6 Tips for Building a Board That Reflects the Community You Serve
I was recently catching up with a friend over coffee, and she casually mentioned that the nonprofit board she’s serving on is struggling to find new board members.
Ugh. I’ve totally been there.
And I bet you have, too. You might even be dealing with this issue right now.
When nonprofit leaders share with me that they’re having a hard time getting folks to join their board, they usually say it in a hushed tone sprinkled with shame.
Surely there must be something wrong with us, they tell me.
While it is true that I’ve seen toxic cultures and significant organizational dysfunction deter people from joining certain boards, this is generally not the case.
There’s nothing wrong with you.
But there is something wrong with the way we seek out new board members.
Without really meaning to, we create all kinds of barriers that prevent us from finding and enticing awesome community members to join us in moving our mission forward.
Even worse? We create all kinds of barriers that prevent awesome community members from having a voice in shaping the direction of our organizations.
The good news is this: By changing our practices around board recruitment, we can attract a talented applicant pool and build a board that better reflects the community we serve.
Here are some tips to get you started.
Write a job description. Yes, even for a volunteer position. A job description helps you to clearly articulate to prospective candidates what your board’s roles and responsibilities are. They will better understand how they can plug in to the work of the organization, know what is expected of them, and assess if it might be a good fit for them.
Likewise, a job description is your opportunity to formally document what qualifies someone to serve on your board. It is sometimes the case that women, people of color, and folks from other underrepresented groups end up being evaluated on discriminatory criteria–like their personalities, how old they are, how long they’ve lived in the community, etc. Clearly defined minimum qualifications can prevent unconscious biases from creeping into the process.
Conduct open searches for new board members. If you were looking to hire a paid employee, you would advertise your open position everywhere.
You’d post it on any number of job search platforms.
You’d share it on social media.
You’d take out a classified ad in the local newspaper.
And, given today’s job market, you’d probably hire a skywriter if your budget allowed.
Yet, when nonprofits are searching for volunteer board members, we tend to keep that detail under wraps. We customarily tap our current board members’ personal and professional networks for new members.
And why not? We (hopefully) trust our board members and hold them in high regard. Of course we’d want them to connect us with yet more trustworthy and brilliant humans.
Unfortunately, this common tactic creates barriers to full participation by underrepresented groups. It leads to boards that are homogenous in terms of age, race, ethnicity, gender, and socioeconomic status.
Instead, advertise your board seats openly and broadly. Share the opportunity in as many places and with as many people and with as many community partners as you can think of.
Do everything you can to get the word out (just shy of hiring a skywriter).
Eliminate giving requirements. There are some folks on this email list who are probably getting a good chuckle right now. I once got into a pretty heated debate during a panel discussion about this very topic. There’s even video evidence of the exchange floating around the internet somewhere.
I advocated strongly for 100% board giving, whether that’s $5 or $50 or $5,000.
I was wrong.
A giving requirement is just another common practice that gets in the way of us building diverse and inclusive boards.
So, if you have a Give-and-Get policy for your board, get rid of it.
And if you try to soften giving requirements by asking board members to make a gift “in an amount that is meaningful to them”–as I have done and suggested in the past–I think you should get rid of that, too.
Establish a fund to reimburse board members for wages lost and expenses incurred in the course of their service. Board service can have a lot of hidden costs. Meeting attendance might involve:
Leaving early or arriving late for work, and losing wages as a result
Paying for childcare
Buying fuel or paying transportation fares to get to and from
Some of your community members may be able to absorb those costs without batting an eye, but for others, those out-of-pocket expenses could stand in the way of them serving on your board.
Create an inclusive application process. The S.O.P. for applying for anything these days is to submit a typed cover letter and resumé via email.
But you know something?
Not everybody has access to a computer
Not everybody has access to the internet
Not everybody is physically able to type
Not everybody has a resumé
Offer multiple ways to apply and let candidates decide what works best for them. Maybe that is emailing a letter. Or snail mailing a letter. Or having a 30-minute phone call to discuss the things that would typically be addressed in a written application.
Share interview questions ahead of time. I can count on exactly 0 fingers the number of times I, as a board member, have had to make life-or-death decisions on the spot. Even during two years of a global pandemic!
Board service is a team sport and an open-book exam. There’s always time to gather a bit more information before making a final decision with your colleagues.
By sharing questions before the interview, you ensure that folks who are new to the world of nonprofit boards have ample opportunity to learn more and reflect. This allows them to demonstrate some of the qualities you really need in a board member: curiosity, openness to new ideas, and a willingness to take initiative.