Thriving nonprofits rely upon their boards to set strategic direction, provide crucial wisdom and perspective, raise money, and expand their circles of friends.  Does your nonprofit have this type of board?  We can help.

Like any search for exceptional staff talent, board talent takes research, savvy, and stewardship.  We take our same approach executive search -- an in depth study of where are clients are at present and where they envision their future -- and build from there a strategy aimed to expand and diversify the board. 

Assessing Your Board

Understanding the Landscape:  We start by developing a deep understanding of our clients' goals.  From here, we take inventory of talent currently active, and sometimes inactive, on their boards of directors and determine which talents are present, lacking, or simply redundant in the organization’s quest to deliver on its mission.  We help our boards determine their right size, their most effective structure, and their best and highest purpose.  We also look at the circles of influence built into each board; while many boards are built socially, from current networks and in answer to today’s crises, the most effective governing boards are built strategically, attracting tomorrow’s champions that are eyeing upcoming needs as well.

Developing a Talent Pipeline

Cultivating the Next Generation of Leadership:  Board members come in all packages, but whether they are old or young, experienced or ingénues, your board members carry forth the responsibility to lead your organization into its future.  Once we have constructed a prospective list of individuals who might round out your board, we get to work cultivating relationships with them.

Stewarding the Relationship:  A good future board member is going to want to know what his or her fiduciary responsibility will entail; this means understanding both the assets and the deficits of the nonprofit in question, and often calls for open and honest dialogue sometimes eased by a third party presence.  In addition to facilitating introductions to only the most interested and qualified board members, we can set the stage for those conversations to happen in constructive and future-focused ways.

Ensuring You Get What You Need:  Many boards have made the mistake of recruiting for passion and promise, only to find that what they needed was a track record of delivery.  Our consultants can teach your board how to construct a well-run nominations and interview process that ensures you know the candidates you are trying to recruit, and they know what will be expected of them once on board.

Building a Better Board Member

Developing a Well-Run Board:  The fastest way to discourage new board members is by not offloading the dead weight.  Doing so requires board position descriptions, annual goals, a committee structure, on ramps as well as off ramps, an ongoing nominating process, and a board evaluation system.  We can help you seamlessly build each of these into the daily work of the board in a way that redefines expectations and raises the entire organization.

Better Governance:  Bylaws reviews don’t come around very often and, because of that, most board members either glaze over or get caught up in the minutia.  Yet, bylaws are the rules by which your nonprofit runs, and through which it empowers itself to serve its higher purpose.  Our consultants can partner with nonprofit legal experts to provide advice and counsel, while running a smooth and focused bylaws review process.

Raising Presence – Physical, Mental, Emotional, and Financial:  Many board members sign on to boards with a misunderstanding of what is expected, from their attendance to their financial contribution.  It is essential to remind board members of these things annually, even if they’ve served for years.  Our consultants work with boards throughout the year, at regular meetings, committee meetings, and board retreats to ensure that training of board members isn’t just an obligatory function but one that develops each individual board member into the champion they want to be.

Please contact us to learn more.