By Bryan
Orander, president, Charitable Advisors
We received a good response to our article last week about positive trends that local leaders are seeing in nonprofit
boards – clearer expectations, higher engagement, and more selectivity in
recruiting board members.
In 2010, some area executive directors and board chairs participated in
a study focused on nonprofit organizations with boards that succeeded in moving
“to the next level. “ The study, by Mary
Hiland of Hiland Associates, yielded
some helpful guidance for organizational leaders, executive directors and board
chairs who desired to increase the performance of their boards.
Participants identified five finding themes for boards’ work:
1. Alignment: Right people doing the
right things with the right skills.
2. Individual growth: Assistance
for each board member to be the best he or she can be.
3. Team building: Fine tuning how the
group works as a team.
4. Maturity: The board’s ability
to understand the needs of the organization and its role as a collective group.
5. Asset creation: The collaborative
process by which boards reach full potential to lead and add value to the
organization in achievement of the mission.
The results reflected a continuum of board development, seemingly independent
of the operational life cycle:
1.
Getting
the basics right.
2.
Improving
overall board functioning; building board infrastructure.
3.
Becoming
more strategic.
4.
Attracting
investment, social capital (people and influence) and engaging with the
community in powerful ways.
Survey participants identified three critical success factors:
1. Outside governance expertise or
training. Essentially a “nudge” – from a facilitator or a board member
attending an external training both contributed to a new vision of the board.
2. The board chair’s role is critical
in creating or inhibiting movement and building momentum for change, in
partnership with the executive director. The board chair usually engaged a few
other board members, building a small group of champions for change.
3. Study participants described a
specific, articulated intention to develop the board: ”We were obsessed with
board development.” “Status quo was not OK.”
Tangible improvements occurred when there were changes in:
1. Identifying more people as leaders,
and leaders doing a better job in their roles.
2. Stronger relationships among the
board and executive resulted with better interpersonal dynamics.
3. Engagement resulted in increased
attendance and participation, better quality discussion and better preparation.
Additionally, there was more energy and momentum.
4. Board functioning resulted in better
meetings, more ownership of the board’s work, more effective committee work,
and recognition that the board needs to work on itself – not just the
organization.
5. When boards moved to a more
thoughtful, long view versus day-to-day supervision resulted in boards
fulfilling their roles.
6. Composition resulted in more diverse
and better “quality” of board members.
7. Community engagement resulted in
board members increased engagement with the external community, “got it”
regarding fundraising, increased identification and use of board members
networks and/or strengthened advocacy.
Locally
1. Personal: Check your calendar and get to the Board Chair Summit this
Friday morning, presented annually by Leadership Indianapolis. Whether you are
a current or future board leader, you will take away great insights and new
relationships. http://www.leadershipindianapolis.com/boardchairsummit.html
2. Organization: Start the year with a board self-assessment. You can use
many checklist tools available on the Internet or Charitable Advisors has
developed an on-line assessment tool that allows for anonymous feedback and
provides a PowerPoint report for your board to review and discuss. It also
includes a few opening questions that can be used to review the past year and
help prioritize your efforts for the new year. http://www.charitableadvisors.com/boardassessment.html
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