1. Board Development for
Non-Profit Organizations
Rachel Weber
ENMU-Ruidoso Community Education
Wednesday, August 21, 2013

2. Agenda
 Introductions
 Format for Workshop
 Board Development: Understanding Your Role
 Board Development: Recruiting and Retaining
Board Members
 Board Development: Strengthening Your Board
 Board Development: Best Practices-Communication

3. Format of Presentation
 Be involved and engaged
 Think of this as a two hour conversation about your
board
 Ask questions
 Give your opinion

4. Introductions

5. Understanding Your Role & Leadership

6. Leadership-Best Practices
My favorite concepts from the “Change is Good”
Video & how we can apply them to board leadership:
 “Forget for Success”-Don’t think about the ways
that things have been done in the past….be
innovative and don’t be afraid to embrace bold
ideas
 Focus on Strengths-Be proud of the strengths that
you and your fellow board members bring to the
organization

7. Leadership-Best Practices
 Simplify your message-FOCUS on your mission
 Let your actions speak-BE the voice of your
organization everywhere in the community
 Celebrate success-use every opportunity you can to
share the news of your organization’s successes
 Measure Results-”what gets measured, gets
improved”

8. Understanding your Role
 The Board of Directors should provide leadership
for the organization
 Roles, responsibilities, and powers are usually
outlined in bylaws
 Members should fully understand their roles and
responsibilities
 Members have diverse backgrounds but share
common goals

9. Understanding Your Role
 Every organization should have a formal Board
Policy Manual
 Board Members should be aware of current policies
 Volunteer-Be a part of your organization’s events.
Don’t just show up for meetings once a month
 Look out for the best interest of the organization

10. Understanding Your Role
 The Board of Directors should foster a transparent,
consistent, and accountable culture
 Always have your financial records audited by an
outside agency
 Focus on results. What is your mission? How can you
measure progress?
 Understand the importance of fresh perspectives
 Develop a conflict of interest policy
 Documentation: Minutes, notes, receipts, handbooks,
presentations

11. Leadership Best Practices
 Stay “Mission Driven”. What is our mission?
Maintain consistency
 Be strategic. Spend your time wisely. Focus on the
things that are important.
 Continuously review your Board of Directors’ best
practices; evaluate your board’s performance and
effectiveness
 Board members represent the organization within
the community

12. Understanding Your Role
 Annually review your organization’s mission
 Board orientation-continuing education
 Report on programs and services & track progress
 Actively solicit input from the community
 Represent the organization to government,
business, other agencies, funders, and the
community at large
 Support healthy and productive relationships
throughout the organization

13. Understanding Your Role
 A strategic plan is guided by your organizational
mission
 Well-designed, effective committees
 Know your fellow board members-foster a culture
of cohesion and group vitality
 How else can we demonstrate exceptional
leadership within our organization?

14. Understanding Your Role
Ways To Increase Your Success As A Board Member
 Attend all meetings of the board and committees on which
you serve.
 Come prepared to discuss the issues and business to be
addressed at scheduled meetings, having read the agenda and
all background material.
 Work with and respect the opinions of peers who serve this
board, and to leave personal prejudices out of all board
discussions.
 Always act for the good of the organization and represent the
interests of all people served by this nonprofit.

15. Understanding Your Role
 Represent this organization in a positive and supportive
manner at all times.
 Observe the parliamentary procedures and display
courteous conduct in all board, committee and task force
meetings.
 Avoid conflict of interest between my position as a board
member and my personal life. This includes using your
position for the advantage of friends and business
associates. If such a conflict does arise, declare that
conflict before the board and refrain from voting on
matters in which you have conflict.

16. Understanding Your Role
 Determine the Organization’s Mission and Purpose
 Select the Executive Director
 Support the Executive and Review His/Her Performance
 Ensure Effective Organizational Planning
 Ensure Adequate Resources
 Manage Resources Effectively
 Determine and Monitor the Organization’s Programs and Services
 Enhance the Organizations Public Image

17. Understanding Your Role
 Serve as Court of Appeal
 Assess its Own Performance
Assumptions
 Board and board member responsibilities are fundamentally the same for all organizations
 How boards and board member responsibilities actually fulfill their responsibilities will vary
 There is no generic model
 All organization undergo a metamorphosis
 Board members begin to reach their optimal levels of performance when they exercise their
responsibilities by asking good and timely questions rather than by running programs or implementing
their own policies
From the Ten Basic Responsibilities of Nonprofit Boards. Washington, DC: National Center for Nonprofit boards.
Ingram, Richard T.

18. Board Development: Recruiting and
Retaining New Members
Question for the group: where
does your organization look
for new board members?

19. Board Development: Recruiting and
Retaining New Board Members
 “Luring them In”
 Get them to visit the site where the work of your
organization is being done
 Invite them to a board meeting
 Don’t just “sell” . Make sure they are a fit for your
organization and will be a good ambassador for the
mission of the organization

20. Board Development: Recruiting and Retaining
New Board Members
Determining a good fit
 Explicitly ask them if they are prepared to use the
skill you are recruiting them for
 Have more than one person meet/interview them
 Make sure they understand the job description
 Develop a quantifiable rubric to compare candidates

21. Board Development: Recruiting and Retaining
New Board Members
See
Rubric
Example

22. Board Development: Recruiting and Retaining
New Board Members
 If you are unsure, start them on a committee to see
how they do
 Consider a mandatory committee assignment prior
to becoming a full board member

23. Questions to
ask/Application Process
 Do you have a protocol for the board member
application process?
 What Skills and Expertise do you look for? Is your
application tool a good vehicle for finding these
skills and expertise?
 See attached worksheet: “Questions to ask Potential
Board Candidates”

24. Retaining Board Members
 Board Manual
 Well planned, organized, pockets to hold
brochures, dated materials, current, updateable, easy
to use, reasonable size, done with input &
consultation by Board
 Names & Bio of Board Members & Statements of
Responsibility of officers
 List of Committees
 History or fact sheet of organization
 Articles of Incorporation and ByLaws
 Mission and Vision Statements

25. Retaining board members
 Strategic plan
 Minutes
 Policies
 Annual & audit report from prior year
 Current budget and latest financial statement
 List of major funders and partners
 Organizational Chart & Staff Info
 Annual Calendar
 Promotional and Website info

26. Strengthening your Board
 Create a Collective Vision
 Board Members should be invested in the success of
the organization
 Work on Communication
 Meeting Minutes
 Newsletters/Memos/Email
 Board Retreats
 Team Building

27. Strengthening Your Board
 Be Proactive
 When times are easy, take care of some of those things that
have been neglected. Do bylaws need to be updated? Do
you have a strategic plan?
 Prioritize
 As a group, prioritize what is most important and follow
through. Be realistic about what you can accomplish.
 Think about the future of your board
 Who will lead and serve the board over the next five years?
 What skills, knowledge, and other qualities will strengthen
the board?
 How will we foster and develop board leadership?

28. Strengthening Your Board
 Tips for Keeping Strong Board Members Engaged
 Tighten up your board meetings:
 Keep them to no more than two hours
 Keep to agenda
 Focus on the strategic, not the minutiae
 Provide opportunities for board members to be
engaged in the work of the organization
 Conduct board member evaluations
 Conduct retreats and outings
 Develop a simple annual board building program

29. Board Development:
Communication
Effective
communication
makes your meetings
more productive

30. Best Practices:
Communication
 What NOT to do?
 Lack of patience
 Poor behavior or “acting out”
 Not “seeing the forest for the trees”
 Personal or hidden agendas
 Getting stuck in alliances and coalitions regardless of
the issue
 Lack of ground rules
 Ways of speaking to other board members that are
hurtful or close down communication

31. Best Practices:
Communication
 (Lecturing, chastising, threatening, bullying, etc.)
 Competition, turf, fairness, zero-sum games, winners
and losers
 Too much talking, not enough listening
 Too little leadership and skills building
 Disengagement from community
“Effective Board Building”, by Phillip Boyle

32. Best Practices:
Communication
What do these “don’ts” lead to?
 Unsatisfying communication
 Diminished trust, respect, acceptance, tolerance
 Increased stress
 Loss of community respect, difficulty getting things
accomplished
 Lose sight of Purpose

33. Best Practices:
Communication
WHAT TO DO:
 LISTEN-don’t just “hear”: A study of persons of
varied occupational backgrounds showed that 70
percent of their waking moments were spent in
communication…
9%
16%
30%
45%
Communications
Writing
Reading
Talking
Listening

34. Best Practices:
Communication
 Unfortunately, even at the purely informational
level, researchers claim that 75% of oral
communication is ignored, misunderstood, or
quickly forgotten.

35. Best Practices:
Communication
Robert Bolton, People Skills author describes three
listening skill clusters for enhancing communications:
Attending Skills: A posture of
involvement, appropriate body motion, eye
contact, and non-distracting environment
Following Skills: Door Openers, Minimal
Encourages, Infrequent Questions, Attentive Silence
Reflecting Skills: Paraphrasing, Reflecting
Feelings, Reflecting Meanings, Summative Reflections

36. Best Practices:
Communication
Meetings are central to an organizational board’s
functioning. They can also breed arguments and long
discussions that lead nowhere and fail to produce
results.

37. Best Practices:
Communication
MAKE YOUR MEETINGS MORE EFFECTIVE:
 Ask Open-Ended Questions: this can help members to identify their own
solutions to problems
 Ask for specifics
 Use writing as a communication tool
 Turn “US” and “THEM” into “WE”
 Listen attentively and acknowledge
 Establish realistic expectations
 Don’t pressure others to see things your way, but rather to be responsible
for their own actions. “Effective Board Building”-Philip Boyle

38. Best Practices:
Communication
MAKE YOUR MEETINGS MORE EFFECTIVE:
 State objectives at the start of the meeting, follow
your agenda
 Make sure everyone knows they will have a chance
to speak
 Begin with questions related to the task
 Periodically check to see you are on task

39. Best Practices:
Communication
 Don’t reinforce or explore off-task remarks
 Use close-ended questions to address off-task
remarks, then tactfully ask the person who has
made it to relate their comment to the task at hand
 Ask how to improve the next meeting, then
incorporate one new idea
 Summarize and reflect ideas
 MODEL desired behaviors

40. Best Practices:
Communication
 Engage all board members
 Restrict dominating individuals
 Encourage honest search for consensus
Philip Boyle: Effective Board Building Creating and
Maintaining a High-Performance and High-Satisfying
Governing Board

41. Closing Thoughts on
Communication
Questions to ask ourselves:
 Are we clear about our purpose?
 How satisfied are we with our communication
processes?
 Do disagreements become personal?
 Do we share responsibility for leading our board?
 Are we treating each other fairly?

42. Final Thoughts: Strategies
for Improving Meetings
 Set the context for issues and discussions
 Distinguish between routine and strategic issues
 Distinguish between governance and management
 Facilitate the discussion and monitor participation
 Don’t delegate to committees until the board has
outlined a process and set the context and
parameters for the work.
Meetinghouse Solutions, 2006

43. Improving meetings-
Minutes
 Meeting minutes are a record of what was done at
the meeting, not what everyone said.
 Meeting minutes are legal documents than auditors
and others may review. They should be
accurate, brief, and easy to read
 Format: Include the name of the
organization, date, time and location of the meeting.
Note whether it is a special or regular meeting. List
those who are present and who are absent, as well
as guests.
Meetinghouse Solutions, 2006

44. Meeting minutes
continued
 Specify the time the meeting was convened at the name
of the presiding officer. Record minutes in accordance
with the order of events. Note the approval and
amendment of the minutes of the previous meeting as
well as the review and acceptance of the financial report.
Summarize the main points of discussion only if it sets
precedent or is critical. Otherwise, simply note that
“discussion ensued”. Identify problems and
suggestions, record all motions and abstentions. Note
the time of adjournment.
Meetinghouse Solutions, 2006

45. THANK YOU
RACHEL WEBER
RACHEL@RACHELWEBER.US
575.937.1768