Once again, I’d like to welcome back Maureen Carruthers (pictured at left).  Maureen is a non-profit consultant, and the force behind the excellent blog “Low Hanging Fruit Communication” which covers many topics including social media for non-profits.

Maureen’s goal is to help nonprofit leaders reach their right people more quickly so their organizations have a greater impact,  She has over ten years experience working in and around nonprofit organizations, most recently as the Workforce Development Program Manager for the Dayton Tooling and Manufacturing Association, where she managed a robot competition based on theBattleBots television series. Previously, she managed the Orchestra Forum program for theInstitute for Cultural Policy and Practice and served as House Manager for the Delaware Theatre Company.

I have spent some time on Maureen’s blog, and I highly recommend you check her site out.  I learned a lot!  You can even sign up for Maureen’s free e-class and newsletter.

Want Better Meetings? Know when NOT to meet

Here is another great article from Gayle Gifford for Step By Step Fundraising- (pictured at left).

Gayle brings over 30 years of experience to her work with nonprofits – from her personal activism for peace, disarmament, environmental, human and civil rights, to her professional work as a consultant and former director of development and senior nonprofit manager.

She is one of fewer than 100 individuals in the US who hold the advanced fundraising credential, ACFRE, issued by the Association of Fundraising Professionals. Gayle learned her craft as Director of Development and Communications at PLAN USA, as Deputy Director/Director of Development and Marketing at Save The Bay, and as Director of Development at CityYear RI.

I urge you to read more from Gayle’s fantastic collection of articles and learn about her consulting services by visiting her site, Cause & Effect. I also would recommend that you check out the book Gayle wrote called “How am I Doing, the 1 hour guide to evaluating the performance of your nonprofit board” available through Contributions Magazine. – Jim Berigan

How often should a board meet?

Posted by Gayle Gifford

- Richard Chait et al in Governance as Leadership

If your board is like many in the US, July and August might be time for a scheduled break from board meetings. Maneuvering around vacation schedules so the board can still make quorum seems a futile exercise, so many boards just skip meeting in these summer months (in other parts of the world, your break may be at another time on the calendar).

But this is a good time to ask, how often does our board really need to meet?

In many organizations a monthly schedule is sacrosanct. Why?

A common rationale I’ve heard for keeping to a monthly schedule is that board members will be less engaged in the organization if they don’t show up each month. But I wonder if too many of us are unwisely using the board meeting as the only touch point with board members. (Asking directors to a meeting that isn’t a good use of their time won’t build director passion and engagement, no matter how often they meet.)

When you’ve cleared the board meeting agenda of the clutter of committee reporting, gotten adept at dashboard monitoring and instituted a consent agenda to efficiently deal with  routine, noncontroversial actions, your board may find itself  facing a very BIG question: what is the real governing work that this board has to do?

That’s when you might find that you don’t need so many board meetings after all.

A useful way to determine how many board meetings you might need is to draw up an annual board meeting plan.

First, schedule the dates of the action items that you know your board routinely needs to accomplish, e.g. electing directors and officers, holding the annual board meeting, reviewing your 990 and audit, approving your annual budget, discussing your Executive Director’s annual workplan or performance review, or approving the annual board workplan.

Then consider what other big items the board needs to tackle this year. Maybe it’s a review of the assumptions behind your strategic plan. Maybe it’s a thoughtful inquiry into those most difficult questions, like what’s the impact that we are trying to have? how will we know?

Decide at what meetings you’ll schedule these important discussions.

If you find that your board meeting schedule shrinks, that’s okay. I’ve found that meetings that have no significant governing tasks are an open invitation to board micromanaging.

Charity watchdog Wise Giving Alliance of the Better Business Bureau sets a minimum of three board meetings a year in its Charity Accountability Standards.  Some organizations may need a bylaws change to have more flexibility in board meeting scheduling.

You may find that with fewer meetings, board members will be up for a longer meeting where they can get much more accomplished or tackle bigger discussion questions.

If you are meeting much less frequently, you’ll need to be even more attentive to building that board team and keeping members informed and engaged. Some things to consider:

• Plan out social time at that longer board meeting so that members can get to know each other.
• Or consider other ways to help board members learn more about each other. Blue Avocado is promoting  the 7X7 where a board member gives a 7 minute briefing followed by no more than 7 minutes of questions.
• Develop a communications plan for keeping directors up-to-date between meetings. I’m a fan of the Executive Director’s eNewsletter to the board with quick updates on items of interest, links to important information or events.
• Craft a plan for engagement with each individual board member… what will each member do this year to advance the organization? That might include committee work, but what else? And what support will they need from staff or each other?

I’d love to hear from those of you who have trimmed back the number of board meetings. How did you solve the “engagement” question? How do you keep board members sufficiently informed between meetings?

Author, coach, copy-writer, nonprofit marketing consultant and political junkie, Pamela is the author of “Five Days to Foundation Grants”  and  the creator of Simple Development Systems, the only online coaching program created for the overwhelmed fundraiser in the one-person marketing and development shop.

Pam segued from six years working in programming and communications at a regional grantmaking foundation to the world of fundraising in 2001.  In her first position as a 15-hour a week development director for an agency with a $3 million dollar budget, she increased individual giving by 25% – while reducing costs by 31% – and increased foundation funding by an astonishing 93%! She’s raised over $10 million in funding since then and has been positioning small nonprofit organizations on the path to sustainable funding ever since  with her “Simple Development Systems” of donor-centric fundraising methods.

With an eclectic 20 year background in politics, sales, marketing and philanthropy, Pamela’s greatest satisfaction lies in teaching the small community-based nonprofits how to, in her words,  “market like the big boys” with limited time and resources.

Seven Secrets to Great Nonprofit Leadership

1. The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers. RALPH NADER

In other words, let your leaders lead.

I worked as part of a five-person development team for a large organization for twelve long months. During that time period three development directors came and went, not to mention program staff, membership staff, the CFO and more.

The problem? A CEO with a brilliant knack for finding and hiring talent … coupled with an utter inability to let loose of the reins and let her people do their jobs.

2. You learn far more from negative leadership than from positive leadership. Because you learn how not to do it. And, therefore, you learn how to do it. NORMAN SCHWARZKOPF

Learn from bad leadership (see above). But don’t forget the lessons learned by observing a genuinely good leader either.

We’ve all heard the horrible board stories, yet how many “good board” stories have you heard?

I had the good fortune to work with one Executive Director who was nothing short of brilliant at putting together a remarkably cohesive board (and this for a tiny nonprofit agency with a yearly budget of $500,000) of remarkably diverse individuals. Every member of that board brought their own unique gifts to the table, whether it was in terms of connections, education, creative thinking or – let’s be blunt here – plenty of money.

3. Leadership is an active role; ‘lead’ is a verb. But the leader who tries to do it all is headed for burnout, and in a powerful hurry. BILL OWENS

Learn how to delegate. Given half a chance, people will rise to meet the level of your expectations of them.

4. Leadership is unlocking people’s potential to become better. BILL BRADLEY

Allocate for training.

One of my all time favorite employers mandated that every employee take a minimum of two enrichment courses per year. Thanks to her leadership, staff was always up-to-date on the latest software and business techniques.

By the same token, in nearly every nonprofit position that I have held, I have paid out of pocket for books and training (for shame!). Next to your donors, your employees are your greatest resource.

5. No man ever listened himself out of a job. CALVIN COOLIDGE

Listening involves more than sitting down with your board members and staff. Real leaders aren’t stuck in hierarchal notions. Real leaders will occasionally take on receptionist duties or data entry to gain perspective and stock of the public’s perception of them.

6. If there is anything that a man can do well, I say let him do it. Give him a chance. ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Respect creativity and give it a chance. It may work … then again, it may not.
I once proposed setting up an eBay account for a nonprofit organization I was working with. Board members and donors donated items and I photographed, listed them, sold them and shipped them. It netted over $8,000, but was, in the long run, a disappointing venture in terms of the time and effort involved.

7. You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today. ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Prepare for the future by acknowledging that, like fine wine, donor-centric fundraising is your long-term solution – and it takes time.

Here is another great article from Gayle Gifford for Step By Step Fundraising- (pictured at left).

Gayle brings over 30 years of experience to her work with nonprofits – from her personal activism for peace, disarmament, environmental, human and civil rights, to her professional work as a consultant and former director of development and senior nonprofit manager.

She is one of fewer than 100 individuals in the US who hold the advanced fundraising credential, ACFRE, issued by the Association of Fundraising Professionals. Gayle learned her craft as Director of Development and Communications at PLAN USA, as Deputy Director/Director of Development and Marketing at Save The Bay, and as Director of Development at CityYear RI.

I urge you to read more from Gayle’s fantastic collection of articles and learn about her consulting services by visiting her site, Cause & Effect. I also would recommend that you check out the book Gayle wrote called “How am I Doing, the 1 hour guide to evaluating the performance of your nonprofit board” available through Contributions Magazine. – Jim Berigan

What does your Board Treasurer do?

Unless your organization is very small, with no or very few staff, it’s unlikely that your board Treasurer is directly managing the finances of your organization. In staffed organizations, day to day financial management is done by a chief financial officer, a business manager, the Executive Director, a bookkeeper, or some combination of all of those positions.

So what does a Treasurer do?

It’s pretty common practice for the Treasurer to chair the Finance Committee and present a report of the financial condition at the Board meeting, usually taking the statements that have already been prepared by the staff financial officer and reporting them to the Board. Treasurers tend to focus on the issues that matter to them most. For some, that’s cash position or year-to-date to budget. For others, it’s how the organization is doing compared to last year. Sometimes corrective action is recommended.

While monitoring the financial condition is a basic role, I have higher aspirations for the ideal  Board Treasurer. I see this individual as the facilitator of a financial brain trust within the Board (through the Finance Committee) that can help the organization think very strategically about the relationship of mission to money, both short and long term.

So here are a few items I’d like to add to the Treasurer’s job description:

• facilitate strategic thinking within the Board about short- and long-term financial vitality
• develop financial literacy among all the directors
• establish a dashboard or set of key performance indicators that tells the Board at a glance how the organization is doing on critical measures (after facilitating a discussion with the Board on what those critical measures are)
• regularly report to the Board on that dashboard

Along with these basic duties:

• ensure prudent asset management in accordance with financial objectives and Board-approved policy
• ensure that staff implement strong internal controls
• oversee development of and monitor compliance with Board-approved financial policies
• chair the Finance Committee and ensure that it achieves annual goals and objectives
• ensure that staff properly receive and give receipts for all moneys due and payable and deposit all moneys in the name of the organization in authorized financial institutions

What’s in your Treasurer’s job description? I’d love to have you share.

Related posts:

Three things your Vice President could do

You’re not the boss of me – Board Chairs and CEOs

Recently, I was asked to serve on a non-profit board of directors. This has got me thinking a lot about what goes into making a good board member. It also got me to thinking about all the bad behaviors I’ve experienced from board members during the years. These are the traits I hope that I don’t exhibit, if I choose to serve on this board.

So, here are ten examples of board member actions I’ve actually dealt with in my non-profit career that have really turned me off. Of course, I won’t use any names, but sadly, these are real-life situations.

1. On two separate occasions, with two different organizations, I’ve had board members mis-use alcohol and actually get drunk to the point of making other people uncomfortable. The first time was at a golf outing and the second was at a board meeting/dinner that was held at a restaurant. Both situations required damage control afterward.

2. I had another situation, where the owner of a local computer store offered to donate several used, but refurbished computers to my organization. We didn’t really need the computers, but I wanted to develop a better professional relationship with this computer store owner, so I happily accepted the donation. I figured, I’d find some families in our community that didn’t have a computer at home for their kids and pass the computers on to them. The computer store owner was very happy, and said he’d deliver them to me later that week.

Well, one of my board members coincidentally happened to go into that computer store shortly after and overheard the owner tell one of his workers that those computers needed to be delivered to me. The board member heard that and asked why we were getting those used computers. The owner explained the situation and the board member flipped out. He said we had enough computers already and didn’t need any more. So he canceled the donation, right on the spot without consulting me at all.

Later that day, the computer store owner called me up and told me what had happened. My board member had really offended him, and I had to fix a relationship that I was working on building. This is a perfect example of a board member sticking his nose into day-t0-day management, where it doesn’t belong.

3. Here’s a great one. One of the non-profits I worked for had two portions to each board meeting- the public session and the closed session. The closed session was only used for sensitive staff issues that the general public didn’t need to hear about. One of the board members, however, would regularly bring his wife to the meetings, and she would stay for the closed sessions. We pointed out to him that since his wife wasn’t on the board, she shouldn’t be there. He responded by telling us that he would tell her everything that happened at the board meeting afterwards, anyway, so she might as well be there to hear things first hand. For many different reasons, this particular board member had great influence on the board, so she ended up being allowed to stay. This made other people, including myself, very uncomfortable. This is an example of a board member not understanding the concept of boundaries.

4. I was shocked when I learned that this one had happened. I worked for a non-profit once, where I put together an informational packet for board members that had private financial figures in it. Later on, I learned that one of my board members had passed this packet onto a person who was interested in getting onto our board. We didn’t know this new person at all. We had never interviewed her. She had not been introduced to the board at large. But, our board member thought it was ok to share private info with strangers. This is a failure in understanding the confidential nature of some portions of board meetings.

5. I worked for a non-profit summer camp once. The summer camp only lasted nine weeks per year. It would make sense then, that board members would want to schedule some time to visit the camp while it was operational. I know summers can get busy, but nine weeks, when you know the dates ahead of time, is still a pretty big window to plan a weekend get-away.

Well, we had a board member who did not make the time to visit the camp at all one summer. I was not the executive director of the camp, so perhaps I wasn’t privy to the reasons why he didn’t show up, but I was high up enough at the camp to realize that the board member who didn’t make an appearance, still had lots to say about how we ran the camp.
If you are going to make a commitment to be a board member for a non-profit, you have to make it a priority in your life, even if that is inconvenient from time to time. Service to a non-profit shouldn’t be only when it fits into your schedule. If you can’t go “all-in”, there’s no reason for you to be on that board.

6. I have written numerous times about how a non-profit needs to carefully cultivate relationships with local businesses. If we are going to ask them for donations and try to sell them ads, we should really do everything we can to make purchases from their store during the year.

Well, I once had two volunteers come back to my office and tell me that while they were out selling ads for a program we were creating, they went to a local electronics store. They introduced themselves politely and asked if they would be willing to purchase an ad with us. The manager broke into a tirade about how terrible our organization was!

A couple of months earlier, it turns out, one of our board members had gone into that store to buy a computer part. He talked to the manager for at least 15 minutes about the part and after all that time, my board member told the manager that he had seen the same part at WalMart for fifty cents cheaper. Therefore, he was NOT going to buy the part at the Mom& Pop shop, but rather go back to WalMart to save money.

The manager told my volunteers that they had some nerve to come in asking him to buy an ad for our school when we couldn’t even toss him an extra fifty cents. Needless to say, the volunteers were very embarrassed. I had to later go into the store personally and apologize on behalf of our organization.

7. Here’s another experience that was not handled well. I was part of a non-profit once and the board received a letter from a family in the community that was critical of the way we handled an event. The letter offered specific examples of the problems and expressed frustration and a reluctance to volunteer again due to the incidents detailed in the letter.
However, the family who wrote the letter did not sign their name, as they wished to remain anonymous.

A few members of the board were very offended by the letter, and they became singularly focused on finding out who had written it. In fact, they became so consumed by discovering the identity of author, that they totally ignored the reason why the letter was written in the first place.

Board members need to keep their egos in check. They shouldn’t be defensive, if they truly want the organization to prosper.

8. In yet another example of poor board behavior, I worked for a non-profit that had a very drama-filled board. Everyone was older than I was at the time, but many of them acted like children.

The worst of this came from two grown men. To each other’s faces, they were friendly and care free. However, in private, I had to hear constant complaining coming from each one of them about the other. I kept telling them to talk to the other one and settle things between them, but that never happened. I felt terribly caught in the middle and my relationship with both men became very strained because of that. Ultimately, that hurt the organization.

9. I worked for another non-profit that was very traditional and old-fashioned in its leadership. In fact, the board was made up of seven people. All seven were men. All seven were white. And all seven were over the age of 50. And, to make this worse, a board appointment was “for life”. The only time we ever got new board members was when one of them died or chose to retire.

There was no spark of imagination from this board. No diversity of thought. Everything was totally monolithic and predictable. And none of them made any move to change this situation. I think it’s a board’s responsibility to keep itself fresh and relevant to changing needs in society. This entire group was guilty of only looking inward. In the long run, that has hurt that particular organization.

10. The last example of bad board behavior I’ve experienced first hand comes from a group I have been involved with over the years as a volunteer and supporter, but not involved officially on a board. This organization requires many volunteers to provide its service, but surprisingly, there is no volunteer manual, no welcome letter, no official expectation sheet whatsoever. In fact, they don’t even have a unified volunteer policy.

Therefore, what has happened is that the same very few people end up doing almost all of the work and most of the so-called supporters avoid any responsibility at all. This has caused a handful of people to be overworked, stressed out and resentful of the people who hide out from volunteering.

While it’s very easy to be mad at the folks who aren’t helping out, I have to lay a lot of blame at the feet of the board members, who know this problem exists, but hasn’t done anything to solve it.

There are many examples of organizations who have figured out how to institute a fair volunteer policy. And, many of these groups have posted their volunteer policies online. It’s not hard to see what other groups have done and tailor a plan to your specific needs.

The board just needs to realize the problem it currently has on its hands and then do something about it.

Photo by: Evil Erin

Here is another great article from Gayle Gifford for Step By Step Fundraising- (pictured at left).

Gayle brings over 30 years of experience to her work with nonprofits – from her personal activism for peace, disarmament, environmental, human and civil rights, to her professional work as a consultant and former director of development and senior nonprofit manager.

She is one of fewer than 100 individuals in the US who hold the advanced fundraising credential, ACFRE, issued by the Association of Fundraising Professionals. Gayle learned her craft as Director of Development and Communications at PLAN USA, as Deputy Director/Director of Development and Marketing at Save The Bay, and as Director of Development at CityYear RI.

I urge you to read more from Gayle’s fantastic collection of articles and learn about her consulting services by visiting her site, Cause & Effect. I also would recommend that you check out the book Gayle wrote called “How am I Doing, the 1 hour guide to evaluating the performance of your nonprofit board” available through Contributions Magazine. – Jim Berigan

Past time to evaluate your new Executive Director?

Posted by Gayle Gifford on September 13, 2011

What are you waiting for?

You owe it to your new ED and to your organization to complete this review ASAP.

As a Board, this interim evaluation can answer the questions that should be on your mind about this new hire:

• What impact has this Executive Director had in their first months in office?
• How well has the ED fulfilled our expectations at this point in time? (Caveat: How clearly were those communicated to the ED at the time he/she was hired?)
• How is this Executive Director perceived among key stakeholders outside of our organization? Inside of our organization?
• Have we established the ideal relationship between the Board and the Executive Director? What do we need to do to create that?
• Is this an Executive Director we want to keep? If yes, what can we do to ensure that happens? If not, what are our next steps?

Your new ED is likely hungry for formal feedback. A well-constructed review also provides an opportunity for your new ED to answer some questions of his or her own:

• Is this job all that I expected? Is it a position that I want to continue serving in?
• What does the Board appreciate about my performance to date? My staff? Other constituents?
• Are there areas for improvement in my performance?
• What is working well about my relationship with the Board? Individual board members?
• What can be improved in the way we work together? How?
• What does the Board want me to accomplish in the next year? Over the next five years? How does this mesh with what I’d like to accomplish?
• What do I need from the Board to succeed in this position?

You’ll find a sample review process in our free Toolbox.

In a recent edition of the online CharlotteObserver, there was an editorial that really got my attention.

It was written by Will Miller, who is a former executive director of Charlotte’s host committee for the Democratic National Convention. The editorial is titled “Nonprofit boards must be bold, not too cozy with staff”.

I highly recommend you taking a moment to click on and read the entire article, because it is very thought provoking, but I thought I’d post a few excerpts from the piece here and ask a few questions for you to ponder.

Miller starts out with his contention that:

In the non-profit world, leadership begins with strong boards, comprised of bold leaders, committed to hiring the best staff available. Our boards are appointed to ensure that we use our community’s resources in the most effective and efficient ways possible to achieve positive, social outcomes. To the extent they do not live up to this responsibility, the community suffers.

Ok, I agree with this. He’s putting a heavy, but appropriate, burden on the shoulders of board members. I’m not sure that everyone who is appointed to board service fully grasps his or her obligation not only to the non-profit, but to the community at large. That’s an important distinction to recognize.

Miller then goes on to say:

CEOs and their staffs typically spoon-feed their boards only the information they want them to know, and avoid or gloss over the less flattering information. “Activity” is invariably substituted for “impact.” Most board business is non-controversial and conducted through consent agendas. Busy board members go along and all is well. Except that it isn’t…

In this section, Miller uses some language that jumped off the page to me. He says that “CEOs and their staffs typically spoon-feed…” and “Most board business…” It kind of sounds like he is making some broach proclamations about the non-profit industry. I do understand the point he is trying to make here, and I’ve been involved with boards where this has been the actual case, but do you think this particular problem he’s writing about is as pervasive as he’s suggesting?

The last section I’ll post here today is:

Early on, organizations begin to focus more on themselves, and less on the community that they serve. Board members get close to the staff members, and are extremely hesitant to replace them due to these cozy relationships. Far too much time is spent on fundraising and marketing, and too little on understanding the best way to meet their missions. Organizations tend to measure the things that are positive, and ignore the things they are charged with improving – otherwise known as “mission creep.”

Again, I believe there is a nugget of truth to what Mr. Miller is writing about. I’ve seen boards that have not pushed their executive director very hard, because they knew it would be much harder to go through he process of firing him and hiring/training someone new. I’ve also witnessed non-profits get so wrapped up in funding their organization, that the mission has gotten lost.

Has this kind of situation ever happened to you? How have you course corrected to get back on track?

I’d love to hear your experiences. Please share them with us in the comment section!

Photo by: RightIndex

I was speaking recently to a man I know who runs a children’s based business that is now a year old. From the outside looking in, everything about his venture seems like a typical non-profit organization, but it is not.

Instead of creating a board of directors, applying for his 501 (c)(3), and getting his clients excited by the thoughts of tax-exempt donations, he just plowed ahead on his own and created the business.

He used his own money, kept within a strict budget, and opened with what he could. He told everybody the business would be a work in progress, so he kept expectations in check. Along the way, he’s closed down for a week here and there to finish work on various aspects of the business, but he communicated absolutely everything he was doing on his Facebook page, so everybody would know what he was up to.

I asked him why he didn’t pursue the non-profit route right off the bat, and he told me that he was much more of a “go it alone” kind of person. He hadn’t had a lot of experience with non-profits, but the idea of a board of directors wasn’t very appealing to him, and neither was the arduous application process involved with gaining tax-exempt status. Basically, he had a vision of what he wanted to achieve, and he was going about doing that.

However, just over a year has passed since he shared those sentiments with me. He’s had twelve months of serving his population, marketing his business, and busting his tail to pay the bills on time. In this period, he’s done his best to build up a new business, which is always a challenge. But now, he may have had a change of heart regarding the non-profit status question.

After a year of trying to build community, he is starting to wonder if he would be more successful if he were to get his 501 (c)(3). Here are some of the questions he is asking himself:

• Would more people in the community volunteer their time to help the business if he were a legitimate non-profit organization? (Everything from serving clients to helping with fundraisers?)

• Would more people in the community feel comfortable donating money to the business if it were a non-profit?

• Would his standing change in the community, if he were the director of a non-profit, not simply a business owner? Would more people be open to network with him?

• Are the hours that it will take to become a non-profit, added onto the hours (and stress) it takes to manage the specific needs and requirements of a non-profit (vs. a for-profit business) worth it in the long run? Will attending to the governmental requirements of a non-profit take his eye off the very basic needs of growing a business?

• What does he risk in giving ultimate power of the organization he created over to a board of directors? We all know that boards are highly political bodies and they change over time. Even if this man stays on as the executive director for years, will his vision be altered by a future board?

• The town he lives in and operates the business in is not large. However, there are, already, a high number of non-profits. Can the town support yet another organization with an auction, a golf outing, a car wash, a bake sale, etc?

Readers of StepByStepFundraising.com are, I would assume, mostly employed by non-profits. I would also guess that our readers been around the non-profit industry for a while.

Therefore, I would love to hear your thoughts on his concerns, as well as the question: “What would you do in this situation?” Would you go for the tax-exempt status or would you just continue to build what you already have going, which although still new, is doing ok for itself?

Please share your thoughts with all of us in the comment section. I know this man would greatly appreciate thoughtful, outside opinions.

Photo by: bm.iphone

I am very happy to welcome back Gayle Gifford to Step By Step Fundraising- (pictured at left).

Gayle brings over 30 years of experience to her work with nonprofits – from her personal activism for peace, disarmament, environmental, human and civil rights, to her professional work as a consultant and former director of development and senior nonprofit manager.

She is one of fewer than 100 individuals in the US who hold the advanced fundraising credential, ACFRE, issued by the Association of Fundraising Professionals. Gayle learned her craft as Director of Development and Communications at PLAN USA, as Deputy Director/Director of Development and Marketing at Save The Bay, and as Director of Development at CityYear RI.

I urge you to read more from Gayle’s fantastic collection of articles and learn about her consulting services by visiting her site, Cause & Effect. I also would recommend that you check out the book Gayle wrote called “How am I Doing, the 1 hour guide to evaluating the performance of your nonprofit board” available through Contributions Magazine.

You’re not the boss of me – board chairs and CEOs

Posted by Gayle Gifford

I’ve seen too much that can go wrong:

• An overbearing, micro-managing board chair can make a CEO absolutely miserable, driving many a CEO out of his or her organization.
• It’s too tempting for a Board chair to make decisions when asked by the CEO that are rightly those for the full board’s deliberation.
• There is something about the elevation of the position that enables a board chair, when asked by the CEO, to offer advice on issues that he or she isn’t really sufficiently qualified to answer.
• Executive directors can skillfully use their relationships with board chairs to bypass consultation with the full board.
• Board chairs are too willing to set the priorities for the Executive Director, instead of consulting with the full board on where it would like the focus to be.
• Executive directors can avoid responsibility for tough management decisions, passing them off to the board chair to make.

It’s hard to get strong board member engagement when important issues come to the board already decided. Or even worse, when the board is kept in the dark on important issues — only to unearth them at a later date.

In my board playbook, the full board and only the full board is the boss of the executive director. But then I’m a big advocate of many aspects of John Carver’s policy governance ® model where the board instructs the CEO only through the creation of policies that outline priorities and frame management decision boundaries.

I believe that we would have much stronger boards if the board chair spent more of her or his time mentoring and engaging the other board members rather than focusing all of his or her attention on the relationship with the CEO. And vice versa… rather than expending so much energy on the board chair, a CEO’s time would be better spent building relationships with and enabling other board members.

That doesn’t mean that there aren’t reasons for a strong partnership between the board chair and the executive director. Often board chairs will team up with the CEO for community or government relations, or donor cultivation and solicitation. CEOs should consult with their chair when they aren’t sure whether an action or decision falls within their prerogative or if it is one that needs full board consultation.

I’ve heard board chairs say that they have a good mentoring relationship with their CEOs. While I don’t doubt that is true in some cases, I wonder if that is a good thing or not. I’d much rather see a CEO assemble his or her own kitchen cabinet or find an experienced colleague to serve as the mentor than to invest that responsibility with the board chair. Besides, I happen to think that we’ve made the job of the board chair so impossibly big that few want to take it, and that this practice is one of the primary reasons for that.

But that’s what I think. How about you?

Tags: boards, nonprofit boards, nonprofit governance

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Amy Eisenstein, MPA, CFRE specializes in fundraising consulting for local and national nonprofits. Her “no-nonsense” approach to fundraising yields big results for her clients and readers.

Amy is a regular contributor with Step by Step Fundraising, and she’s back today with another very insightful and helpful post about how to keep your board of directors engaged and passionate about the group’s mission..

If you’ve never visited Amy’s site, TriPointFundraising, I highly suggest that you take a few minutes, when you’re done reading this piece, to click on over. She has a wealth of useful information for people actively engaged in raising money for non-profits.

I want to thank Amy once again for her generosity in sharing this very valuable information about donor identification with us. I hope you enjoy this post and get to know Amy better!

About Amy Eisenstein
Amy Eisenstein, MPA, CFRE specializes in fundraising consulting for local and national nonprofits. She’s raised millions of dollars through event planning, grant writing, capital campaigns, and major gift solicitations. Her “no-nonsense” approach to fundraising yields big results for her clients and followers.

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