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The Best Way to Serve Your Community

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Are you looking to make a difference in your community? Are you passionate about making an impact in child welfare, social justice, environmental protection, and more? Are you new to board service or considering board service for the first time?

We’re Spokes, the nonprofit that supports nonprofits, and we’re here to help make your vision a reality. We think board service is one of the most meaningful ways to give back to your community. But you don’t have to just take our word for it. In this blog post, we’ll share some of the research on why board service is valuable for every entity involved, and we’ll finish by helping you with the next (or first) steps in the journey.

In San Luis Obispo County, more than 90% of local businesses are smaller owner-operated organizations – which bodes well for a local cultural of entrepreneurism, but presents real challenges for succession planning and talent development. It’s nearly impossible for small business owners to provide promising employees with professional development or cross training opportunities. But, there is another solution to develop leadership skills: nonprofit board service.

A recent study, Better World Leadership 2017, confirms that you can develop skills such as conflict resolution, management oversight, public relations, and crisis management while serving as board members for nonprofit organizations.

With more than 1,200 registered nonprofits, you’re bound to find your best match in San Luis Obispo County. However, successful nonprofit board service starts with training to understand the nuances of nonprofit management and governance. And, like all jobs, you should take time to carefully vet which nonprofit organization and mission is the best match for your personal values, interests, and expertise. Our course “Board Training Basics: Excellence in Nonprofit Leadership” on April 14 & 21 from 9 AM – 12 PM is designed to help you do just that. We encourage you to sign up for the course; we’re ready to help you start your board service career right! Reach out at [email protected], www.spokesfornonprofits.org, or 805-547-2244.

Getting Board Members to Agree

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Consensus. Harmony. Unity. These are the goals of every nonprofit board. Unfortunately, they are rarely part of their reality. So, how does a board leader honor every individual around the table while encouraging them all to move forward in agreement?

In his recent article for Fast Company, “This Is Why Your Passive-Aggressive Office Note Didn’t Work,” Shane Snow suggests that understanding each individual’s outer and inner expectations is the key to creating group agreement. Snow cites a framework presented in author Gretchen Rubin’s latest book, The Four Tendencies, that identifies different personalities and how best to empathize with and appeal to those personalities–rather than avoid them or fight them.

• Upholders will do anything to meet a work deadline (an outer expectation) and also their New Year’s resolution (an inner expectation). They’re self-starters and highly reliable, but they can be defensive and rigid.
• Questioners tend to be good at meeting their inner expectations, but they need to be convinced why to do something before doing it, this way they can decide for themselves whether it’s worth doing. They’re comfortable bucking the system but can suffer from analysis paralysis and get impatient with people who just accept things as they are.
• Obligers are motivated above all else by helping others and by following rules. They can be counted on as responsible but can have trouble imposing limits or saying “no.”
• Rebels are motivated by freedom of choice and self-expression. They don’t want to be told what to do; they want to decide what to do. They’re great at being independent, spontaneous, and creative but not at being disciplined.

Read his entire article here to learn more about your own personality type, better identify the personalities of your peers, and gain strategies to use this framework to create more true consensus in the board room, with your colleagues, and in your personal relationships, too!

Easier Solutions for Board Fundraising

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Lately, there have been a stream of nonprofit leaders – both board and staff – contacting Spokes and asking for help to engage their board members in their organization’s fundraising efforts. Conversations around the issue are stilted and awkward. Board meetings end with directors nodding in agreement to help raise funds, then leaving the room and continuing to be inactive. Resentments build. Fiscal goals are not met.

Sound familiar? Maybe painfully familiar?

The good news – and bad news – is that you are not alone. For many nonprofit leaders, nothing about fundraising seems easy. It’s a reasonable sentiment. After all, most important work is never easy. However, there are ways to make the work easier and more of a cultural norm.

Start by formally acknowledging that most folks find it hard to ask friends and family to make donations to the organizations they serve – not because they don’t believe passionately in the mission – but because they are uncomfortable requesting a favor. There is an underlying fear that a time will come when they need their friends and family to help them with a more critical issue, and they don’t want to feel that they’ve already asked too much on behalf of their favorite charity.

It’s time to stop asking board members to solicit their friends and colleagues and take a tremendous first step to shift their resistance to fundraising. Instead, ask them to focus on what they can do within their comfort level to contribute to your nonprofit’s fundraising efforts:
“Not comfortable asking for a gift?
o Can you invite potential donors to our next event?
o Can you use your Facebook page to share our client success stories with your friends and neighbors and advocate for our mission?
o Can you wear your board member nametag at your work-related events?
o Can you help us thank our current donors in a way that is personal and meaningful?”

It’s important to clarify to your board members how the friends, associates, and colleagues they introduce to the organization will be treated. Assure and demonstrate that all prospective donors are treated respectfully, with the intention of developing a long-term relationship. Define how donors are cultivated, asked, thanked, recognized, and protected.

Finally, remind board members that the organization will be more successful with fundraising goals if donors are asked to join the board in their giving. It’s far more difficult to encourage a new donor to make a gift if current board members are not willing to do the same. Ask your board members to conduct a modest board giving campaign with 100% participation. Then ask staff, other board members, and volunteer leaders who are comfortable with asking for donations to take the lead.

Read these two helpful articles for more information and inspiration on how to make fundraising easier and more successful for everyone in your organization.

The 5 Step Strategy for Getting Your Board Members Engaged in Fundraising by Joe Garecht

How to Run a Successful Board Giving Campaign by Joe Garecht

NOTE: Spokes member organizations have access to templates for board of director commitment forms and other policies to facilitate board giving campaigns.
Special thanks to Connie O’Henly, Executive Director of the Clark Center Association, for sharing these articles with Spokes!

The Secret to Successful Board Meetings?

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The Secret to Successful Board Meetings? Great Facilitation.

Think back to the last time someone invited you to sit on a nonprofit board. If you’re like most folks, the first thing that popped into your mind was something related to board meetings… how many board meetings do I have to attend, how long are they, will I be wasting my time…?

No one joins a board because they want to go to board meetings; folks join boards because they want to help make the organization’s mission a reality. But, here’s the catch:

Well-attended and well-facilitated board meetings are critical to the organization’s ability to achieve its goals.

So, now, think back to the last board meeting you attended. Did you leave the meeting feeling it achieved something valuable in pushing the organization towards its goals? Did you feel your time was well-spent? Did you walk out of the meeting with understanding and agreement on what actions were needed from your colleagues and you? Were you glad you attended and proud of your affiliation with the organization?

No? Not exactly? Do you relate to the cartoon above?

If so, there’s a good chance that your organization is making a few cardinal mistakes that sabotage the nearly 11 million meetings held in the US each day:

  1. Failing to design your meeting agenda for success – a task that begins at least a week before your meeting.
  2. Failing to properly prepare meeting participants by sharing your agenda and relevant information prior to the meeting.
  3. Failing to understand how groups make decisions. Not supporting the process required for the particular action/decision your group is considering.

The Right Way to Bring New CEO on Board

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Just hired a new CEO at your nonprofit? Now, the real Board work begins.

Spring is always a time of growth and re-birth in the natural world. It seems the same is true in our local nonprofit sector with many nonprofits transitioning from a retiring or exiting CEO to a new one, and many more preparing to hire the very first staff executive in their organization’s history.

 

Finding a new executive leader is always challenging for a nonprofit board. In fact, it may be the hardest task any nonprofit board must face. To start, the board faces the daunting task of managing the organization until a new leader can be found, which is then compounded by the additional stress and worrying of trying to find the “right” candidate. And the hard work doesn’t end there. The most critical period for a nonprofit’s success comes after the new CEO starts the job as the entire organization acclimates to its new leadership.

One third to one-half of new CEOs, whether they’re hired from outside or from within, fail within their first 18 months, according to some estimates. 

At Spokes, we’re constantly talking about how critical the role of a nonprofit board’s continuing support and guidance is in helping a new CEO be successful. The topic is really nothing new. What is new, however, is an article from Harvard Business Review, “After the Handshake“ by Dan Ciampa, which offers some fresh tips and insights.

  • Nonprofit boards must find and maintain an appropriate balance between being un-involed and over-involved. CEOs routinely report that they don’t get enough transition support from their directors. Boards cannot micromanage, but there is also a danger in being too remote.
  • Nonprofit boards must set clear expectations about how much communication they expect between board meetings or in which decisions or changes they want to play a larger role. Ciampa recommends that board members can start defining clear and appropriate expectations with the new CEO by asking the following questions:
  1. “What information do you need from the board to be able to do the best job you can?”
  2. “What behavior on the board’s part would best enable us to have a trusting relationship at board meetings, between them and in one-on-one conversations?”
  3. “From your experience during the search process and in your first meeting or two as CEO, what one thing about how the board operates would you change to make our relationship all it must be?”
  • Nonprofit boards must help a new CEO build his/her relationships with key organizational stakeholders – including each of the individual board members. Every new CEO will need some help navigating the new culture of your organization.
Ciampa explains that the CEO’s first 6 months or so is a time when nonprofit board members should expect to be meeting, talking and contributing more than they ordinarily do. Read his entire article here to learn more useful insights to help your board and new CEO successfully leap into a bright new future – together.

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