Tag Archives: supporters

Before your nonprofit tries to recruit new board members…

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Board recruitment is volunteer recruitment.

If your nonprofit is needing to recruit volunteers for its organization, then before you start writing up the profile of the perfect board member and all that will be expected of such, your board membership needs to answer this question:

Why is it GREAT to serve on this board of directors?

If your board cannot answer this question, you need to rethink what your board of directors is doing.

Being on the board of a nonprofit is a tremendous responsibility. The board members are fiscally responsible for the organization. Most boards fall into two categories: working boards, where individual members take on different roles with regard to the organization (helping with marketing and outreach, helping to cultivate funding or programming partnerships, working with clients in some capacity, organizing the annual large fundraising event), or funding boards, where each member must give or raise a certain amount of money every year.

You aren’t going to attract board members by saying, “We have all this work to do. Please come help do it.” Or “Here is this desperate need in our community that our nonprofit addresses, and if our nonprofit goes away, it will be a disaster for the community” Or “Here’s how much money you have to give or raise every year.”

You are going to attract people to the board who

  • think the responsibilities of board membership are worth it because of the inspiration they will regularly receive regarding the work of the nonprofit.
  • think membership will be prestigious, something helpful for their profile in the community or within the company where they work, because of all that your nonprofit does in the community.
  • want to do the activities board members are required to do, who look forward to doing those activities, because they look fun, impactful and/or meaningful.

If your board cannot answer the question of why it’s great to be on your organization’s board of directors, it means there’s no good reason for someone to want to join your board.

At a board meeting, have your board members answer this question. Write the question on a white board or flip chart and capture their answers. Ask them to reflect on more answers, or clarify their answers, after the meeting if they wish, and to send their new ideas and clarifications to your board president before the next board meeting. Display all the answers at that meeting and let them discuss them on more time. They may find that there are some things that need to be addressed before new board members are recruited, like the number of board meetings, or how meetings are conducted, or how much the board is or isn’t involved on the front lines of the organization’s work (which can often make the difference between an energized board and one that feels uninspired).

And, of course, it should go without saying, but before your board starts recruiting new members, your organization also needs

  • to make sure everyone understands the bylaws, which note the role of the board, term limits, leadership succession, etc.
  • board duties in writing.
  • a form for nominees to fill out noting both their areas of expertise (event organizing, graphic design, accounting, etc.) as well as what skills they want to offer or develop.
  • a list of board committees.
  • a process for reviewing board nominees, for contacting nominees, for interviewing nominees, etc.

But I think getting your current board to answer that question is CRUCIAL in ensuring your search for new board members is successful – and that your board members complete their terms!

Also see:

Executive Directors & Board Members: Get Out in Your Communities

When Board Members (& other volunteers) Get in the Way of Much-Needed Change

Recruit board members to be board members, nothing more

Recruiting board members with LinkedIn?

If you have benefited from this blog or other parts of my web site and would like to support the time that went into researching information, developing material, preparing articles, updating pages, etc. (I receive no funding for this work), here is how you can help. 

latest moment of volunteer management madness

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Many of my blogs and web pages are inspired by first-hand experience as a volunteer or as a volunteer manager. And, sadly, it’s often bad experiences, usually as a volunteer myself, that lead to new blogs and web pages.

Of course I don’t name the organizations that inspire these blogs, and I try to put a very positive spin on these, to help other nonprofits, NGOs, libraries, schools, public sector agencies and other mission-based organizations to not make the same mistakes I’ve experienced. I consider them learning experiences, and I want others to learn from them as well.

Here’s some of these blogs and web pages that were inspired by my own experiences as a volunteer:

Here’s the latest moment-of-volunteer-management-madness inspired by a real organization:

This particular multi-state organization has leadership volunteering roles, on the local level, to handle the organization’s project management, including the management of local volunteers, in individual communities. But often, some of these local leadership roles are not filled, because no one is interested or no one has the time to do all of the tasks a particular role requires. Therefore, the lead volunteer for all other leadership volunteers in that community gets saddled with all the roles that aren’t filled, in addition to all of his or her other volunteer responsibilities.

One group of leadership volunteers in one community had a brilliant, oh-so-logical idea for lessening the burden on the lead volunteer and getting necessary tasks done: allow volunteers to commit to completing individual tasks, rather than the entire, hard-to-fill, leadership roles. For instance, allow one volunteer to be in charge of the online community for local volunteers, another volunteer to be in charge of updating the web site, and another volunteer to help with designing paper fliers – which, altogether, are most of the duties of the communications manager volunteer.

There were people ready to assume these much less-intensive volunteer roles. That means all the tasks of that role get done, the local lead volunteer manager – a volunteer herself – wouldn’t be overburdened trying to do these tasks as well as her other responsibilities, and maybe, after a few months, one of these task-based volunteers would decide, hey, I think I could do the entire job myself – I’m ready to commit to the entire leadership role! It’s a fantastic opportunity to cultivate new leadership volunteers – people who might get a taste of the experience and decide they would love to take on a more substantial role.

So, great idea, right? Well, not according to the organization. An employee representative who attended the local meeting where this idea was introduced quashed the idea. She said that the entire role has to be filled by one person and absolutely cannot be divided among several volunteers. Since no one is going to take that role in its entirety, all those tasks are going to be assumed by the already over-burdened team leader.

What a mistake! What a missed opportunity to cultivate new volunteers and new leaders!

Well, at least I got a new blog out of it…