On LinkedIn, in the Answers section for nonprofits, someone asked:

How can a non-profit recruit board members through LinkedIn?

Recruiting board members successfully comes from a lot of ongoing cultivation. Using LinkedIn or any other online networking tool to recruit board members has to be a part of a comprehensive, ongoing strategy that involves a lot of different activities, IMO.

It not only doesn’t work to just post somewhere and say, “Hey, we need some board members!”, it also makes it sound like you don’t treat board membership seriously.

The following suggested activities to recruit board members will show that you are a competent, credible, transparent organization, and will give candidates an idea of how seriously you take your organization’s work and how well you support your board members. It also shows you aren’t looking for just anyone. Board membership is an honor, a leadership volunteering opportunity, and should be treated as such in your recruitment!

Start with your web site:

• Have a full description of what board members do, what weekly or monthly time requirements a board member is committing to (onsite meetings once a month? online meetings once a week?) and for how long (a year? two years?), if attendance to a certain number of meetings is mandatory (IMO, you should always have such a requirement if you want board members to take attenance seriously), if board members are expected to give or raise a certain amount of money each year (you don’t need to say how much on your web site; you can leave that to an interview later), etc.
• Note on your web site how many board members you are looking for. Two? Three to six?
• Have photos of your board in action, and a list of all current board members with short bios about each – not just what companies and constiuencies they represent, but also, a personal statement from each about why they volunteer for your organization, why they think such is important, etc.
• Have complete details on how someone could nominate themselves as a board member, or how they could suggest someone for possible nomination. Make this process super easy.

This information on your organization’s web site is not an afterthought. They are super-important steps that they show how much your organizaton values board members. This information will wow a potential candidate. It will also screen out people who don’t understand the very real commitment of board membership.

Then talk to your current board and map exactly what will happen when a nomination comes in:

• What research will be done on a candidate, and who will do that research? How and when will a candidate be interviewed, and who will do that interview?
• What questions will be asked in that interview?
• What will be the reasons to turn a nominee away, and how will this rejection be communicated?
• If you turn away a board member, will you encourage that person to volunteer in other ways? (advisory board? volunteer project leader? special events volunteer?)

And once you have done all of these steps, you are ready to:

• post this leadership volunteering opportunity (that’s what board membership is!) to BoardNetUSA, VolunteerMatch, etc., pointing back to your web site with complete details about what board membership really looks like
• post something about the opportunity on your own, individual LinkedIn status update for your network (you may want to do this more than once)
• ask each of your existing board members to do the same on their status updates on LinkedIn, to reach their network
  if it’s appropriate 
• ask all of your volunteers to post about the opportunity to their LinkedIn status updates as well, if they feel comfortable doing such
• do the same on Facebook, if it’s appropriate – but note that Facebook is a social networking site, and many people don’t like mixing their business or volunteering with their social activities.

If you have a Come learn about our organization event/open house, list it on the events function of LinkedIn as well, and make sure all staff, board members and other volunteers that will attend RSVP on LinkedIn, so that all of their connections see the attendance, and ask all board members and staff to mention the event in their status updates as well.

Also, look for LinkedIn groups that are regionally-focused on your geographic area; these can be focused on business, on a particular issue, on on someone else’s group, etc. Some of these LinkedIn groups may be appropriate for posting about your board opportunities (most won’t be, but it’s worth it to look). You can also troll those groups and look for people that you think would be great board members based on the quality and content of their posts, and the ask your board member, your staff, your other volunteers and your own professional network if anyone knows a person you’ve identified as a potential candidate and if anyone in your network would be willing to make the initial invitation to an open house or event so that person can get to know your organization.

After three-six months, evaluate your efforts. How many inquiries did you receive? How many formal nominations did you receive? How many new board members have joined or are in process? If people dropped out of the process after expressing interest or being nominated, why did they? If people were rejected, why were they rejected? In answering these questions, you will know what adjustments you need to make in your board recruitment – on LinkedIn and otherwise!

And one final thought: what a great volunteering opportunity it would be for someone to be in charge of this board recruitment process! You could recruit a volunteer just to do all of the above for six months. Designate one staff member to be the primary contact and support person for such a volunteer, and start recruiting just for this position first! There are so many university students studying nonprofit management, business management, HR management, or any number of other subjects, as well as people who are job-hunting, who would love to be able to put on their résumé: instituted and managed a successfully recruitment campaign for such-and-such organization, resulting in three new board members.