The mantra for having a healthy, engaged, effective board of directors is Build, Maintain, Sustain, Celebrate. Adopting and following this mantra establishes the foundation for the sustainability of your agency because once you have acquired new board members, they will stay with your agency throughout their board terms.
Building the board is one of the most important responsibilities for any board of directors. Imagine that you are building a team. As with every sports team, there is a certain role for each of the players. I think of soccer with the forwards, the halfback, defenders, and lastly the goalie… a full team that requires different skills, strengths, and perspectives to create solid forward movement.
Thinking of each board member as bringing a specific talent to the board helps define whom you might consider. There is a process for this and, when followed, it allows you to build a board for now and populate a list of potential candidates for future board positions.
Define the Profile
You need to create a profile of the candidates that best fit your current and long-term needs. Creating a Board Matrix of the skills, knowledge, diversity, and perspectives that are needed to be most effective for your agency to assist in facing the issues of the agency gives you great insight into the full picture of qualifications of what is needed. Using your board matrix allows you to plot current board members, analyze the vacant spots, and ask yourself what is needed now. This is the basis for building the profile of who would be a potential candidate for the board. Is it someone well-connected, brings greater ethnic diversity and perspective, is a fundraiser, a financial wizard, or has age and gender qualifications? Using your board matrix will give you a visual representation of what is needed.
In addition to the Board Matrix, the board must spend time identifying, clarifying, and prioritizing the issues that the agency currently faces. For example, if the most pressing issue is that your agency needs to expand to a bigger space, or buy a building then feasibly an architect or real estate investor might be a piece of the profile being created to fill one of the open positions on your board.
One last piece of the profile is passion. The précis of the potential ‘team’ member must include that zeal, that enthusiasm, and commitment to meeting your mission and vision.
Typically, a board will create a Nominating Committee that is tasked with using the profile to identify potential members. It is the Board that self-perpetuates itself, so all Board members need to be aware of people in the community or within their own business or personal setting that might fit the board profile. These names can be submitted to the Nominating Committee for review and then possible cultivation. Board members are the main source of potential members, so each board member will play a part in the identification, recruitment, and cultivation process.
Cultivation
You have created a list of potential names and now is the time to determine if the potential candidate has an interest in your agency. If a board member knows the candidate then they are the best person to begin building that agency connection. If the candidate does become a board member, then that initial relationship becomes the basis for a stronger rapport with the agency and supports retaining that person as a member over time. Approaching a potential board candidate is always a tricky matter because, at this point, you are NOT inviting the person onto the board. The best way to initiate the conversation is to ask: “would you consider joining the XYZ Board of Directors.” Politely make it clear that this is a fact-finding conversation to judge their interest only.
If there is interest, the candidate is invited to an informal meeting, perhaps coffee or a glass of wine, to discuss the agency, its mission, and purpose, and most importantly the role of a board member. It is extremely important at this first meeting to be as transparent as possible and inform the candidate of any issues that the agency is facing as well as why this candidate would be a great team member for your board.
Each month, the Nominating Committee should report to the board on who is in the pipeline to join the board and ensure that there is no cause for alarm that any one board member does not find the candidate appropriate. This would halt the nominating process until any issues can be resolved.
There are several further steps that cultivation can take. Other board members can meet the candidate or the candidate can be invited to visit the program or an event sponsored by the agency. The point is to show the candidate how they can be involved and the commitment that is necessary to join and serve on your board of directors.
If the candidate is not interested, or this is not the right time for them, then acknowledge that, and thank them for participating in the process to date. If the candidate is interested and understands the roles and responsibilities that they would be assuming, then take the recommendation to the full board for a vote.
Invitation to join the Board
Once the board has voted its approval of the candidate than either the board member who made the nomination, the Nominating Committee chair, or the Board Chair should extend an official invitation to join the Board.
The next piece of the healthy board mantra is Maintaining the Board and that process begins with Orientation, which is the subject of the next blog.