How Nonprofit Boards Can Make Good Decisions -- Part 5 of 7

Continuing from yesterday, if the desirable outcome is a fair, just and equitable solution that's workable and focuses on the long-term good of the nonprofit organization, then you would use a process constructed to produce that kind of result. That means we need to work harder and do our homework. There are at least six steps to such a procedure, and I'm going to give those to you in just a minute, but bear with me, there's another issue we have to deal with here.

Why is it that board members can come onto a nonprofit board with the belief that so little will be expected from them?

If you look at the way nonprofits are set up, it's contradictory to the way we recruit board members, isn't it? Nonprofit boards serve a wonderful social purpose. I heard a speech by Lawrence Lindsey, a governor of the Federal Reserve Board, many years ago in Kansas City. He addressed one of the first assemblies of the National Conference on Planned Giving and said that if you give a charity a dollar, they'll most likely return about 6 dollars’ worth of service to the society. But if you give the government $6 in taxes, you're going to be lucky if you get a dollar of service in return. I assumed he knew whereof he spoke

So charities are effective and efficient, right? They serve a social purpose. What's the root of their effectiveness? VOLUNTEER BOARDS. The charities are run by volunteers who have philanthropic motivations – the love of human kind – at heart. They're self-policing. The United Way scandal a number of years ago was handled INTERNALLY, by their Board members who blew the whistle on the exorbitant salary of the national executive. They cleaned it up themselves.

So charity boards serve a distinct social purpose: their volunteer governance is responsible for achieving the social and charitable objectives of their nonprofit organization. Who in their right mind would, then, assume, that the work of the individual board member on the individual nonprofit board would be easy or without responsibility? It just doesn't make sense.

But that's what seems to happen in all too many nonprofits: board members are recruited on the flimsiest of excuses, seldom trained, frequently not told what they must do and how they should do it, never told they have to give. But yet we expect the board to perform. We expect the board to do strategic planning that directs the nonprofit in ways that will assure its achievement of its goals and purposes. We expect the board to provide the financial resources necessary to carry out that strategic plan. We expect the board members to be community leaders who give at a leadership level. But when we recruit them, what do we tell them? "Oh, it won't take that much time out of your schedule, it won't be a hassle."

Why does this happen? It happens only where there is not a well-thought-out process for recruiting board members.

What should happen is this:
1. The board has a job description written out, known in advance, repeatedly emphasized in board meetings. One that includes all the board responsibilities, including meetings, committees, giving, advocacy in the community, leadership among volunteers, etc.

2. Board members are brought on the board with a process that includes a full nine-step process:
- identifying many prospective members,
- recruiting only the best of those,
- fully disclosing to those prospective members all aspects of the board's life,
- installing them with public ceremony,
- training them in what they must do for the organization,
- evaluating their performance,
- re-training periodically in the various responsibilities, and, finally, at the end of the line,
- de-briefing them before they leave after their stated tenure is finished.

But it seems very few nonprofits do this. The really successful ones do. But of the more than 4000 groups and organizations in southeast Michigan that have 501-c-3 nonprofit status from the IRS, how many do you think engage in this kind of rigorous board recruitment process? From what I've seen in 22 years here, practicing actively among the charities for the past 10 years, my bet is that maybe 30 organizations have such a process in place.

No wonder we have a tough time getting board members to give!
But now we really MUST get to our Example #2.