that this is the starting point for conversation in the organization. What is true about where we are at this point in time? How does it compare to a previous point in time, e.g. last month, last quarter, last year?
If the nonprofit doesn’t yet have the capability of working in this way, board members can be ideally suited to supporting the set-up of such a structured way of thinking and working over time. And if the nonprofit isn’t yet capturing information that can be turned into data, that is another opportunity board members can assist with or champion.
2) Take the time to understand the finances—even if you aren’t a “financial person.”
As a board member, an obligation to understand the nonprofit’s financial condition comes with the job title.
The most important things to understand are:
How much cash do we have in the bank?
How much cash do we need to meet our obligations?
Are we in danger of not being able to meet those obligations? If yes, when will that happen, and what can be done about that?
What does “optimal” look like for our organization? What would it take for us to get to THAT state of being?
3) Understand what the nonprofit actually does every day to deliver the mission of the organization.
Set aside 10-15 minutes of every board meeting for an overview and discussion about at least one program or service so that real learning takes place. Board members need to hear and see facts and stories about the programs the organization delivers to the community.
This point is especially true if the organization is engaged in public policy or advocacy work that can impact large numbers of people, but that work can be difficult to describe. Something like this: “As an organization, we do “x” so “y” happens, and then the improvement in people’s lives is “z.”
4) Establish performance objectives for the organization’s chief executive each year.
In partnership with your chief executive and fellow board members, performance objectives that are measurable should be developed for your chief executive’s performance for the organization’s fiscal year. The measurable objectives should be tied to the organization’s strategic plan.
Normally, a committee of the board would take the lead in working with the chief executive on this, but considering that this is one of the things that nonprofit boards traditionally don’t do well, one board member can make a difference in taking the lead on this and say, “Let’s get this done.”
It’s an important step and sets the tone throughout the entire organization for measurement, accountability, and evaluation.
5) Fulfill the obligations you committed to when you joined the nonprofit board, including the personal financial contribution.
Every board member should be a donor to the organization. The personal financial contributions of board members are critical to the organization’s ability to attract other financial support.
6) Make sure that the nonprofit has a plan—a “roadmap”—to guide its direction for the next several years.
The board, in partnership with the chief executive, can provide the structure (if needed) and support to develop high-level vision and goals, with an understanding of what success looks like, so that the chief executive and the staff can then build the plan for the organization at a more detailed level.
Many resources exist for nonprofit boards to utilize in their quest for excellence, and one of my favorites is BoardSource. I also recommend programs like Women on Board that support boards in being their best.
A nonprofit organization’s board of directors is there to govern the organization, but it is also a resource for the organization and can be an asset in a myriad of ways when properly organized and engaged.
Terri Theisen is the founder and principal consultant of Theisen Consulting, a national management consulting firm providing strategic counsel and consulting to nonprofit organizations, academic institutions, grantmaking foundations, coalitions and collaboratives, corporate civic engagement and social responsibility programs, and government agencies throughout the United States.
She also created and teaches the Women on Board curriculum, a program of the Atlanta Women’s Foundation designed to increase the number of women on nonprofit boards in metro Atlanta by providing effective board governance training and connecting participants to nonprofits.
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I’m Kristi Porter, and I help cause-focused organizations understand and execute effective marketing campaigns so they can move from stressed to strategic. Your resources may be limited, but your potential isn’t. Whether you’re a nonprofit, social enterprise, or small business who wants to give back, I’ll show you how to have a bigger impact.