Tag: board of directors

Another lesson learned from a donor about relationship building

Fundraising, organizational development, volunteers

On Tuesday of this week, I shared with you a story that a donor had shared with me while walking me down his driveway to my car, and it had to do with a skunk and an incredible moral to the story for all of you workaholic non-profit professionals out there. Today, I am excited to share another short donor story with you about relationship building.
Enjoy!

caricature1Earlier this week, I found myself walking into a title company to interview a donor for a client. As I walked into the office building, I noticed the following things:

  • the employees looked busy
  • there was a sense of purpose in the air
  • there were lots of smiles and people seemed genuinely happy to be doing what they were doing
  • the office was ringed with framed pictures of people drawn in caricature

At first I found the caricature pictures to be out-of-place. I’ve never been in a professional office environment with cartoon pictures everywhere. (By the way, I do mean EVERYWHERE.) However, I quickly realized that these pictures created an atmosphere that permeated the workplace.
When the donor greeted me in his waiting room, I asked: “What’s up with all the caricature pictures? Is it a local hall of fame?”
He explained that the pictures were of local real estate professionals who use the services of his title company to close their property deals. He said that he used to make bobble head dolls of his customers, but that practice got a little bit out of hand. So, they started doing caricature pictures instead.
caricature2I walked away from the conversation thinking this was a unique, fun and quirky business practice. I also came to understand that this business practice was a genius idea on so many different levels:

  • it was obviously a form of recognition
  • it was a practice that allowed the company to express gratitude to their clients for choosing their company
  • it created a fun office culture infecting employees with an attitude that couldn’t help but bring a smile to their faces
  • it served as a constant reminder to everyone that these are the people they work for and the reason they are in business

Throughout the entire interview, I had the theme song from the 1980s television sitcom Cheers — “Where Everyone Knows Your Name” — running through my head. LOL
As the donor walked me to the lobby and the front door, I expressed again my love of his framed caricatures. He graciously accepted the compliment and then summed up his business practice with these few words:

“It’s all about relationships.”

Indeed!
Business is all about relationships and so is your non-profit organization’s fundraising program.
As I walked through the parking lot back to my car, I couldn’t peel the smile off my face. I just love it when a donor touches your heart and teaches — or reminds you of — something.
Driving away to my next donor interview, I made a promise to myself. If I ever find myself back to the front line of a non-profit organization as an executive director or fundraising professional, I am going to incorporate this framed caricature idea in some way, shape or form. Here are just a few of the ideas I came up with for framed caricature picture:

  • distinguishing an employee of the month
  • spotlighting successful clients
  • recognizing board volunteers
  • appreciating donors who join a monthly giving program or donor recognition society
  • identifying great program volunteers

Has a donor ever inspired a new business practice at your agency? If so, what was it? Can you think of other creative ideas on how to incorporate caricature pictures into your workplace that we can add to the list above? Please scroll down and share your thoughts and experiences. We can all learn from each other.  🙂
Here’s to your health!
Erik Anderson
Founder & President, The Healthy Non-Profit LLC
www.thehealthynonprofit.com 
erik@thehealthynonprofit.com
http://twitter.com/#!/eanderson847
http://www.facebook.com/eanderson847
http://www.linkedin.com/in/erikanderson847
 

Is your board fulfilling its role in fundraising?

Board development, Fundraising

roles responsibilitiesI’ve been doing a lot of “board roles and responsibilities” training sessions in the last year. The curriculum breaks out responsibilities into group obligations and individual duties; however, in both lists there is verbiage such as:

  • protect and grow assets
  • obtain resources
  • makes a personal financial contribution
  • seeks charitable gifts from others in their network

There is little question that resource development and fundraising are core responsibilities for non-profit board volunteers.
Of course, understanding this idea is very different from rolling up one’s sleeves and doing it. Right? And the bigger question for me has become:

“Once the roles & responsibilities training is over, how should an agency go about assessing how well the board (as a group) is fulfilling its fundraising responsibilities? Because we won’t know what we need to work on if we don’t know what isn’t working.“

Usually, when I mentally try to cross bridges like this for my clients, I turn to:

  • old books and training manuals on the bookshelf in my office
  • websites of national non-profit organizations that contain free white papers and videos
  • blogs run by thought-leaders in the field

In this instance, I came across a really cool assessment tool located on an intranet website for a large national organization for which I used to work. It was developed with the help of BoardSource, and there were copyright marks all over the document. In other words, I would copy/paste and share it with all of you, but my inner Jiminy Cricket is telling me not to do so.  🙂
fearless fundraising bookOf course, this doesn’t mean I can’t describe the tool for you, share a little bit (while giving credit where credit is due) and point you in the direction of how you can purchase similar materials.
The assessment tool is composed of 13 questions, and the user ranks their board on a scale of 1 to 4 for each question. Here are a few of the more interesting questions I found in this tool:

  • Are resource development responsibilities and personal giving included in the board member expectation agreement?
  • Do all or almost all board members make a yearly personal “stretch” gift to the agency’s annual fund?
  • Does the board president personally solicit board members annually to ensure appropriate board giving? Does the board president take time to personally cultivate and steward appropriate higher level prospects and donors?
  • Does the executive director take time to personally cultivate and steward appropriate higher level prospects and donors?
  • Beyond just reciting the agency’s mission statement, can at least 80 percent of board members convincingly articulate the case for support of the organization?

Did I do a good job of whetting your appetite?
If so, then there is more where that came from and you can purchase the 62 page book titled “Fearless Fundraising for Nonprofit Boards” by David Sternberg (published by BoardSource). It was from this book that the tool I referenced earlier was developed.
Some of you may be wondering, “Why is assessment important? I know that our board isn’t good at fundraising. Can’t I just skip the assessment to start working on fixing the problem?”
My thoughts are simply . . . “NO.”
The reason being is that there is a lot of factors involved in why your board may not be a very good group of fundraising volunteers, and you don’t want to waste time on things that aren’t broken.
For example, your organization might be doing a very good job with explaining roles and responsibilities via the board recruitment, orientation and training process. However, your resource development committee might be broken and doing too much and not planning enough, which has a “disengaging effect” on the rest of the board.
Or . . .
Your agency might be doing everything very well except you might just have the wrong people in the wrong seats on your organizational bus.
Or . . .
Your agency might be really doing everything right except there aren’t any accountability tools or urgency strategies being employed.
This is a complex question and assessment is an important part of getting you to the right answer.
Does your board understand its roles and responsibilities when it comes to resource development? How do you know that? What are you doing to make your board a better fundraising team? What’s in your toolbox. Please take 30 seconds to share your thoughts and experiences in the comment box below because we can all learn from each other.
Here’s to your health!
Erik Anderson
Founder & President, The Healthy Non-Profit LLC
www.thehealthynonprofit.com 
erik@thehealthynonprofit.com
http://twitter.com/#!/eanderson847
http://www.facebook.com/eanderson847
http://www.linkedin.com/in/erikanderson847

Does this story sound like any of your non-profit board volunteers?

Board development, Board governance, volunteers

Board Disengagement in Four Scenes

Guest Blog Post
By Dani Robbins reprinted with permission from Nonprofit Evolution blog
disengagedI received a call from a old friend (we used to be real close 🙂 ) who served on the board of a very prominent organization. This is the story she told me. I share it with you to both illustrate how easy it is to disengage good board members and how important it is to institute and follow good process.
Scene 1: The Invitation
The call came inviting my friend to serve on a very high profile board. She was a little surprised yet also very excited. She asked about expectations; she asked about commitment; she asked about orientation. She received what she considered to be reasonable answers and was told that a lunch to answer all her questions would be set. She said yes.
The lunch was never set. She was voted on the Board. The orientation was never held. She attended a retreat that set committee goals for the year.
Scene 2:  Year 1, Chairmanship
My friend was asked to serve as a committee chair and began immediately working to build a committee and meet the goals from the retreat. Every suggestion she made was shot down by the executive director. Every recommendation the committee made, with the executive director in the room, was challenged — and sometimes later changed — by the executive director. My friend, who talked to the executive director every time it happened, got to the point that she realized she was spending significant political capital, and consistently alienating the executive director, who had also been a friend, to accomplish something that no one else wanted. She finished her one year term as chair and gave up the role.
She thought the executive director was so happy to have her out of the role that it never occurred to him to ask why. It’s possible the remainder of the executive committee felt the same way; they didn’t ask either.
Scene 3: Year 2, Gamesmanship
My friend continued to attend board meetings, missing only one or two, yet every suggestion she made in the room, usually based on best practices in the field, was challenged by members of the executive committee. The suggestions she offered were later introduced by other committees as their own work.
My friend felt alienated and disillusioned, and while she loved the organization, she didn’t love her experience in governing it.
Scene 4: Year 3, Disengagement
The next retreat was set and a board survey was sent out. She was honest with her concerns and her experience. She shared that she was troubled that the board didn’t have a strategic plan and hadn’t set any goals for the executive director. She shared that it felt like the organization was governed by a select few and the rest of the board were just in the room. She voiced her concerns within the bounds of the survey questions.
The retreat agenda came out; it didn’t reflect any of the issues she raised. My friend described it as a meeting to set strategies for goals that did not exist, or at a minimum had not been communicated.
She continued to attend meetings and participate marginally. A few months before her term expired she sent a note thanking the executive committee for the opportunity and asking to not be considered for a 2nd term.
She may be one of the few board members in the history of this high profile organization, with its high profile board, who declined a second term.
No one asked why.
The Scenes that Didn’t Happen
My friend didn’t share her frustrations outside of her conversations with the executive director when she was a committee chair and inside the boardroom. She did share her suggestions within the boardroom but (possibly inaccurately) felt from the responses she got to her ideas that there would be nothing to gain from sharing her frustrations.
The executive director, with whom she did meet occasionally, never asked her how she was enjoying her term.  There was no conversation about her goals for service and if those goals had been met.
The board chair never called to check-in. Neither did the board development chair.  There was no assessment of her service or to gauge her opinion of board process.
The Lessons for the Rest of Us
Board disengagement happens while good, dedicated, people are focused on other things. It’s rarely intentional, and it is usually quite detrimental. It’s what stands in the way of our boards, and therefore our agencies, fulfilling our missions, which would be more easily accomplished if everyone was on point, on the team and moving the organization forward.
There are a few ways to avoid it.
Talk to your board members –- the ones you serve with or serve! Check in with each of them individually to see how they are enjoying their experience. If they have goals, find out if you are meeting them?  If they’re frustrated, find out if there are things you can do to address their issues? Find out if there are opportunities to improve board process.
Information is information. Ask the questions. Get the answers. Once you have the information you can decide what to do with it. It’s what we do with the information presented to us that separates the good leaders from the great!
Have you served on a board where you felt marginalized and ineffective? What did you do? What would you have told my friend? As always, I welcome your insight, feedback and experience. Please offer your ideas or suggestions for blog topics and consider hitting the follow button to enter your email. A rising tide raises all boats.
dani sig

Can you have too many young people on your board? Ummmm, YES!

Board development, organizational development

young professionalsEvery time I hear a donor from a community’s “old guard” lament about no one taking their place and wishing organizations would start recruiting younger, up-and-coming professionals, I can’t help be smile. Why? Because in my experience, it is usually the same crowd who laments that a board of young professionals:

  • lacks fundraising experience
  • doesn’t possess a good network
  • can’t write big checks

This is the classic definition of “You can’t win.” Which begs the question . . . “What should non-profits do about this?”
Obviously, it is in every organization’s best interest to recruit young professionals and the leaders of tomorrow. The following are a few thoughts and suggestions that I’m sharing because I hope it will inspire additional discussion inside your board development/governance committee meetings.
Develop an Associates Board
Many organizations are currently trying to engage young professionals by developing structures like a junior board (aka associates board). If you’re interested in doing something similar, here are a few things I might suggest:

  • Be clear in defining roles & responsibilities by developing a committee charter and written volunteer job descriptions. It is important that your associates board knows that the corporate board is responsible for governance and not them.
  • Make sure the associates board has things to do. No one joins anything nowadays to do nothing. You’ll need activities to engage these individuals.
  • Incorporate networking opportunities into your associates board activities. Young professionals are looking to build their networks, and this will benefit your agency at a later date if they end up joining your board.
  • Design a mentor program where young volunteers are mentored by better connected and influential board members, donors and supporters of your organization. Again, this will only benefit your agency down the road if you ask them to join your board.

Embrace diversity
Not up for creating yet another organizational structure? I hear ya! If this is the case, then embrace the idea of diversity.
Usually, when I see situations like I described in the opening paragraph, it is because an organization went crazy and recruited lots and lots of young people to serve on their board.
It doesn’t have to be an all-or-nothing kind of proposition. Be smart about board development by identifying, targeting and recruiting a small handful of up-and-comers in your community.
Baby Boomer volunteers are at the top of their game (e.g. their life, their career, their earning potential, etc) and should compose the majority of your board. However, it would be healthy for your agency in my opinion to fill between 10% and 25% of your boardroom table with GenX and Millennial board members.
When bringing young board members onto a mature board, don’t just throw them to the wolves. Similar to my suggestions in the previous section:

  • establish a mentor program
  • make a point of introducing them to your donors
  • go with them on fundraising calls and teach them how to cultivate, solicit and steward

Is your organization struggling with this young versus old board volunteer dynamic? If so, how are you dealing with it? Do you  have advice for those agency’s who zealously recruited too many GenX and Millennial board members and now suffer criticism from their community’s old guard? We can all learn from each other. Please share your thoughts and experiences in the comment box below.
Here’s to your health!
Erik Anderson
Founder & President, The Healthy Non-Profit LLC
www.thehealthynonprofit.com 
erik@thehealthynonprofit.com
http://twitter.com/#!/eanderson847
http://www.facebook.com/eanderson847
http://www.linkedin.com/in/erikanderson847

May 2014 Nonprofit Blog Carnival

Board development, Fundraising

May 2014 nonprofit carnival logoWelcome to the May 2014 Nonprofit Blog Carnival. This month’s theme was “Letting the non-profit sector go to the dogs,” and we asked bloggers to focus on how non-profit agencies can build loyalty among any number of stakeholder groups such as donors, staff, board members, volunteers, etc.
Bloggers were given extra special bonus points if they were able to weave into their post something about dogs.
Why dogs?
I think the American author, Jack London, summed it up best when he said:

“A bone to the dog is not charity. Charity is the bone shared with the dog, when you are just as hungry as the dog.”

Is that quotation a bit esoteric for your tastes?
Then ask yourself this question: “Is there anything more loyal in this world than a dog?” If your answer is NO, then perhaps the non-profit sector can learn a thing or two about loyalty from our canine companions.
Enjoy this month’s carnival and please feel free to weigh-in with anything your agency is doing to build loyalty in the comment section below.
2011-12-25_22-08-07_863Donor loyalty & fundraising

  • Joanne Fritz talks about her granddogs, Mia and Sophie, in her post titled “Who’s bored? Probably not your donors” at about.com. Perhaps, Mia and Sophie can teach fundraising professionals a thing or two about the value of routine.
  • Ken Goldstein explains in The Nonprofit Consultant Blog that times have changed and donor loyalty isn’t as simplistic as a dog’s love of its owner. In his post “Are You Treating Your Cats Like Dogs?” he talks about information preferences, method preferences, and campaign preferences. As you may have guessed already, Ken is a “cat person.”
  • Claire Axelrad asks in her blog Clairification, “How to build donor loyalty and take puppy love to forever love?” in a post she titled “Just Puppy Love? 4 Ways Nothing Beats It When It Comes to Donors“
  • Heather Stewart is a first time entrant to the Nonprofit Blog Carnival and is a blogger at Activate Fundraising in Scotland.  Her post — “What would Murdo do?” — has her 1-year-old Cockapoo take readers through the steps associated with building donor loyalty (e.g. clarity, relationship-building and engagement).
  • Arroyo Fundraising Fluency blog published “What I Learned From My Dog About Donor Loyalty.” This post lists 4 “lessons” from Kathie Kramer Ryan’s dog, Charles, and how these lessons can inform our work with donors. If we want donors to be loyal to our organizations, we need to be loyal to them.
  • Ann Greene’s Nonprofit Blog submission was “What Dogs Can Teach Us About Donor Loyalty.” Ann’s post is a little different from the others in this section. She suggests that we can learn something about donor loyalty from dogs, such as they are always excited to see us and provide unconditional love, but they also need a lot of attention and consistency.
  • Pamela Grow’s blog features an amazingly cute shepherd-poodle-terrier mix named Enzo. Her post is titled “Fundraising lessons from Enzo” and you need to read to the very end of the post to learn what the most effective fundraising professionals understand and practice every single day.
  • Lori Halley writes the always clever and informative Wild Apricot Blog (and she is hosting the June 2014 Nonprofit Blog Carnival). Her post — “The Low Down on Donor Loyalty” highlights her adorable dog, Teddy, and answers this interesting question: “What do loyalty programs and non-profits have in common?“
  • Lance Leasure writes for Orange Gerbera blog and asked in a recent post “Are your donors as loyal as a dog?”  Lance includes his 13-year-old blind dog — Punch —  in his post. I just didn’t have the heart to exclude a geriatric blind dog from this month’s Nonprofit Blog Carnival. Besides, Lance offered a number of nice tips to non-profits on how to build donor loyalty. Nice job Punch (and Lance)!

BetrysStaff loyalty

  • Stephanie Arcella published “Don’t Forget Your Biggest Asset — Cultivating Loyalty in Your Employees” at Take Two blog.  Good, loyal, hardworking talent is difficult to find. With limited salary capacity, nonprofits are bound to lose their best talent if they don’t actively cultivate long term commitments from staff. Stephanie offers four awesome tips that you will likely find very manageable.

Your constituents and clients

2011-12-20_06-20-05_687Brand loyalty, marketing & social media

  • Our friends at Double the Donation blog wrote “Nonprofits — How to Use Social Media to Build Donor Loyalty.” This post focuses on how nonprofits can use social media (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn) to increase loyalty among their constituents (individual donors, corporate partners, and volunteers). Their suggestions include publicly recognizing donors, providing relevant stories, and asking questions!
  • J Campbell Social Media blog penned “10 Ways to Build Loyalty Among Your Online Community Members.” Julia Campbell writes that nonprofit social media campaigns are still focused on the numbers game (e.g. collecting the most Likes on Facebook, the most Twitter and Pinterest followers and the most views on YouTube). She poses the question: “Instead of focusing on growing your social media numbers, how about focusing on building loyalty – retaining engaging the fans/followers that you do have?“
  • Douglas Gould and Company blogged recently “Media’s Best Friend (Communications Professionals)” and talked about pitching, fetching and blog outreach.
  • Joe Garecht wrote “How to Build Brand Loyalty for Your Nonprofit” at The Fundraising Authority blog. Towards the end of this post, Joe does an awesome job of highlighting brand loyalty fundamentals (e.g. consistent imagery, emotional connections, etc).


Stories from the front line 
IMG_20140223_093758856At DonorDreams blog, I dedicated the entire month of May to this month’s Nonprofit Blog Carnival theme of loyalty.
Instead of pontificating like a consultant (it is an occupational hazard at times), I interviewed former clients and other non-profit friends about what they are doing to build loyalty with a variety of their different stakeholder groups.
Please click-through any of the following non-profit agencies’ stories and you might learn something from your peers:

I hope you enjoyed this month’s Nonprofit Blog Carnival submissions. I don’t know about you, but I think Saint Basil hit the nail on the head when he said:

“Does not the gratitude of the dog put to shame any man who is ungrateful to his benefactors?“

Please share your thoughts and experiences in the comment box below. We can all learn from each other, which is what the Nonprofit Blog Carnival is all about.
Next month’s Nonprofit Blog Carnival
Lori Halley at Wild Apricot blog will be next months host the next Nonprofit Blog Carnival. The theme will be “Nonprofit Inspiration and Innovation.” 
Click here for more details and how to submit your blog entry for consideration in June 2014.
As I say at the end of all my blog posts . . .

Here’s to your health!

Erik Anderson
Founder & President, The Healthy Non-Profit LLC
www.thehealthynonprofit.com 
erik@thehealthynonprofit.com
http://twitter.com/#!/eanderson847
http://www.facebook.com/eanderson847
http://www.linkedin.com/in/erikanderson847

 

Building loyalty is like the "circle of life" with no beginning or end

Board development, Donor-centered fundraising, Fundraising, Planning

In case you haven’t heard, DonorDreams blog is hosting for the second year in a row the Nonprofit Blog Carnival in the month of May. This year’s theme revolves around building loyalty among various non-profit stakeholder groups such as donors, employees, volunteers, etc. If you are a blogger and looking for the “Call for Submissions,” then click here. The carnival will be posted right here at DonorDreams blog on Wednesday, May 28, 2014. Stay tuned!

In the interest of building momentum, we’ve dedicated the entire month of blog posts to this topic. We’re specifically focusing on what a variety of non-profit organizations are doing (or are looking at doing) to build loyalty.

Staff-Kids-Volunteers-Donors:
Rinse. Lather.Repeat.
Boys & Girls Club of El Paso

BGC El PasoArt Jaime is the Chief Professional Officer of the Boys & Girls Clubs of El Paso, and he sees the challenges of building loyalty to his non-profit organization as an interconnected ecosystem of staff, kids, board members and donors. He points out that loyalty-based management is a simple concept, but it is something that is very difficult to achieve.

Here is a simplified version of how Art sees his interconnected world:

  • Hire and retain quality youth development professionals who are likable
  • Kids attend the Club because of their relationships with staff
  • Increased frequency of participation deepens the impact of programming which drives outcomes data
  • Good outcomes and impact data inspires board volunteers and provides confidence in talking to donors about the Club’s case for support
  • Good outcomes data creates great relationships with foundations and government agencies and contributes to a vibrant grant writing program
  • Long-term board volunteer relationships (who are consistently sharing awesome success stories from the frontline) with individual donors makes for happy, recurring investors in the Club’s mission

art jaime“It all ties together,” explains Jaime. “The big challenge is creating a culture that appreciates and strives to create loyalty.”
So, how is Art trying to build an organizational culture of loyalty? He isn’t trying to over think it, and he is starting with things he can easily do. The following are just a few examples:

  • engaging stakeholders in a variety of planning activities
  • modeling loyalty in every day activities
  • recognizing staff
  • thanking and stewarding donors
  • trying to spend more one-on-one time with board volunteers
  • seeking advice and feedback from a variety of stakeholders

Frederick Reichheld is the author of “The Loyalty Effect” and one of thought-leaders on the importance of loyalty-based management. It is amazing how Art’s observations on the interconnectedness of it all is spot on with Reichheld’s words found on page 22:

“If we think of businesses as atoms, with customers, employees, and investors as their subatomic particles, then we will study the way those basic components interact to create higher levels of stability and value creation.“

Congratulations, Art. I think you are on the right path!

 =================================

If you want to learn more about what other non-profit organizations are doing to build loyalty among various stakeholder groups (e.g. donors, employees, volunteers, etc), then tune in here to DonorDreams blog every Tuesday and Thursday throughout the month of May. We will also publish the Nonprofit Blog Carnival on May 28, 2014 with a number of links to other non-profit bloggers who are talking about loyalty related themes.

Here’s to your health!

Erik Anderson
Founder & President, The Healthy Non-Profit LLC
www.thehealthynonprofit.com 
erik@thehealthynonprofit.com
http://twitter.com/#!/eanderson847
http://www.facebook.com/eanderson847
http://www.linkedin.com/in/erikanderson847

Programming changes at DonorDreams blog

nonprofit

changesWelcome to May! While this month represents lots of things to lots of people (e.g. rain, flowers, planting gardens, non-profit conferences, etc), May is an anniversary month for The Healthy Non-Profit LLC and DonorDreams blog. It was three years ago this month that the company and the blog were started. So, today we’re going to do a little celebrating in addition to announcing a few programming changes.
WooHoo . . . Let’s celebrate!
Over the last 36 months, you and I have accomplished the following things together including:

  • 725 blog posts
  • 332 direct blog subscribers
  • 1,839 individuals checking in from time-to-time via blog subscriptions, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest
  • 1,353 comments (not including the comments you’ve written on different social media sites pertaining to my posts)
  • 53,924 page views
  • Readers from 23 different countries around the world on all five continents

These bullet points just represent the accomplishments related to the DonorDreams blog. They don’t include business-related accomplishments associated with my non-profit consulting practice — The Healthy Non-Profit LLC — such as:

  • the number of clients we’ve been privileged to serve
  • the conferences we’ve attended
  • the trainings we’ve facilitated
  • the plans we’ve facilitated and helped develop
  • the organizational capacity we’ve helped grow.

Hip hip hooray!
Programming changes at DonorDreams blog
For the last three years, I’ve been able to write something almost every day, and I’m humbled by how many people have read and engage in conversations around these posts. I believe that my blogging helps me be a better consultant, facilitator, planner and trainer. For this, I am grateful!
I honestly believe that WE have grown this blog and The Healthy Non-Profit LLC together. I am indebted to you and your readership. Thank You!
Unfortunately (or fortunately as the case may be), I cannot keep up with blogging every day and providing capacity building services through my firm. As a result and starting this month, DonorDreams blog will scale back its publishing schedule to two days per week — Tuesdays and Thursdays.
I’m currently looking at two options with regards to content:

  1. Focusing content around a monthly theme
  2. Focusing Tuesday content on board development and Thursday content on fundraising

If you have an opinion, I would love to hear your thoughts. As always, please share them using the comment box below.
With regard to the month of May, you may have noticed that we’re hosting the national Nonprofit Blog Carnival. In our April 29th post, we issued a “call for submissions” to the non-profit blogger community. This month’s theme centers on how non-profits can build LOYALTY among various stakeholder groups like donors, staff, volunteers, etc.
We will publish the Nonprofit Blog Carnival on Wednesday, May 28, 2014. In the meantime, we will focus all of our DonorDreams posts in May (remember we’re now only publishing on Tuesdays & Thursdays) on the same topic of building loyalty.
Thanks again for your readership and continuing support! I look forward to working with you and seeing what you and I collectively accomplish here at DonorDreams blog in the upcoming months and years.
Erik Anderson
Founder & President, The Healthy Non-Profit LLC
www.thehealthynonprofit.com 
erik@thehealthynonprofit.com
http://twitter.com/#!/eanderson847
http://www.facebook.com/eanderson847
http://www.linkedin.com/in/erikanderson847

How and when should a non-profit board go into executive session?

Board governance

cone of silenceMore than a decade ago, I attended a BoardSource conference/workshop at Sears’ corporate offices in Hoffman Estates, Illinois. During one of the sessions, the trainer shared her teachable point of view on how often boards should go into executive session, which she explained was at the end of every meeting. I’m dedicating today’s post as a counter-weight to that practice.
If you are intrigued and want to learn more about this teachable point of view, click here to read a post written by Jan Masaoka on Blue Avocado. She does a nice job of making the case.
Of course, there is a flip side to this position.
Let me start by clearly saying . . .  I believe there is a time and place for a board to kick staff out of the boardroom and go into executive session. Here are a few examples:

  • when the board needs to discuss the executive directors compensation package
  • when the board is discussing the findings of an investigation involving the executive director
  • when the board wants to hear directly from the auditor (esp. when there might be financial oversight questions pertaining to staff)

There are a few other good reasons; however, there aren’t many in my opinion.
do not enterAfter attending the BoardSource workshops at Sears as a young and naive executive director, I brought a ton of good ideas back home with me and shared them with the Board Development Committee. One of those ideas was for the board to go into executive session as a regular practice at the end of every meeting.
At first, I found this practice preferable. It sure as heck was better than watching all of the informal “meetings after the meeting” that occurred in the parking lot. However, as time passed, I discovered that executive session had evolved, and board volunteers were now having discussions that I should be a part of.
Prior to implementing this practice, we didn’t have a discussion about what was appropriate versus inappropriate topics of discussion during the executive session time period. So, without an experienced facilitator or any rules of the road, conversations wandered and devolved.
In my experience, the “going into executive session as a regular practice” became demoralizing. If the board didn’t feel comfortable including me in discussions pertaining to or impacting operations, then they needed to fire their executive director.
If your organization is looking at adopting the “going into executive session as a regular practice,” then here are two things you need to weigh against each other:

  • Is it more important to foster what the Blue Avocado post describes as: “This ‘sense of self’ is an intangible yet critical underpinning for board leadership“?
  • Or is it more important for your agency to cultivate and grow the ‘sense of team‘ between the board and its executive director?

I suspect the answer to these questions will vary for different organization. However, it is important to answer these questions before implementing such a policy. Otherwise, your agency may find itself the victim of the “law of unintended consequences“.
If you want to read more on the subject of executive sessions, here are a few posts you may find interesting:

What is your agency’s practice when it comes to executive session? Has your board governance committee discussed and spelled out when this practice should be used and what is appropriate? If so, please share your thoughts and opinions in the space below. We can all learn from each other.
Here’s to your health!
Erik Anderson
Founder & President, The Healthy Non-Profit LLC
www.thehealthynonprofit.com
erik@thehealthynonprofit.com
http://twitter.com/#!/eanderson847
http://www.facebook.com/eanderson847
http://www.linkedin.com/in/erikanderson847

When should your non-profit board NOT vote by email?

Board governance, technology

email votingIn a recent conversation with a friend about their non-profit board, it came to light that board members used email to take an important vote because scheduling a special board meeting was too difficult with everyone’s busy schedules.
After hanging up the phone, I couldn’t get this conversation out of my head because the issue this board had voted on was really contentious and there had not been very much consensus coming out of the previous board meeting. The question that kept zipping around my head was:

“When is it not appropriate for a non-profit board to use email to vote?“

So, I went to Google and started clicking around. The answers I found might surprise you!
The first article I found in The Nonprofit Quarterly was titled “E-mail voting: A Simple Trap for Nonprofit Boards” immediately raised red flags for me, especially when I read:

“The busy schedules of nonprofit board members make face-to-face meetings seem like a luxury. Consequently, a new trend has surfaced that may run afoul of the law—the vote by e-mail option.”

The words “RUN AFOUL OF THE LAW” jumped off the page.
As I continued reading, I learned another interesting fact. Many states prohibit non-profit boards from voting by proxy and email is seen by courts as being akin to a proxy vote. The Nonprofit Quarterly does a nice job of explaining why:

“The theory behind this prohibition is that the discussion and interchange of ideas that occur at board meetings are essential to the informed exercise of the directors’ fiduciary duty to the corporation.”

In other words, the government doesn’t want to enable busy people to take an easy way of meeting in-person to discuss important issues and perform their governance and oversight responsibilities. Huh? That makes sense to me!
Since I am a resident of the great (and bankrupt) State of Illinois, I started clicking around Google to see if my friend’s board had just broke the law. I quickly found that they had not because the state recent changed the law. Here is an excerpt from a publication on Venable LLC explaining the change:

The new law, which becomes effective on January 1, 2010, amends the General Not For Profit Corporation Act. Regarding the use of electronic means of communication, the bill:

* States explicitly that notices to members and directors may be delivered by electronic means to an email address, fax number, or other appropriate contact listed in the records of the corporation or approved by the organization’s articles of incorporation or bylaws.

* Allows members to act without a meeting by voting through mail, email, or other electronic means, where the old Act only permitted members to act without a meeting through the written consent of all members entitled to vote.

* Removes certain notice requirements associated with actions taken by the members through unanimous written consent.

* Provides that any action required to be “in writing”—by either the members or the board of directors—may be taken by electronic means, unless actions by electronic means are explicitly prohibited by a corporation’s articles of incorporation or bylaws.

So, do I have you concerned yet? If you’re outside of Illinois, do you find yourself wondering if your agency has been breaking the law? Are you starting to wonder — like I did — when is it and when is it not appropriate to use email to record a board vote?
If you are asking these questions, then GOOD . . . my job here is almost done.  😉
board discussionThe following are just a few suggestions you may want to consider:

  1. Do some research on Google (or ask an attorney) if email voting is legal in your state.
  2. If it is legal and you want to add this governance tool to your toolbox, add language to your bylaws specifically authorizing email voting.
  3. Engage the entire board in a governance discussion about when email voting is appropriate and when it is not appropriate . . . build consensus and codify these decisions in your bylaws.
  4. Use email voting sparingly . . . don’t get in the habit of using it.
  5. Discourage the board from using an email vote for issues that aren’t routine and lack consensus (in other words, issues that need to be discussed and where consensus needs to be built).

Has your board ever taken an email vote where it felt wrong to do so? Please use the comment box below to share when this has happened. Why? Because we can all learn from each other.
Here’s to your health!
Erik Anderson
Founder & President, The Healthy Non-Profit LLC
www.thehealthynonprofit.com
erik@thehealthynonprofit.com
http://twitter.com/#!/eanderson847
http://www.facebook.com/eanderson847
http://www.linkedin.com/in/erikanderson847

Helping board members resign with dignity

Board development, Board governance

first 90 daysOn Tuesday of this week, my blog post titled “The executive director’s first 90 days” focused on what the new CEOs and boards should do during those crucial first few months. That post took me for a walk down memory lane to when I was a new executive director embarking on new and exciting challenges.
While it isn’t always the case, sometimes a new executive director finds themselves walking into a challenging situation. After all, there are reasons why people leave their place of employment and those stories aren’t always ideal. In extremely challenging circumstances (e.g. someone ran out the door or they were chased out the door), I guarantee you that the issues don’t just reside with the person who left. There are typically board issues related to the resignation or termination.
For example, in the case of embezzlement . . . you usually can’t just point at the embezzler. There is likely issues with oversight and internal control policies.
One of the best practices I mentioned in Tuesday’s post was that new executive directors should meet individually with every board member within their first 90 days.
One of the more common issues with which many new executive directors are faced (especially when going to work for an agency with little organizational capacity) is having the “wrong people” sitting around the boardroom table. The challenging question many new CEO’s find themselves asking is:

How can we tactfully ask well-intentioned board volunteers
to find a different seat on the bus?

As I reflected back upon my first 90 days (more than 14 years ago), I remembered that my board had 20 volunteers on the day they hired me and within my first three months nine board members resigned.
easy way outNow this didn’t happen because I smelled bad or people disliked me (at least I don’t think so). It happened because of how I approached my individual meetings with board members. Here is what was on my agenda:

  1. Introduce myself and talk about my background
  2. Engage board member in discussion on the “state of the agency“
  3. Ask board member on where they see the agency in 3 to 5 years
  4. Share with the board member where you think you will need their help (e.g. their board roles & responsibilities, their role in fundraising, etc)
  5. Ask them to get more involved and in specific projects

When I had these discussions, those board volunteers, who weren’t a good fit for serving on the board, saw the handwriting on the wall. I didn’t have to tell them to get off the board. A simple, straight-forward conversation centered around expectations and vision was more than enough.
In most situations, it was only a few weeks after our meeting that a resignation letter was inked. Reasons always varied. Here are a few that I remember:

  • Work responsibilities won’t permit commitment of time necessary to serve on the board
  • Not willing/able to commit to fundraising responsibilities
  • Time commitments in personal life (e.g. caring for a sick relative)

In each instance, we celebrated the volunteer’s service. We engaged them in a discussion about finding a different seat on the bus that might be a better fit for them. It was respectful and graceful.
Now this approach isn’t always effective, and sometimes it isn’t appropriate.
For new executive directors, are there other approaches you might suggest with regards to giving good people an easy way off the board? Please use the comment box below to share your thoughts and ideas. We can all learn from each other!
Erik Anderson
Founder & President, The Healthy Non-Profit LLC
www.thehealthynonprofit.com
erik@thehealthynonprofit.com
http://twitter.com/#!/eanderson847
http://www.facebook.com/eanderson847
http://www.linkedin.com/in/erikanderson847