Nonprofit Board Crisis

Gates Foundation Board More Legit? #NonprofitBoards

This week the Gates Foundation announced new board members.  You may recall that the family foundation previously had a board of three family members and Warren Buffett (a distant cousin of the Really, Really Rich Family?) 

An excellent opinion piece in the Chronicle of Philanthropy noted this announcement with what I believe to have been an offer of an uber balanced set of observations that the new "inductees", which includes the Executive Director (which I am hoping good governance sense prevailed with this individual as a non-voting member) who are maybe more distant cousins of the Really, Really Rich Family but also possibly bringing a tinge of added value to an institution that at it's maximum, sits in the cross-hairs of what is effectively social engineering.  But to be more proper, the newbie list includes:

    four new members, including its chief executive, Mark Suzman. He will be joined by Strive Masiyiwa, a Zimbabwean telecom     billionaire; Baroness Nemat (Minouche) Shafik, director of the London School of Economics; and Tom Tierney, co-founder of the     Bridgespan philanthropic consulting organization.

Social engineering, effectively playing god, is a habit of really, really rich people who because they can, pay to change the way the world works.  Philanthropy accommodates social engineering with results that can improve or destroy people's lives.  Yes, the Foundation has done some incredibly effective engineering like with mosquito-borne illnesses and covid too (no, not Toto too)!  The US capitalist democracy makes this possible, again sometimes for the better and sometimes for the not so better.

Meanwhile, the equally important point about the newbie board members over at the Gates Foundation is that, as the Chronicle opinion piece notes, not one of these folks has the lived experience or knowledge of the folks of those affected by Gates Foundation monies.  Yes, I could be wrong that one or more of these folks, in their private travels, got stung by a mosquito and picked-up some tropical disease which affects them to this day (I have had Lyme Disease 4 times so don't know if that counts) but let's be real, who's voice do these newbies represent and are these the voices that can best guide one of the worlds larger philanthropies in creating, through social engineering, a world where all boats rise and are better off?  Remains to be seen I suppose.  But maybe, if Gates doesn't want to share his social engineering authority with those lessers than him, he could put together an advisory group of folks who may actually have experienced what he might want to change.

Nonprofit Board Executive Committees #NonprofitBoards

I just read Board Source's overview on the subject of board executive committees.  I and many of my colleagues have one simple piece of advice based on working with many nonprofit boards: don't!  Exec Committees most often usurp the authority and duty of the full board.  Yes, as a Task Force the same folks could be convened to conduct the CEO Performance Review.  And different members could be convened again in Task Forces with specific assignments like what to do with the snow battered roof that has caved in.  But no, don't make them.

Board Source suggests in its complementary overview of this chapter of its $38 book on committees that boards should ask the following questions

Questions answered in this chapter from Nonprofit Board Committees include the following:

• Would an executive committee support and add value to the work of our board?
• What are the benefits and drawbacks of an executive committee, and how do those factors apply to us?
• What would governance look like if we did not have an executive committee?
• If we choose to have an executive committee, how do we make sure it does not take on the work of the full board?

Um, sure.  But don't forget to let common sense be your guide.

Sexual Harassment Is A Board Matter #NonprofitBoards

Approving policies is one of a nonprofit board's jobs.  Ensuring that the policies are a) compliant with federal, state, local laws and the organization's bylaws and b) enforced uniformly are two ways that the board is ever-present to ensure that policies are correct and observed.  Strong and enforced policies are part of a nonprofit's culture.

I offer all these positions having been reminded that not all nonprofit boards do their job as evidenced by what is believed to have happened and may be continuing to happen at Prevention Point Philadelphia.  According to the story in the Billy Penn newsletter (clever name - trust you "get" it), transphobia and sexual harassment are the norm - the culture - at the nonprofit that once started as a needle exchange.  

Now the survivors of offensive and illegal acts have made known their story that will hopefully be told so that a swift cultural change can occur.  But Prevention Point Philadelphia is a case example that serves as a reminder that cultures like this are harmful and violate what are likely cited as the organization's core values.  Equally important, while there is no reference to the governing body of this organization, there is no doubt in my mind that it is the board that has most importantly failed to provide oversight which at this point can't be an unknown story (it is after all printed in the local paper) and nor has it stepped in to conduct an investigation and take action on the part of the organization and employees.  

For shame, for shame.

Nonprofit Revenue Generating Model #NonprofitBoards

I among other sustainability planning consultants have long advocated for nonprofits to pursue revenue generating activities (using core competencies where market opportunities exist) as a long-range sustainability strategy.  Revenue generating activities can offset a nonprofit's dependency on philanthropy which as we all know to be wildly unstable.

The College Board, a nonprofit responsible for the SAT, what has been one of the principle tools for colleges to use in their admissions process, has long sustained itself from the revenue generated from SATs.  There once was a time after all when a good SAT score provided the insurance to the college of choice.  

But over time it has become evident that SAT's work better for some students than others.  Like some game shows which depend on knowing culturally specific pieces of information, SAT scores, according to a story in the Wall Street Journal,  "are often closely tied to a student’s race and wealth, and hurt the admissions odds of low-income students and those from communities of color."

Besides of course changing the outcomes for these students, this reality also changes the outcomes for the College Board.  Again, according to the Wall Street Journal, this shift in demand for the SAT has a big impact financially for the College Board.

    This shift has dented the College Board’s balance sheet. In 2020 its fees from programs and services declined to $760 million from     $1.05 billion the prior year, according to financial statements. Last January the company laid off about 14% of its employees and     eliminated SAT subject tests."

So, while revenue generating activities really can produce a positive bottom line for nonprofits and successfully offset dependency on philanthropy, too dependency on a single source and perhaps lack of diversity in products, can have a serious impact.  So much for strategic planning.

 

Nonprofit Board Executive Committee #NonprofitBoards

I guess that the Colorado Mesa University Trustees deserve kudos for appointing four women as the executive committee of their 13 member board.  A big first apparently.  But why on earth does a 13-member board even need an executive committee to "lead" the group?  Yes, why is there a need for an executive committee at all?  In my experience, executive committees effectively usurp the authority of the rest of the board.  And if I were a cynic (and we know I am), I would pose that the remaining 9 males just don't really want to do the work and figure these talented women can effectively do their work.  Wasn't their an adage something to this extent that the work men don't want to do is what is called women's work.  So in that case I suppose these women should be even more thrilled - they will oversee the university.  But let's be honest, exec committees do lessen the overall authority of a board just because they are involved at a different level.  Now, were there 30 trustees (oi!) I might begin to see the value of an exec committee but really, 13?

Here's the article from the Colorado Sun.

Colorado Mesa University trustees now led by rare all-woman executive committee

“Culture of firsts” is put into practice in many ways at the Western Slope university, including hiring a president who is a graduate of CMU, trustees say.

Nancy Lofholm

4:20 AM MST on Jan 24, 2022

 

•  

Alison Griffin didn’t know she would be part of a team making Colorado history, and national waves, when she agreed to serve on the board of trustees at Colorado Mesa University.

The Lafayette mother and education advocate has been on numerous of boards in her two decades dedicated to reforming challenges in the field of learning. She came to her latest board appointment in 2019 with a resume that includes stints as a policy advisor to the Chairman of the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce. She also worked as an advisor to the American Association of State Colleges and Universities.

As one of hundreds of volunteer overseers of institutions of higher learning across Colorado,  Griffin was expecting to use her knowledge on the CMU board to help guide the Grand Junction-based university through the trying times of a pandemic and the transition to a new university president.

 A gender milestone wasn’t part of the deal.

“I didn’t even realize that was happening until after the leaders of the executive committee were selected,” Griffin said.

Her cohorts on the 13-person board (nine of them men) chose her to chair the board’s executive committee. The 11 members with voting privileges chose the three other females on the trustee board to fill the other executive committee seats. Amy Lentz, a design consulting firm owner from Grand Junction became the vice-chair. Former Fruita Mayor and current Fruita town council member Lori Buck was chosen as the treasurer.  And Polish-born community and business leader in Denver, Kasia Iwaniczko MacLeod became the secretary.

That meant for the first time in CMU’s 97-year history, women were running the trustee show. It became Colorado’s first institution-of-higher-learning executive board to be all female. The all-female executive committee of the board of trustees is also a rarity in the nation.

“It is highly unusual. I can’t think of any other except maybe at women’s colleges,” said Vicki Kramer with the Women’s Nonprofit Leadership Initiative, an organization that has been working nationally to promote more women on institutional boards.  

“A prime example of where women are leading is Colorado Mesa University – for the first time in history has an all-women executive committee on the governor-appointed board,” wrote Kate Siegel Shimko, the director of boards and commissions for Gov. Jared Polis.

Polis can take some of the credit for moving CMU out in front of a national higher-education effort to create more boards that are majority minority, be it gender, race, sexual identity, or rural vs. urban roots.

He chose the four women board members in 2019 and 2020 from a slate of candidates submitted by the university.

Having women rise to the top on that kind of board may be a first, but Colorado is a state where women have nearly achieved equality on state boards. Women make up 49.7% of state boards compared to 23% in Colorado’s corporate board rooms. Polis has filled 87% of his senior staff positions with women, Siegel Shimko confirmed. 

Universities don’t have shareholders demanding diversity in leadership

There haven’t been many recent looks at women on boards of colleges and universities. A study conducted by Cornell University’s Higher Education Research Institute tracked women on university-level boards from the early 1980s to 2007 and found that females on trustee boards steadily increased in that time.

Females were still enough of a rarity as chairs of boards of higher-education institutions that their first-time inclusion on some boards merited press releases. Johns Hopkins was one university that touted a female board chair in 2007.

That progress had slowed when the Women’s Nonprofit Leadership Initiative conducted a quantitative study in 2019 by asking women serving on nonprofit boards about their experiences.

“Women face substantial barriers to gaining board seats and to succeeding once elected,” the study found.

The study noted that corporate boards have been under pressure from shareholders to diversify, but nonprofit universities don’t have shareholders to push for that kind of change.

Daniel Ramos, one of the men, who sits on the CMU board of trustees, said when it came time to select the executive committee this year there was no concerted effort to pick all women. The women, he said, “just naturally floated to the top” on a board that is diverse in many ways.

“Truly, the culture at CMU is a culture of firsts,” Ramos said.

Ramos, an adjunct professor at the University of Denver and an LGBTQ activist, is the first openly gay Latino to serve on the board. Iwaniczko MacLeod is a graduate of CMU and was the first female student body president.

New CMU president John Marshall is the first CMU president to have graduated from the university.

Last year, 47% of the students at CMU were the first in their families to attend college. Trustee Ron Davis is one of those first-generation college students.

Diverse backgrounds on the board of trustees includes Alex Sanchez, the son of Mexican immigrants and an immigration activist; attorney David Foster, who is active in the Denver Jewish community; Charles Dukes, an African American who graduated from CMU; and Aaron Reed, a CMU student of color who is the student trustee on the board.

Marshall said he views CMU’s all-female leadership of that board as “a remarkable and fortuitous alignment,” that is already making a difference in the campus culture.

“The women on the board are asking wide-ranging questions and are asking us to think about things differently,” Marshall said. “They are going to push you and make you think about things you didn’t think about before.”

The Cornell study found that female trustees tend to pay more attention to campus-life issues, including health and safety. Griffin said she is not sure that is true on the CMU board.

She said one of the most important jobs she and the other newer board members have faced came last spring when former president Tim Foster announced his retirement after 17 years leading CMU. When a committee from the board was tasked with finding a replacement, three women on the board were chosen to be part of a search committee that also included faculty, students, staff and community leaders.

At the same time, the board had to navigate the COVID-19 pandemic. CMU took a decidedly different approach than many institutions of higher learning around the state by not requiring masks or vaccinations. Instead, classes were conducted in-person while the university took extra measures such as sewage testing and creating pods of students to lessen contacts on the campus of around 11,000 students. That was recently changed with a mask requirement on campus for the first-two weeks of the semester given the high rates of coronavirus in Mesa County and the fact that students are returning from across the country.   

“I do think all the trustees are equally concerned about health and well-being,” Griffin said. “We know that college is not just about what you learn in the classroom. It is also about what goes on on the campus. We are putting things like mental health and food insecurity at the top of the list.”

Griffin said in 20 years of working in higher education she has seen a shift in student-development theories that go along with having more women in positions of power.

“Increasing care and compassion for individuals didn’t exist a decade or so ago,” she said.

She also said she would describe the working style of the CMU executive committee as business-like “nose in, hands out” as they tackle issues related to academic programs, budget, real estate and development, and student and faculty retention.

But can change at the top resolve cultural challenges?

Professor Sarah Swedburg said she is glad to see a landmark all-female executive committee, but she is not optimistic it is going to make a difference. Swedburg has been teaching history at CMU for 22 years, but plans to resign in the spring. She has been an outspoken critic of the way CMU has chosen to deal with the pandemic.

Swedburg said that in the 1970s there was a belief that getting more women into positions of power would change things. “But they just became people in power.”

“I wish I had more faith that women would have experiences that would lead them to take the role of the others,” she said, “but once people get into an institutional role, they seem really uninterested in addressing institutional racism, sexism and homophobia.”

Marshall doesn’t see it that way. He said he and other administrators are just now working to figure out how to fully leverage the talent of the groundbreaking board.

He said so far the female-led board is forcing him to look “at areas where we are not hitting the mark.”

Marshall said he believes the board will be able to help with recruitment and retention. Ironically, one of the recruitment missions is to attract more male students. Currently, 46% of the student body is male. Marshall said he would like to have a 50-50 ratio. He would also like to stop the drain of the 10% of male students who don’t finish college due to outside pressures. About two-thirds of the student body comes from rural and low-income backgrounds, which can be a factor in that dropout rate.

 

Marshall said he is confident the new and unique problem-solving skills and different perspectives of the four female trustees and the nine other board members can take on those challenges.

Griffin said she believes the diversity of the entire board makes her optimistic about tackling the problems in a way that could make waves beyond the Grand Junction campus, even if that attention comes via the unusual coalescing of women at the top.

“All-female committees could become the norm,” she said. 

Where Nonprofit Business May Get Done #NonprofitBoards

In her guest column in the Tallahassee Democrat, Alyce Lee Stansbury offered the following perspective on board meetings.  Some of her suggestions merit consideration.  

Board meetings revisited: How to avoid a disaster | Notes on Nonprofits

Alyce Lee Stansbury

Guest columnist

 

In the nonprofit sector, board meetings are where the board’s work gets done; when the knowledge and experience of its members come together to move advance the organization’s goals.

This is one of the reasons I am reading “The Art of Gathering and Why It Matters,” by Priya Parker.

I look forward to sharing a few highlights once I’ve finished it. Until then, here’s a look back at a column about a board meeting that sounded too unbelievable to be true (but it was) and a few tips on how to make board meetings more effective. 

Will the meeting come to order?

The meeting was scheduled for 6 p.m. but before the chair called the meeting to order everyone sat around the table talking about their day. After 20 minutes, the guest at the meeting finally got up the courage to ask if they were waiting for something. The chair said one of the board members was going to be late then added, “like always.” I would remind all that the business of the board is both transactional and relational.  Intentionally providing time for members to share and get comfortable understanding what might be behind a member's joy or disgruntlement can prove worth the result.

The guest was a little annoyed to wait for one person when everyone else had been on time and wondered why board members didn’t feel the same way. The chair also commented they weren’t a formal board and “we like to shoot the b.s.”

After finally calling the meeting to order, the chair handed out an agenda with more than twenty items on it! As the agendas were distributed, the chair said, “strap yourselves in, we’re going to be here a while.” Why of course the agenda wasn't already in member's hands ahead of the meeting and possibly put-up on a board-only electronic portal is a good start.

Respecting time limits

Everyone laughed so the guest assumed this was normal. However, when the first item on the agenda took more than 30 minutes, they weren’t laughing anymore. The guest wondered if they really intended to be there all night. And yes, agenda items should have time limits with a process built-in for time extension and recognizing how this extension might affect other items.

During the meeting, anyone and everyone talked. They talked over the top of each other, talked louder so they could be heard, even got up and went to the restroom and came back still talking. One woman talked so loudly about why people couldn’t do what they wanted to do some people got mad and some just stopped trying.  So clearly this Chair was not a skilled meeting manager - something where help is needed.

The guest couldn’t stay all night and finally left at 9 p.m.  A few other board members took that opportunity to leave as well since they had only gotten through seven of the twenty agenda items. The guest wondered how in the world this organization keeps and attracts board members with meetings like this. 

It takes a leader

As I listened to this story, it was easy to recognize this board meeting was essentially a social gathering (I don't know that this is a good conclusion - not well run, sure, but for the purpose of social, don't have enough data to judge). The meeting started whenever everyone felt like it, there was little or no structure to the agenda, agendas were not distributed in advance, and little to no vetting of agenda items had taken place prior to the meeting.

The chair was not leading the meeting, following parliamentary procedure, or using best practices for effective board meetings. As an all-volunteer organization, there was no staff leader to lend support. 

Running an effective board meeting takes skill and practice. While it is important to have social time among board members this should took place before and after meetings. Once the meeting starts, the business of the organization should be the focus.

Board meetings should start and end on time and never last three hours or more unless the board has agreed to an extended session for a specific reason with an agreed upon agenda.

Agendas should be developed and sent in advance  (3 days is good) so board members can be prepared to participate in the discussion.

Mixing agenda items and alcohol

The number of agenda items should reflect the highest and best use of board member’s time. Board meetings should ?not? be committee meetings with all board members in attendance. If this happens in a board meeting, it is the responsibility of the chair to refer committee discussions back to the committee.

Board agendas should reflect the nonprofit’s priorities as defined in the strategic plan. I propose organizing into fiduciary, strategic and evaluative OR policy, planning and evaluation.  There may well be more regular fiduciary/compliance issues that are just not in the strategic plan. 

Another issue is about alcohol at board meetings. It seems like more boards are serving alcohol or having it available for purchase before and during the meeting.

Alcohol is not likely to enhance the board’s ability to conduct business and may reinforce the idea that board meetings are social times. Consider waiting to serve alcohol until after the meeting.   This is a cultural decision - what are the norms.  Yes there could be negative consequences but even that depends on what is the norm.  Members should discuss this to discern whether it makes sense.   Honestly I am not quite clear how this even entered into this conversation.

Bottom line though - meetings can simply be managed - that's what rules of order are all about - consensus, Robert's, Roberta's - pick the one that works for you and ask the chair to enforce.  And no, the Board Chair does not have to chair the board meeting.  Rotating can offer some pleasant surprises for the board's future.

Missing Oversight #NonprofitBoards

So just what has this board been doing?  How could it not miss $100K?  The story follows and yes, this is a failure of board oversight - a failure to fulfill its fiduciary duty - oh you know - compliance, policies and.....  For shame! PS - why hasn't the board chair been interviewed or quoted on this matter?

From msn.com, Patch:

Report: Former AYS Director Illegally Paid Staff, Self With Gifts

Christopher Huffaker - Yesterday 3:11 PM

 

ANDOVER, MA — Former Andover Youth Services Director Bill Fahey oversaw over $100,000 in payments from the nonprofit Andover Youth Foundation to himself and Youth Services staff, according to a report commissioned by the town of Andover from the law firm Nixon Peabody LLC.

© Christopher Huffaker/PatchThe Andover Youth Foundation contributes $30,000 per year for the Cormier Youth Center maintenance, but also provided funds for "merit compensation" for Youth Services staff, according to the Nixon Peabody report.

The report alleges that the payments, funded by the Hurston Family Foundation, violated state laws prohibiting public employees from receiving gifts for their official work.

"This investigation determined that AYS’s former director used his public position for personal gain by soliciting and receiving gifts of payments by and through the Andover Youth Foundation, Inc. (“AYF”), a nonprofit public charity," attorney Robert Fisher wrote.

Fahey, through his attorney Daniel Murphy, disputed that the payments were for official work, as opposed to work "above, beyond and outside their duties at Andover Youth Services."

"Neither Bill Fahey nor AYF did anything that was illegal or unethical," Murphy said. "The Town should be embarrassed by its obvious motive and efforts to further destroy the work and reputation of Bill Fahey."

The full report, including the response from the Andover Youth Foundation, is embedded at the end of the article. The report draws on documents shared by the Youth Foundation and town records including Fahey's texts, but Fahey and other Youth Services employees declined to be interviewed.

Andover commissioned the investigation after the Eagle-Tribune reported in August on text messages sent by Fahey directing the payments. The investigation is the latest step in a saga that began almost a year ago when Fahey was fired for unspecified "conduct," sparking a public outcry, including the resignations of the division's full-time staff.

The alleged conduct was later revealed to include "problematic" behavior including closed-door meetings with program participants and downloading pornographic material containing a former employee and showing it to the employee's family

Fahey is suing the town and Town Manager Andrew Flanagan for breach of contract and defamation. In his statement on behalf of Fahey, attorney Murphy said they believe the report was "commissioned by the Town of Andover to target Bill Fahey in response to the lawsuit."

According to the report, beginning in 2016 Fahey directed payments totaling $103,000 to himself and five then-staff members, using funds donated by the Hurston Family Foundation, which has contributed over $270,000 to the Andover Youth Foundation since 2015.

 

Records included in the report include an exchange between Fahey and the Hurston Family Foundation requesting a donation for "merit-based compensation," with conditions that Fahey has discretion over the funds and that they would be returned if he ceased to be Youth Services director.

The "merit-based compensation" grew from $500 each to Fahey and his senior staff in 2016 to $1,5000 per quarter each in 2019.

"In total, Fahey directed $107,300 in merit pay from the Hurston Family Foundation funds to Town employees, $103,000 to his immediate staff and the balance to another Town employee," according to the report.

The report also includes records that appear to show Fahey planning to conceal the payments from other town officials, including in an email to the Andover Youth Foundation's president where he said he was “not interested in giving them information" about donations other than the foundation's $30,000 annual contribution for the maintenance of the Cormier Youth Center.

"Concealment of receipt of donations and payments to staff from Town officials constitute violations of obligations of candor and Town anti-fraud policies that prohibit "deception deliberately practiced to secure unlawful gain,'" Nixon Peabody attorney Robert Fisher wrote.

Fisher issued five recommendations to the town, including that the report be provided to the State Ethics Commission for evaluation and that the town adopt new policies on Memoranda of Understanding between the town and nonprofit boards.

In response to the report, the Youth Foundation, Fahey and Hurston Family Foundation President Alan Kenney all said that everything was done transparently by Andover Youth Services and that the "merit" payments were intended to recognize work done by the staff outside of town employment.

"The foundation made the so-called "merit" payments from restricted funds donated by a single donor, the Hurston Family Foundation, Inc., which has generously donated funds each year since 2016, and which directed that the funds be used, inter alia, to recognize the recipients volunteer community services and humanitarian efforts, including by Youth Services staff who spent countless hours outside of the hours of their Town employment, and doing work outside of their job descriptions, and all for the betterment of the Town and of Youth services," the Youth Foundation said in a statement. "The foundation never made a single payment with the intent of or for the purpose of influencing or inducing a public employee to take or to refrain from taking an official act, or to thank them for having taken or having refrained from taking an official act."

"We disagree with the findings and conclusions in the Report," Murphy said on Fahey's behalf. "The Report focuses on funds donated to the Andover Youth Foundation by the Hurston Family Foundation for the purpose of rewarding people who worked above, beyond, and outside of their duties at Andover Youth Services."

"Both of those statements are accurate," Kenney said. "They did not do anything improper."

Kenney no longer intends to make any contributions to the Andover Youth Foundation, he said.

"We have no intention of getting involved in a personal vendetta between the town and Bill Fahey," he said. "We have no confidence in anyone else working for the town currently, other than the people who resigned en masse from Youth Services."

Patch has requested comment from Town Manager Andrew Flanagan and will update this story when we hear back. The Select Board is due to discuss the report at their 7 p.m. meeting Monday.

AYS - Report of Investigation - 1-12-22 by Chris Huffaker on Scribd

Interim Board Chair? #NonprofitBoards

Just saw this news heading:

Housing Initiatives of Princeton Names Former Mayor Lempert Interim Board Chair

Princeton resident Carol Golden, who served as board chair for six years and also as a volunteer executive director until the appointment of Gittleman in a salaried capacity in July, 2021, will remain on the board as an advisor.

 

So...I'm saying whoa - all kinds of unusual activities going on here while recognizing I certainly don't have all the background.  But's let's unpack for a moment.  

1. An interim board chair
2. Current board chair staying on board as "just a member"
3. Former Board chair served for 6 years in position 
4. Former Board chair was also volunteer exec until new director.

See any challenges here?  I am imagining this is a young organization having just hired it's first-time exec and that the former board member is also a founder.  Clearly no succession plan and also no bench strength for moving folks up into leadership.  And maybe some recruitment challenges.  All variables for learning but hopefully sooner than later.  Time to start thinking about governance for the future.

 

 

Keeping Nonprofit Board Members Engaged #NonprofitBoards

What follows is a summary of tips from the Forbes Nonprofit "Experts" Panel on the topic of keeping nonprofit board members engaged.  To me, some are just plain common sense and others are "maybe".  Take a look and determine for yourself IF you care about having all your board members engaged.  Also, note that much of this is written as though it's the job of the exec to ensure board engagement.  I pose this to not be correct.  It is the job of the board facilitated by the Chair to ensure engagement.  A board is not the Exec's board!

Jan 18, 2022,01:15pm EST|1,075 views

How To Keep Board Members Inspired And Motivated

Expert Panel®

Forbes Councils Member

Forbes Nonprofit Council

COUNCIL POST| Membership (Fee-Based)

Leadership

 

A board of directors can offer a nonprofit additional support that helps sustain the organization. To make the most of that support, nonprofit leaders must determine the most optimal way to keep board members engaged, interested and actively involved. 

 

1. Select The Right People First - this is pretty much what Jim Collins of Good to Great for the Social Sector preaches about getting the "right" people on the bus.  Of course!

2. Find Ways To Actively Involve Them - you think?  But yeah, this is a big failure in actually knowing what members really want to be doing.

 

---

3. Maintain Communication - absolutely including Chair to each member and Exec to each member.

4. Facilitate Member Interactions With Staff And Beneficiaries - this one has to be carefully managed by the Exec noting that a board has only one "employee" - the Exec.

Establish frequent opportunities for board members to interact with staff and beneficiaries. Oftentimes, board members spend more time reviewing data in a boardroom than experiencing the successful result of the organizational mission firsthand. These opportunities can fuel the passion and dedication of your board tremendously. 

5. Involve Them In Outside Engagements - perhaps

Involve board members in meaningful informational engagements outside of the normal meeting cycle, which is usually quarterly meetings. This presents a tremendous opportunity to leverage the expertise that exists on your board and opens space for deeper trust and relationship building. The energy generated around the organization's priorities can be contagious. - Arthur Mills, New Teacher Center

6. Keep Them Informed Of Progress And Engagements - Dashboard Anyone and, uh, ok!

Keep board members informed of the progress of partnerships and community engagements that they can support outside of the boardroom. Invite them to events that highlight some of the work that your nonprofit is doing. This gives them an appreciation for the impact that your organization is making locally or nationally. - Kimberly Lewis, Goodwill Industries of East Texas, Inc.

7. Show The Impact Of Their Investment - sure but this does strike me as kind-of arduous to track.

Always share with your board of directors where their investment of time, talent and treasure are creating a dynamic outcome. Proven programs and activities with proven results are inspiring. With new ideas and ways of engaging new sponsors and stakeholders, it is always motivating to see the possibilities of what's next. Assure them you are looking forward to remaining successful in the new year. - Aaron Alejandro, Texas FFA Foundation

8. Bring Them Into Strategic Planning - "bring them in?  This is one of their core jobs!  

9. Conduct Succession Planning  - again, core job!

10. Ensure Giving Is Top Of Mind For Them - this should be part of the job description and agreed to upon recruitment never just sprung upon members.

11. Prepare Before Each Board Meeting - uh......

12. Create Win-Win Opportunities - I'd welcome learning more.

Empower win-win opportunities by encouraging board members to engage in the committees and/or initiatives that are of interest to them and activate their specific passions. Engage board members as champions or advocates for the organization beyond the boardroom. Create opportunities to highlight the expertise of board members in the boardroom or encourage them to share their "why." - Errika Moore, National STEM Funders Network

Nonprofit Growth #NonprofitBoards

Small and what I often refer to as infancy and juvenile stage nonprofits spend their time in these stages for multiple years doing the challenging work of creating a strong nonprofit and attracting resources for the long haul despite the multiple distractions that limit potential to move to a more mature stage of development.  Of course there are many factors that affect this transition.  The following NYNMedia article helps shed some light on this reality and can provide a board with fodder for thinking strategically.  I would pose that a fourth element, governing body, should be added to "make a difference".

Identifying strategic growth trends for small nonprofits

Here are three commonalities these growing organizations have

By BROOKE RICHIE-BABBAGE

JANUARY 16, 2022

A number of years ago I was invited by a small youth justice organization in New York City to help them develop a growth plan to reach and sustain a $2 million+ budget. The organization had incredible, proven, high-impact programs, and they were bringing in funding consistently. But the executive director was drowning in direct reports, board management, and putting out organizational fires. She felt like the organization had been stuck, plateaued at just over $1 million for years. She felt unable to gain her footing, to expand the organization’s programming to meet increasing needs, hire the staff she needed, or even give her current staff the benefits and salary they deserved. 

Our work together was about how to get unstuck and how to grow in a way that could actually be sustained. My plan was to conduct research into best practices around growth for small organizations (under $2 million), and to interview the organization’s funders to gather qualitative insights to flesh out what the research showed about growth strategies and tactics. My specific question: What are the factors that an organization at this stage in its lifecycle should consider if it is interested in sustainable growth?

So why am I sharing this? Because what I found really surprised me. While some research existed exploring growth strategies for mid-sized organizations, I could find almost nothing detailing best practices and growth strategies for small nonprofits. Based on everything that I was reading and the funders I was talking to, conventional wisdom seemed to be that the movement and growth of small nonprofits is random and unpredictable, like throwing spaghetti against a wall. 

Yet as I dug deeper and spent time interviewing and studying the financials, staffing, and board structure of more than a dozen organizations that had grown from six to seven-figure budgets, what I found didn’t comport with conventional wisdom. I’ve since built on that initial research, working closely with over three-dozen small nonprofits, as a board member, professor, strategic planner, and/or consultant.

What I’ve found is that there are in fact meaningful patterns and similarities in the strategies used by small organizations as they seek to scale to 7-figures.I’ll lift up three of the most consistent commonalities here. 

• What got you here won’t get you there.  Growth beyond $1 milion is an important line of demarcation in the lifecycle of a small organization. For leaders who are founders, or have led the organization in a certain way for a long time, the irony is that the success of certain strategies and approaches often results in a continued reliance – sometimes overreliance – on those strategies and approaches beyond their usefulness. We may resist important changes in strategy and operation because the changes make us feel clumsy and vulnerable. The reality is that a $1.2 million organization is not simply a $600,000 organization with more money. What is required to remain operationally healthy and financially stable at $600,000 is different in important ways than at $1.2 million. As organizations grow into 7-figure budgets, they become a different type of organism, requiring different thinking about organizational design, leadership, and allocation of resources. 
• Having a strong bench is critical. Almost all of the executive directors that I’ve spoken with as part of my research into this topic have noted the critical importance of having a strong leadership team. People at the director level should allow the executive director to “get out of the weeds” and move more fully into a strategic fundraising and relationship-cultivation role. While the specific constellation of leadership staff varies between organizations, an effective and empowered leadership team can be a saving grace for both the executive director’s emotional health, and the long term capacity of the organization. Leaders describe the often seemingly intangible, but very real, way in which their strong and high-quality leadership team served as: (1) thought partners to help navigate increasingly significant and strategic organizational decisions, (2) people to take ownership of entire areas of work off of their shoulders, and (3) buffers between them and the rest of the staff.
• The nature and structure of fundraising changes. One of the subtle but noticeable trends that has been common in pretty much all of the organizations that I’ve researched or worked with is that as the executive director’s fundraising role expanded and became more nuanced, the rest of the organization also became more involved in fundraising. For the nonprofits in my initial study, a charismatic executive director often shouldered the brunt of the fundraising burden in the organization’s early stages. However, as the organizations grew, that burden became too much for the leaders to handle along with their other expanding roles. The most effective solution to this problem was to both grow the development staff and make board engagement in fundraising more explicit. On the board level, this meant that the board began to take ownership over its role in expanding the organization’s network and cultivating new supporters and partners.

I share all of this because I believe that the notion that there is neither rhyme nor reason to the movement and growth of small nonprofits can have serious consequences. Most often, it translates into a reluctance on the part of funders and donors to invest in small nonprofits, and a concern that investments that are made may not result in true impact. It can also make it difficult for the leaders of small nonprofits to get buy-in from their boards to make the types of changes to their staff, board, and infrastructure that may be required in order to support healthy growth. Ultimately, there is a method to the madness of growing a small nonprofit.