Rain Rain Go Away!

Its raining here in Salt Lake City.  As long as it stays dry for upcoming outdoor special events like golf tournaments and spring galas.  With the change in the economic climate, is your organization doing more or less events?

MIA -- Yes, I've been missing in action

Hi everyone,

I have been swamped with deadlines lately but I haven't forgotten you.  I came across this great article about board recruitment the other day.  I hope this article is helpful to you.  The article provides some tips for not re-inventing the board recruitment process every time you have to fill a vacancy.  But the most important tip is that every board should conduct an inventory of the skill sets of board members.  This will make your search for new board members much easier.  Instead of looking for someone, anyone that can be on the board, your search will be limited to individuals with skill sets that are needed.

Recruiting Board Members

Enjoy!

Thank You, Zions Bank.

Today, I helped Zions Bank introduce their nonprofit initiative to 15 of their nonprofit clients.  I will be teaching a 10 session curriculum on organizational lifecycles, leadership, fundraising, board development and planning starting in April.  I am very excited about this new cohort of executive director leaders!  Thank you, Zions Bank for your forward thinking and support of our nonprofit community.

Energize Your Board Meeting and Get More Done!

 As a consultant and board member of a number of nonprofit organizations, I have sat through my share of board meetings.  Some board meetings have been painful to sit through for a number of reasons. On one occasion, my presentation was the second item on the agenda.  The first 30 minutes of the meeting was "waiting until everyone arrives" and I watched the executive director running around making copies.  The next 20 minutes was spent reviewing the wrong and then the correct meeting minutes.  After 90 minutes, I was able to make my presentation!  They still had 9 more agenda items to go!! 

Here are some tips on how to make sure your board meeting is one where things get done:

Honor start and end times.  There should be no reason why a board meeting cannot start and/or end on time. Your board members are volunteers and you should honor their time. 

Prepare your materials.  Unlike my example, give meeting participants agendas -- and any additional information -- at least 48 hours before the board meeting.  With email, fax, smart phones, etc., there is no reason why the board members shouldn't have the board meeting agenda before the meeting. 

Organize the agenda.  The agenda should be organized according to time and timing.  If you know certain items will take more discussion time then allow for it on the agenda.  Don't start with this item as you will most likely not move onto other items on the agenda. I suggest that you spend the last part of the agenda reviewing the list of action items and those responsible for completing them.  These items will be on your next meeting agenda. 

The Board Chair and Executive Director should make sure that those making presentations are ready to present. 

Adopt a consent agenda.  Leave more time for real discussion with the adoption of a consent agenda.  These are items that are for information only for board members and do not require discussion.  A consent agenda means that board members must read and review their board packet before the meeting.  A consent agenda can be reviewed and approved in 5-10 minutes and leaves much more time for real issues. 

Limit discussion.  When discussions threaten to go out of control, the chair (or the person facilitating the meeting)  must gently and politely take control.  I have seen skillful facilitators thank the group for feedback and say, " given the time constraints, we can't go into that much detail."  Good preparation of presentations will keep people from asking irrelevant questions. 

I'd like to add that a meeting facilitator will also not allow that one person or only a small group of the members dominate the discussion.

Leave time for Generative Discussions.  With the adoption of the consent agenda, your time is freed for generative discussions.  These discussion topics are wonderful for planning.  "What if we buy our own building," was a generative discussion question in a board meeting I facilitated recently.  The board had 20 minutes to go through the pros and cons of buying a building in today's low prices.   

These discussions allow your board members to explore new options for the direction of the organization. 

I hope these tips invigorate your board meetings. I'd love to hear from you about other strategies you have tried to energize your meetings.

Now for the giveaway. Do all of this and your name will be entered into a drawing for 

one hour of free fund development consultation from me.  This can be done in person or via telephone. To be eligible, you must:

1) Leave a comment on today's blog post. 

2) Be a follower on my blog. 

3) Suggest a future topic in the comment section. 

Good luck! 

         

Homeboy Industries

I love the ingenuity of this organization.

Homeboy Industries with chips and salsa/

Any of you embarking on an out-of-the box fundraising strategy?

The Executive Director's Report

Every board meeting agenda includes the Executive Director's Report.  In my opinion this is one of the most important pieces of information the board receives as part of a board meeting.  I was talking to a young Executive Director recently and he mentioned that he wasn't sure what kind of information his report should contain. 

"I don't want to overwhelm the board with too much information," he said.  How much is too much and how much is too little information for the board?

 

I have put together a few tips on what the Executive Director's Report should contain.

    1.  Strategic Plan update-- the organization's strategic plan is your framework for the report.  What have you (as the Executive Director) done to further the strategic plan?  What goals or objectives have been worked on? What progress has been made?

2.       Successes- Be sure to include success into your Executive Director's report.  This is your opportunity to talk about the achievements you've made.  Feel free to include follow up on items from the previous meeting.

3.      Program Highlights --I was a board member of an organization that included program highlights in the Executive Director's report.  It included a short synopsis of the program, its goals, funders and how the program helped to meet the mission of the nonprofit organization.

4.       Opportunities-- The board report should also be used to describe opportunities with partnerships, collaborations, alliances and funding.  Describe things that you see as leverage points for the organization. 

5.       Try not to overwhelm--As Executive Director you are very knowledgeable about issues that relate to your programs and mission.  One mistake I commonly see with the director's report is giving the board way too much information to chew off at one time.  Your board members are smart people but they don't live and breathe the work that you do.  So feeding the information to them in bite size pieces is very important.

6.      

      Survey them-- I want to add this last tip because in this day and age it is so easy to survey board members without picking up the phone.  Go to www.surveymonkey.com and create an easy and short survey to get input from board members on what they would like in the Executive Director's report. 

These tips will hopefully enable you to provide more informative reports to your board of directors.

Next time, the topic will be How Diversity Can Positively Impact Your Fundraising Goals.  I also have a special giveaway for followers.  So stay tuned. 

We've been featured!

Our Confessions of a Foundation Executive post was featured on another blog.  Click here to check out the Grant Writing Online Course blog.

Grant Writing Online Course

They have excellent resources for all your grant writing needs.