The process of building the board at your agency has begun now that your recruitment efforts have been fulfilled. You have the bodies in the chairs around the table, and now the need is to start building that sense of togetherness, the sense of a team working together toward one goal, the goal of meeting your agency’s mission. You are building your TEAM.
If it was a sports team, you could call a practice every afternoon. But alas, this is a group of volunteers with busy lives in various fields, with family and other commitments and you do not have that luxury. The first and most effective way to start building that needed cohesiveness is to hold a board orientation for the new members. Keep in mind, it’s a team you are building so you should take advantage of every opportunity to have the board work together so including regular board members as well as a refresher gathering for them.
Keep in mind that this may be the first board experience for the new board members. This means making them feel at home, included, and part of the team even more important. The new members need to be educated with a deeper knowledge of the agency, its mission, and programs, how nonprofits function, and their board members’ roles and responsibilities. Plan an agenda thoughtfully to accomplish two goals; to make new and returning board members feel appreciated and welcomed and to educate the group on nonprofit work.
Typically, each new board member is given a Board Notebook. This original board notebook is now typically a board portal, a private area on the agency’s website that holds all of the agency’s important information. Whichever is used by your agency, it should include:
· The Articles of Incorporation
· The IRS Determination letter
· Bylaws
· D&O Insurance summary
· Agency mission, vision, and values
· Basic administration information such as board roster, board and officer job descriptions, and annual board and fundraising agreements
· Financial information including financial statements (current and the preceding year), current budget, recent audited financial statements
· A separate section for agency Policies such as Confidentiality, Conflict of Interest, Whistleblower, financial review issues
A suggested orientation agenda
Welcome from the Board Chair
Introduction of current board members who are present
Introduction of the ED/CEO who should make a word of welcome.
The chair of the Nominating committee introduces each new board member who can speak to their joining the board. At this point, the first goal of the orientation is to make the new members feel welcome. I suggest the dreaded icebreaker of some sort. It can be something easy such as answering a simple question about nonprofit or other volunteer services.
To break up the meeting, this is a good point to show a video of the agency’s programming. To that end, consider holding the orientation at a program site depending on your program work. This is the moment to build excitement about your agency’s work, the reason everyone is in the room. Board members also serve as advocates and ambassadors for your mission out in the community and this program excitement is what will propel a board member to enthusiastically promote your agency to friends, colleagues, and family.
This piece of the agenda addresses the second goal – educating new board members on the ins and outs of the agency.
· Each committee chair present may speak to their committee work
· Provide a Financial report of recent financial statements and the annual budget
· Explain the board portal and the documents in it
· Review the Job description of a board member and board roles and responsibilities
The board orientation is a key moment to start building the board and camaraderie among the members. Your success here is the bedrock of an all-star board over the years.
The process of building an effective board continues – you have recruited and welcomed new members, and they have been educated on the agency, its functions, its challenges, and its successes. Now the question becomes how do you retain them for the length of their board term. Stay tuned as that is the subject of this continuing blog series.