This Month's topic: Board Recruitment
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Helping the Victims of the Hurricanes
It's a long,
long, looooonnnngggg road for victims of the hurricanes. Keep at it,
offering help as you can. I'm involved with a group of people from the
Alliance for Nonprofit Management who are helping nonprofits on the
Gulf Coast get back on their feet. There are lots and lots of ways to
help.
Here are some organizations, websites and phone numbers you can post on your site.
Remember to note that if people give online, to target the gift for
hurricane relief. Also check with your local United Way, as well as
your mayor's office to see if any community relief efforts are being coordinated.
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Hear Me Online!
This past month, I was interviewed on a management pod cast show called "The Cranky Middle Manager Show" The discussion was about the value of mission in nonprofits, and what for-profits can learn from nonprofits.
You can hear the show with most audio players. Click here to listen. Caution: I only endorse my part of the show. The ads, the other comments of the interviewer, etc. are not necessarily my cup of tea. Just so you know!
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| This Month's Topic: Board Recruitment |
Each month, this area provides with a
number of my favorite and most helpful sites regarding the topic of the month.
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Management
Tip of the Month
Each issue, I start with a discussion
of my management perspective on the month's topic, and give you a few hands-on
ideas to consider.
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Recommended Publications
Here, I provide you with my
recommendations on the materials available that can help you
become more mission-capable in the area of board recruitment.
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Technology
I provide you with some good ideas for
uses of tech to better your organization in the area of board recruitment
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Marketing
Tip
So much to say, so little space to say
it.....
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Next
Issue
In December, we'll look at an issue that is
really important: Better Budgeting. We'll look at ways to be more inclusive, and get more from your staff members in the budgeting process
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Websites of the
Month
Here are my recommendations for websites of interest
on this month's topic, Board Recruitment
| www.managementhelp.org/boards/boards.htm#anchor821533 |
Why does it seem that we always start with the Free Management Library? Because it is SO amazing! |
| www.boardnetusa.org/public/home.asp |
BoardNetUSA matches organizations and volunteers |
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Management Tip of the Month
Board Recruitment: Getting the people you want to serve.
Board recruitment vexes many a non-profit exec. It did me, when I was
an ED. Let me provide you with a few truths I've learned over the years
as a board member, as an ED, and as a consultant.
1. You get out what you put in, or: You can't delegate board recruitment to the Board.
I see far too many execs who decide that they will leave board
recruitment to the board. It's easier for the ED (in the short run),
and it gives the board something important to do. Winner! Or not. What
happens when you let the board recruit the board? You get new board
members that are like the old ones? Why? Because people recruit who
they know, and they tend to know (and hang out with) themselves. Thus,
if you asked me (53 years old, married, suburban, grad school, middle
class, three kids) to recruit members for a board, I'd recruit....more 50-something,
married, suburban, well-educated, middle class people with
kids--because that's who I hang out with.
Take-away: The
recruitment of board members needs to be a board-staff partnership, and
needs to seek specific people for specific skills (see #2).
2. The skillset your board needs is a moving target.
As time passes, your strategic plan should evolve
to keep up. So should your budget, your marketing, your staff mix. Why
not your board? Some skills may be relatively timeless, but many
change with the times. If you are planning a major building project, do
you have bankers, architects and realtors on the board? If you are
doing community outreach, what about community leaders, ministers,
elected officials? Take-away: Develop a short and long term skillset list and drop it into your ongoing recruitment efforts (see #3).
3. Successful recruitment is ongoing.
The worst mistake organizations make in recruitment is rushing it.
"Ohhh, here comes the nominating committee meeting three days before
the annual meeting where we elect board members. Huh. We better get
busy and find someone." And just how good a candidate do you
think the organization finds? If you have a skillset plan, and you have
board terms so that you know when most people are going off the board,
this is a predictable, manageable issue. Also, if you add
non-board members to a committee for a year, this can be a way of
developing a board pipeline into the organization. Add board
recruitment to your annual work plan. Takeaway: Slow and steady wins this race.
4. The most successful recruitment is viewed as a marketing task.
The board is a market? Of course it is. And what do you do with a
market? You find out what they want. How do you do it? You ask. Ask
during recruitment, ask during their service, ask after they go off the
board. Ask what the board members want from their service. If they give
you well-intentioned platitudes, "Oh, I just want to help my
community." drill down and ask them how the organization can
specifically help them realize that aspiration more fully. Takeaway: Ask, ask, ask. (and see more on this in the Marketing Tip later in this issue.)
5. Don't recruit people for (just, or first) their fund raising ability.
One of my biggest concerns about U.S. boards
is the trend to have 100 % board members who are first and foremost
fund raisers. Bad idea. While fund raising should absolutely be part of
the board skillset, having this capability as the first and primary
skill bodes nothing but trouble for the organization. Boards are
supposed to be checks and balances on the staff. If the board does not
manage, if there are no other skills but fund raising on the
board, how can they provide the oversight needed to insure good
stewardship? Takeaway: Have a policy board with some fund raisers on it.
6. Be clear and straightforward about expectations.
I despise people coming to me to help with an
organization (as a volunteer) and saying, "Oh, it doesn't take too much
time." Well, if it really doesn't, why do you need help? Be completely
forthright with potential board (and committee) members about the
organization's expectations of them. Number of meetings, duration,
date, time and location of meetings, workload between meetings, etc.
And, tell people in writing, in person, and put all of this on your
website. Takeaway: Truth in advertising will increase your board retention.
All of these techniques will help you recruit better board members and retain them longer.
If
you found this hint helpful, there are lots more management, marketing, and
technology ideas for you in the "Ideas" section at
www.missionbased.com. Check them
out--they're free.
And, remember to take a look at the
Mission-Based Management
Blog.
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Print Resources
My recommendations for texts on Board Recruitment are shown below.
The Effective Nonprofit Board: Responsibilities and Recruitment, by Robert Zimmerman and Anne Lehman
Mission-Based Management, by Peter Brinckerhoff (chapter on board recruitment)
Board Recruitment and Orientation, A Common Sense Guide, by Hildy Gottlieb
Strategic Board Recruitment: The Not-for-Profit Model, by Robert Kile, et al
If you don't find enough choices here, type
"Nonprofit Board recruitment" at Amazon.com.
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Technology Tip
Can tech help your board recruitment efforts?
Of course. And, it can help your board retention
efforts as well. The key here is to use the web. Here are two specific
things you can do.
First,
have everything you would ever want to know about being a board member
for your organization on your website, in an area of the site about
volunteering. By everything, I mean everything: term, meeting times,
meeting duration, preparation, location, etc, etc, etc, You can't put
too much info on this area. As I said in the management tip--truth in
advertising is key, but also remember that many potential board members
will look at your website first..so be prepared.
Second--after
you recruit you want to retain. Have a passworded Board-specific
section of your website. Here, put a ton of information, including
bylaws, minutes of meetings, information about other board members,
descriptions of all organizational programs, staff listings, copies of
all organizational policies, etc., etc., etc. Again you can't add too
much information (as long as the board area is intuitive and easy to
access. Try to put everything on this area of your site that you can to
allow board members to look and not have to ask "the dumb question."
These two simple uses of the web will help
recruit and retain better members. One more thing to remember---someone
has to keep all this stuff current. So keep that in mind as you set it
up.
If you found this hint helpful, there are lots more
management, marketing, and technology ideas for you in the "Ideas" section at
www.missionbased.com. Check them
out--they're free.
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Top
Training Schedule for Peter Brinckerhoff
Below you'll see the date, location, and topics
of public training I'm scheduled to do in the next few months. For more
information on a particular speaking engagement, get in touch with the contact
person listed in the right hand column, or
email me.
For more information on my availability throughout
the next 12-18 months, available topics, sample agendas, and fees go to
www.missionbased.com/training.htm
Marketing Tip
Marketing and Board Recruitment
So, here's the problem: You can't seem to find board members who show
up at meetings, have done their homework, stay for a full
term.....sound familiar? So, here's the question: When you recruited
them did you ask them what they wanted from their board service, or
just tell them what the organization expected? And have you asked them
regularly since they came on the board?
Ask? The board? You bet. It's just marketing. Important marketing, to be sure, but just marketing.
Look, if you think of board recruitment as a marketing challenge, what
would you do? First, identify your market (your board), then find out
what they want (ask), and then adjust to meet those wants as much as
you can. This will lead to better recruitment, but more importantly,
better retention. Keeping board members after you recruit and train
them is crucial. So consider them a key market, and apply simple
marketing techniques and you'll improve in both of these areas.
Remember--board members are volunteers. Your meeting is competing
against their family, their work, their recliner and a good book. You
have to make them WANT to come to meetings, WANT to do their homework
before. So, find out how to give them more mission-based rewards, and
they are more likely to be engaged. Also remember that people serve on
boards for a wide variety of reasons. There is no cookie cutter
approach. You have to ask people individually and listen carefully to
their answers.
If you want to see more about this in detail, take
a look at more about my book
Mission-Based Marketing; Second
Edition
If you found this hint helpful, there are lots more
management, marketing, and technology ideas for you in the "Ideas" section at
www.missionbased.com. Check them
out--they're free.
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Top
Future Topics in
2005-06 for the Mission-Based Management Newsletter....
| December |
Better
Budgeting |
| January,
2006 |
Generation
Change |
| February |
Accountability |
| March |
Ethics and Management |
| April |
Staff Satisfaction |
| May |
Boards who cross the
Policy/Management line |
| June |
Employee Rewards |
| Send me
your topic suggestions at peter@missionbased.com |
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You asked, so here they are:
Past Single-Topic Issues of the Mission-Based Management Newsletter...
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