Tag Archives: Nonprofit Boards

Is 5:30 pm the best time for a board meeting? Really?

Posted on December 13, 2011 | 7 Comments

I was sitting in a board meeting this evening asking myself this question and at the same time my brain went click. Off it went. I just nodded my head for the rest of the meeting wondering if I had drool coming out of the side of my mouth.

I know there is no such thing as the “perfect” time that gets good participation, a time when everyone can meet. I do wonder if we should put less emphasis on when everyone can get there and more on when everyone’s brains are fresh and able to engage in deep discussion about the organization. I’m more partial to the early morning meeting… 7:30 am anyone?

What do you think is the optimal time of day a board should meet? Please share.

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Overcoming a Disconnect with the Mission

Posted on December 6, 2011 | Leave a comment

Several year’s ago I was facilitating a meeting when the president of the organization said… “We are not who we are.” That odd statement codified what everyone was feeling in the room—lost. Somewhere along the organization’s journey it got detoured and ended up in a place it never intended to go, serving the community not as effectively as it could, and focused on daily issues that seemed deeply disconnected from its mission.

This is not an uncommon story. Nonprofit organizations face many twists and turns in pursuit of mission. Sometimes a much sought after grant goes from becoming a necessary resource to the organization’s central focus, or a succession of bad hires leads the organization away from the cause. Choices were made where the mission was never really adhered to or considered. Worse yet, the mission was never really relevant or meaningful to those leading the organization and led to arbitrary and unfocused decision making.

Organizations are at risk when mission is only a statement; a device used as a reference point, or a special decoder that offers a hidden answer. Above all, mission is a feeling. An organization’s leadership may capture it in a carefully worded statement, but before that happens a sense of being emerges from a milieu of diverse passions. Mission is about a group of people imagining the change they can create and exploring these possibilities together. Through their collective action, they discover something in common within one another, a shared sense of purpose. This feeling is so great that it deserves to be written down.

Beyond an organization’s capacity to manage day-to-day challenges or align action to mission, is the greater capability to keep a feeling or sense of mission alive. To do so, leadership must regularly reconnect to four domains:

People – Knowing and understanding whom we wish to actively affect and why; this needs to be viewed through an inclusive lens, considering all potential stakeholders.

Passion – Getting to the heart of what collectively moves board, staff, and volunteers to action; answering why we as a group are motivated to act together.

Promise – Defining the specific meaningful value we promise to create and deliver; articulating the impact we will strive to bring into the world.

Principles – Deciding on the best way to act that upholds what we believe in; allowing the organization to live in a principled way.

Together, these four domains form a prism that helps leadership reflect on how the mission is advancing and maturing. If there is one capability board and staff should share is the ability to look at each domain on a daily basis through every interaction and, on special occasions, bring these domains together and discuss what is learned.

Before writing or re-writing a mission statement, leadership must feel the mission, intuitively understanding why it has emerged, why it is meaningful, and why they wish to be a part of it.

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Procrastination… my name is board member

Posted on September 12, 2011 | Leave a comment

Without telling anyone I decided to take the summer off from the blog. Unfortunately, I took the summer off from being a board member too. I didn’t tell anyone about this either.

It was not my intention to stop being a decent board member, it just happened. I got wrapped up in my consulting work, trying to run a 5K in under 30 minutes, and writing a book… on board engagement by the way. So here I am at the end of the summer and there is a bunch of overdue items that I said I would do, but have not delivered on them… like making donor calls, working on the organization’s strategic plan, and being present for the outgoing CEO.

One of the hardest parts of board membership is being engaged when you do not feel engaged. I could blame this on the organization, the cause, or (worse) my fellow board members and the staff I work with, but the reality is my engagement is my responsibility. I have had a list of items in my to do box and I chose to ignore it.

When I was an executive director, I hated board members who procrastinated. They put me in the unenviable position of having to call on them and ask if they did their work. I used to think… “What am I, their mother?” I promised myself I would never do that when I was a board member. Oops! I just did.

Sometimes work is just work. It has to get done. We have to inch our way forward to the next opportunity. Board leadership, like any other job, requires a focus on getting things done even when it doesn’t inspire you that very moment. But like most good things, all those little steps that are taken both individually and with your colleagues, comes together into something wonderful, meaningful, and engaging.

Now, where is that list?

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Rewrite Your Next Board Meeting

Posted on June 11, 2011 | 1 Comment

At the first board meeting I ever attended, the only person who spoke was my boss, the executive director. Driving back to the office, she asked me what I thought of the meeting. I told her the board was not very engaged. She agreed and said, “I just don’t know how to change that.” I held my tongue thinking to myself, “You can start by shutting up and letting them talk to each other.”

When it was my turn to be an executive director, I humbly admit that I suffered from the same problem—sitting in board meetings, yammering on, and trying to ignite a new level of board engagement through the brilliance I was spewing forth. Now as a board member, I am sympathetic to the executive directors, who cannot stand the excruciating silence and feel the need to share everything in their brain, and my fellow board members who wish the meeting were a million times more engaging.

According BoardSource’s Nonprofit Governance Index 2010, “Boards that are more engaged spend more time on strategic thinking and discussion.” Or, (this is me talking): “Boards that suck, don’t talk to one another and let the executive director run off at the mouth.”

Neither strong (and talented) executive directors, nor quiet (and thoughtful) board members are the problem. The issue is the 60 to 120-minute monthly, bi-monthly, or quarterly experience they have together. Board meetings run on these deep ingrained scripts that are overwritten and uninspired. Agendas, minutes, and reporting lull us into complacency rather than provoking strategic thinking and creativity that drives us toward improvement and innovation. We need to rewrite the script of our next board meeting with fewer monologues for the executive director and more dialogues involving everyone in the room.

Here are a few ways to rip up the current agenda and rewrite the meeting:

1. Imagine a Future – Discussions of vision and goals are typically relegated to the once-a-year retreat when it should be happening at every board meeting. Set aside 30 to 45 minute in the meeting to raise and discuss major strategic questions, examine the organization’s business model, and identify how environmental changes are affecting the organization’s impact. Don’t just talk, synthesize—define a board point of view on the matter and, when appropriate, mobilize members to tackle the issue.

2. Align Resources – Present a financial report that challenges board and staff to imagine how resources can be used more effectively. Instead of reviewing the balance sheet, discuss how eliminating long-term debt can increase dollars for programs or how restricted assets can be better positioned to forward the organization’s strategy. Discover what is driving organizational income and how the expense budget can be better positioned to grow vital revenue sources. Most importantly, ensure that the budget aligns to the strategies developed by the board and staff.

3. Improve Performance – Throw out the typical program report and let board members dive deep into the cause. Have discussions about how impact is created. Focus in on one aspect of the organization’s work, discuss how it works, and explore how it can work better. Overcome the fear that volunteer board members will never understand what professional staff does. Challenge everyone to move beyond off-the-cuff ideas to thinking that is relevant and meaningful to the work.

4. Frame the Message – If board members are going to be on message, they need to help create the message. Let’s get past spoon-feeding what we want board members to say. As strategies, resources, and impact are discussed, let’s encourage members to frame the message. They need to hear the stories that best illustrate the value of the organization’s work, but they also need to create their own stories, using their own words, and in their own voice.

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Board Members Are Not Our Development Directors

Posted on June 2, 2011 | 4 Comments


In the May 1st online edition of the Chronicle of Philanthropy a headline stated: “Charities Give Boards Little Training in Fund Raising, Study Finds.” I would argue that most board members do not want training in fund raising. They didn’t join our organizations because they wanted to learn how to prospect, cultivate, and make “asks.”

When we try to engage our boards in fund raising, we make a glaring mistake—we talk about it from the organization’s perspective rather than the board member’s perspective. We seek to engage them in organizational fund raising mechanisms and activities that make many members feel downright uncomfortable, reinforcing their aversion. The 2010 BoardSource Governance Index survey shows that the situation (board members and their desire to fund raise) is getting worse.

Board members who succeed in the fund raising effort, inherently see it as a means and not an end. The “end” they are seeking, building a strong relationship between those in their network and the cause they care deeply about, is a place where everybody wins—the donor, the board member, and the organization.

To achieve this win-win, we need to help our boards cultivate three capabilities:

I. Learning their own story about the organization — finely worded messages are great, but board members need to find the organizational stories that are most meaningful to them. This helps them in their own self discovery of why they care about the cause as well as builds their ability to share stories that are personally compelling.

II. Finding their role in building organizational influence — each board member brings their own unique talents to helping the organization build relationships. Instead of forcing members to conform to a fundraising approach, first discover what these talents are and create social situations where they can practice using them.

III. Playing an active role in building their strategy — key to engaging board members in the fundraising effort is creating opportunities for them to shape the case for support as well as the greater strategy they will use in helping the organization build influence.

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Posted in Board Engagement, resource development

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Has Your Nonprofit Board Been Neutered?

Posted on May 26, 2011 | Leave a comment

Here’s a simple way to find out. In a middle of a board meeting, look at the people around the table and ask yourself: Does the quality of this discussion match the quality of people?

Granted, “quality” is fairly subjective. Yet, it is pretty easy to tell if you have a group of individuals who have a history of success in life and are deeply engaged in family, work, and community service, but for some reason cannot elevate the conversation in the board room beyond trivial issues that are not core to the strengthening the performance of the organization. If this is the situation, your board members have been neutered. They are unclear about why they are getting together with people they hardly know, unclear about what their role and purpose is, and unclear, ultimately, about why they should be engaged.

Worse yet, the nonprofit field has tacitly accepted this “neutered” role for boards. Oh yes, we want effective boards, but we have lowered the bar. We have accepted that the right place for boards is to make decisions over budgets they don’t truly understand, to hire professionals to lead organizations they truly don’t understand, and to approve strategy and actions to create results that they truly don’t understand.

Do we really believe that the next generation of board leaders will accept this? All signs point to Millennials’ commitment to causes is not just hands on, it is hands deep. What this generation teaches us is that for boards to avoid being neutered and to become relevant and meaningful we need to allow them to focus on and shape what truly matters — creating value for the communities they serve.

Here are a few questions for boards to consider:

1. What would happen if we changed the focus of board leadership away from governance and oversight to efficiently and effectively creating value?

2. How can we build an environment within the board meeting where each member is able to listen for the purpose of the organization and share their creativity, skills, and expertise to address the most important issues?

3. How can we grow the board’s sense of accountability to all stakeholders through our focus on developing innovative ideas to improve performance?

Boards that have answered these questions, have avoided being neutered. They see their purpose as central to the cause, they have moved beyond passive oversight and have embraced an active role of seeking out opportunities and innovations to improve the creation of value.

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Defining Your Organization’s Value

Posted on May 17, 2011 | 2 Comments

This installment of the Sixty-Second Strategy covers a quick exercise to help organizations define the value they create and deliver to the communities they serve.

For more information, go to the related post entitled Owning Your Place in the Community.

Also, visit the previous Sixty-Second Strategy installment– Kick Start Your Story.

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Three Strategies to Engage Your Board in Fundraising

Posted on November 18, 2009 | 1 Comment

[This posting appeared as an article in the Fall 2009 edition of Guild Notes, the quarterly newsletter published by The National Guild of Community Schools of the Arts]

“We’re not a fundraising board.” If I had a nickel every time board members have said this to me, I would be able to fund their organizations.

The perceived difference between an Opera Board of well-heeled community leaders and a Community Arts Board made up of the rest of the unwashed masses has driven the myth behind what effective fundraising looks like within an arts institution. This frame of thinking drives the notion that the Opera Board has the money, clout, and know-how to fundraise whereas the Community Arts Board is not wealthy, does not know anyone who is, and feels it lacks the basic skills to make an ask. In reality, the pedigree of your board member has less to do with your fundraising effectiveness than the intrinsic way they are motivated and the systems and process that are used to harness their passion for the cause. I have observed in organizations big and small that it is rare to find the board member who is automatically ready to fundraise which makes it leadership’s job (i.e. the board president, development committee, executive director, etc.) to cultivate board members’ engagement in the fundraising effort.

Here are three strategies to do this:

I. Help Board Members Understand What Connects Them to the Cause
In order to broaden your donor base, you must first deepen your relationship with each board member. It is important to think of the board member as your most important major donor, no matter how much money he or she gives. If your board member is not ready to share his or her time, money, and influence they will not be able to convince others to do the same.

When cultivating a major donor it is important to understand what motivates him or her in relationship to your cause. The same needs to happen with the board member. It is often assumed that when they agree to join the board they are already connected to the cause, but often they are not and most of the time they have very little understanding of the unique value being created by the organization. Hearing stories about the organization’s work and witnessing value being delivered to the community are important ways to help educate board members. It is also important to have conversations with them to learn how they perceive the needs that the organization is meeting, the values that guide the work, and why it is important for the organization to exist. By understanding their point of view on these matters, leadership is able to find the right incentives that will help engage each individual. In addition, it helps the board member and leadership develop a consistent narrative about the organization that can be communicated to potential donors.

II. Help Cast Them in the Right Fundraising Role
When board members talk about fundraising, they often focus on asking for money. In some people this creates an immediate paralysis, yet it is only one part of the process. Through my work with a variety of organization’s boards, my colleagues and I have identified four different roles board members can play in the fundraising process based on their natural strengths and capabilities.

Board members who are Connectors know how to work a room and listen for opportunities. They feel most comfortable being greeters at events, helping to develop a prospect list, or hosting a small gathering in their home. Storytellers love using words to paint pictures for others about the impact of the organization. They excel at standing up and speaking at board meetings and events about the life of the organization or helping write a solicitation letter. The Visionaries are strategic thinkers who know how to position what the organization needs to accomplish with the value it will create. They do well in situations helping the donor understand why their investment is needed and what it will accomplish. Finally, Closers are not deterred from their goal. They are very good at understanding the circumstances of a meeting with a potential donor always looking for the best way to position the ask.

When board members are able to see how their strengths can be engaged in the fundraising effort, they are more willing to engage in the process. It is important to note that it is leadership’s job to identify the variety of roles a board member can play, but the board member must be given the opportunity to choose the role and not be forced into it—here success in a role is critical to ensuring they will continue to be a part of the process.

III. Build a Fundraising System that Helps Them Improve
Finally, it takes a systematic approach to fundraising to help Board members improve. When given opportunities to repeat the same fundraising activity in a consistent way as well as debrief openly with other board members, they are able to go deeper into their role and recognize how what they do contributes to the whole effort. Scatter-shot approaches to fundraising lead to disengaged board members because these kinds of efforts only promote a succeed or fail mentality. Systems help leadership and board members evaluate progress and make adjustments as they come to understand what works well and what needs improvement.

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All board members need help understanding how they connect to the organization’s cause. By showing them how their personal strengths can match up with different roles in the fundraising process, they can improve their efforts by playing their role in a larger donor cultivation system. Now, when a board member says “We’re not a fundraising board,” you know it is time to bust the myth.

Article by: Carlo Cuesta, Creation In Common Managing Partner. www.creationincommon.com

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Board President to Executive Director: “We’re not a fundraising board.” (Part III)

Posted on July 20, 2009 | 1 Comment

This post is part three of a three-part series on board/staff collaboration. Go here to read part one and here to read part two.

“What we got here is a failure to communicate” said the Board President slightly chuckling at his own joke.

“Actually, what we have is a failure to listen” the Executive Director answered back.

Time for polite conversation was over. The Executive Director believed that the window for proactive solutions was beginning to close and the door to crisis management was about to open. This organization was heading for trouble. For the past half hour their conversation had gone round and round about how best to engage the Board in fundraising, and more specifically helping to cultivate new donors.

The Board President took a deep breath and began again: “We’re not a fundraising board. That’s the reality…”

“Nor is this Board engaged around our cause.”

“Yes,” only slightly agreeing “but most care deeply about the people we serve.”

“Deeply enough to help us avert a crisis?”

“I don’t know. What do you think we should do?”

“I don’t know.”

The conversation came to a halt. They each looked away from one another. Then the Executive Director decide to try a different approach:

“When you look at our organization, what engages you the most?” he asked.

The Board President was not sure. “There are so many different programs and services we offer. They all do good work…”

“But is there an experience that you had over the course of your tenure on the Board, that makes you think ‘ah, yes that’s why I’m doing this!’”

“That happened early on before I was even on the Board” he began. “I was on a tour of one of the centers and I met a young man who told me a little about his life before he came here. He was doing drugs, dropped out of high school, and started hanging out with a gang. It seemed that the whole world gave up on him and he gave up on himself. He somehow found his way to one of our centers, got a job, was encouraged to stay away from the gang, finished high school and went onto college. What struck me the most is that he could of very easily had been a headline in the newspaper, something I would have overlooked. But there he was standing before me—proof that no life should ever be thrown away.”

“‘No life should ever be thrown away’” repeated the executive director. “That’s a great story. That’s why I’m here too.”

Being completely upfront and honest, the Board President said: “My time on the Board hasn’t lived up to that moment; not that I need to have those kinds of experiences everyday but I really hadn’t thought about that encounter in a long time.”

“We need to change that” replied the Executive Director.

And the conversation begins.

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Staff Member: “We’ve already tried that” (Part II)

Posted on July 2, 2009 | Leave a comment

Please Help by Dave Knapik

Please Help by Dave Knapik

This post is part two of a three-part series on board/staff collaboration. Go here to read part one.

“We’ve already tried that, it didn’t work.”

The board member smiled back at the organization’s marketing director and thought: “you may have tried it, but did you do it right?”

The marketing committee meeting was approaching its conclusion and nothing had been accomplished. The first 10 minutes were spent on waiting for people to arrive and picking through a box lunch, 15 minutes on the marketing director bringing everyone up to speed, and the last 30 minutes spent on people offering up ideas on how to help the organization “build awareness”—none of which was focused and all of which put the marketing director and her half-time assistant on edge, fearful that they were about to have a lot of tasks dumped on them.

The board member glanced at the clock on the wall and thought about the important presentation she needed to prepare back at the office. She was not sure why she agreed to sit on this committee, other than the fact that she has 25-years in brand management and product marketing and thought she could help the organization out. She tried to push the meeting forward: “What are our next steps?”

Recognizing they were out of time the marketing director replied: “We should schedule our next meeting?”

As she was leaving the building, the board member ran into the organization’s new executive director. “How was the marketing committee meeting?” he asked.

“I’m not sure I’m the right person for this job” she replied candidly.

“Did something happen?”

“No, nothing happened.” She paused. “I have so much on my plate right now at work; I am going to be out of the country quite a bit over the next twelve months so it going to be hard for me to be active.”

“We can really use your expertise. You have so much to offer.”

“Really? It didn’t seem that way to me” she thought to herself “and by the way, I want the last hour of my life back.”

She could see the concern and disappointment on his face. She smiled at him and said: “I will help you find a replacement.”

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