Your Board Recruitment Plan: Grow Your Organization Now
As I work with growing organizations and have served on multiple boards, I've seen that board recruitment is often treated as a nice-to-have rather than a priority until it becomes an urgent issue. But working on board recruitment can help instill a legacy for organizations. Here are some of our tips for building and growing your board.
This post gives immediate and ongoing strategic tips on how to build and sustain your board, including identifying the traits you want in a board member, defining board terms, focusing on growing recruitment, and developing a board culture as part of an organizational culture.
Have a defined role for the board: Make sure the executive director and the board know and respect each other’s roles. A core point, though not necessarily about recruitment, is that understanding what your board does is key to building a board. Too often, this is not a discussion.
Understand what your board needs: Are there specific skills your board needs? Define what experience is missing. That might be fundraising, accounting, or legal help, but experience alone does not make a good board.
Identify the traits you want in a board member: Focus on traits over experience. Strong communication and listening, empathy, passion for the cause, integrity, and the ability to build relationships may be better than having two advanced degrees or credentials.
Define the culture of the board: You need a clear understanding of what you want the board culture to feel like, and model that behavior. The board culture is an extension of the org culture, so if the board culture is bad, then so is the org culture and vice versa.
Create a board job description: Describe an ideal member—what traits they should have, what they will do, and how much they will give back to the org. Think about people, time, and money. Not everyone can give the same amount, but all these contributions are of value. Make sure the expectations are clear.
Define board terms: Creating clarity around board terms is a key to board success. Defining the goals for each term can help create drivers for success. Make sure that everyone agrees on terms and goals. Have a board agreement that folks sign.
Talk about fundraising: Be clear about what fundraising looks and feels like. Folks don’t always like to talk about money, but on boards, it is part of the job. So, get comfortable with the uncomfortable – that is part of the job.
Board recruitment timeline: Plan ahead. Start recruiting six months out, and do not stop. It takes years to build a board, but if you have an incremental approach, it is a lot easier.
Meet your potential board members: The recruitment process must happen in person as much as possible. Recruiting at events is more successful than attempts over email. The strongest supporters are likely to be found at in-person events and are folks who have shown up in the past.
Look at all your lists! There are board members hidden in your lists—people who care about your mission and were passionate enough to write a check, show up at events, lobby the city council, etc.
- Volunteer lists
- Event lists
- Donor lists
- Member lists
- Past board members
- Past advocates
Developing a board is not a one-person job: You need a team to build a team. Creating a committee is a good place to start, and it will take all your org’s resources to keep it going.
- Build a committee
- Ask volunteers to help recruit
- Ask other parts of your team for ideas
- Ask lobbyists if they know of folks who have testified
- Ask fundraisers and partners about folks who have donated to other causes
Think about the board you want, not necessarily the board you have now: Adding new voices is key to building constituencies. Expand diversity and actively engage with people who have different backgrounds and perspectives from all walks of life. Use the lens of equity and inclusion.
Develop a relationship with the people who could be on a board in the future:
- Explain the board’s role
- Make sure they understand how their board service could help the org
- Get board members to recruit others
- Be enthusiastic
- Recruit for the long term, not the short term
Keep in touch with former board members: The bottom line is that a board is an ongoing endeavor. A board member doesn’t, and shouldn’t, stay forever, but board members and former board members have a special place in the organization, and keeping that relationship is important. Old board members can come back. They can and should still donate, and new board members can come from old board members as well. Most organizations don’t do a great job of this, so make it a point to have the new board members stay in touch with the old ones. It can help to mentor the new ones, and it can grow goodwill and organizational power.
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