Board Recruitment a 12-Step Program: How to Identify and Recruit Your Ideal

Introduction:?

I served on many boards these past 50+ years, nonprofit, for-profit, local, statewide, regional, national, elected, and appointed. I held every board officer position and served on and chaired most of the standing board committees. I helped start multiple nonprofit boards. I have provided board assessment and training. All this time, I’ve been active in board member recruitment. Serving as a Volunteer Peer Reviewer for the Council on Accreditation (COA) brings value added to my experience recruiting board members. ?COA accredits/reaccredits organizations committed to best practice. I travel about the USA and Canada conducting COA reviews. As often as I can, I include among the standards I review, the Governance Standards. I enjoy reviewing materials related to board recruitment and discussing them with board members and organizational leaders. Boards I have interviewed for COA or served on have been as large as 60 and as small as 8, some struggling with recruitment and some with waiting lists of people wanting to serve. ?These steps worked for me and have worked for organizations whom I have consulted. I invite your responses where there is an opportunity for improvement.

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Step 1. Be/become the kind of Board people would be proud to be a part of!?

If you can, spend time preparing before starting these Steps. People like to be associated with a winner. Be the kind of Board and Agency that someone would want to be a part of. Embrace “best practices” in governance and management and commit to continuous quality improvement. If people know of your work and think positively of you, some may even contact you inquiring about board service. Build and constantly increase Brand awareness of your agency, its Mission, and the great work you do, and share that info over and over. Have lots of print and digital materials available to share. Use social media, seek press, issue reports, and newsletters. Have staff, volunteers, and board members act as your ambassadors, armed and updated with talking points, elevator speeches, and resource materials. It is much more likely, that someone will respond to an invitation to Board membership if they already know of you (in a positive way). ?Immerse the Agency in the community. Draw from the time and connections/interest of Board members, CEO, senior staff (especially development staff if you have one), and volunteers, to serve on committees, task forces, other boards, and professional, business, and civic groups.

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Step 2. Be guided by your sacred documents.?

Review pertinent documents (e.g. bylaws, certificate of incorporation, amended certificates of incorporation, and contracts) to identify any board membership requirements e.g. consumers, particular organizations or expertise, age, and geography. Confirm bylaws requirements on the number of members, minimum and maximum.

Step 3. Determine your needs and wants in your Board makeup.

Brainstorm a list of characteristics (desired competencies, traits, and skills). Don’t reinvent the wheel, use a Board Member Individual Profile Survey like this one to stimulate ideas. From that, design your own Board Member Individual Profile and a corresponding Member Matrix Spread Sheet - see the sample here. There is a difference among skills, traits, and competencies. Discuss and understand the difference. ?Traits could be gender, age, and ethnicity; skills could be lawyer, nurse/physician, banking, plant management, etc.; competencies could include decision making, inspirational leader, team player, risk taker, strategic/innovative thinker, etc. This could be a – chicken and egg which comes first, skills, traits, or characteristics??? E.G. Many believe that competencies are the most critical characteristic.

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Step 4. Develop an inventory of what you already have in your Board makeup.

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Inventory what you have. I came upon the above-referenced Board Member Individual Profile Survey and Board Member Matrix Spread Sheet tools decades ago. They are useful for board recruitment identification and progress tracking. It allows you to present data as a scattergram for decision-makers, a representation of the various characteristics the current board has, and be the basis for discussion of recruitment needs/wants. Some Boards update the Individual Profile annually. Besides helping in recruitment, it provides useful information about the status of DEI and Belonging. You could utilize an Excel spreadsheet for the Board Member Matrix Spread Sheet and compile the data yourself or consider using Survey Monkey which can compile, aggregate, and present the information.

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Step 5. Identify gaps in your Board makeup, separate wants from needs, and prioritize the needs.

Have a discussion among decision-makers (full board, committee of board, or both) to identify Gaps. Prioritize that list (maybe into must-have, desirable, nice to have), keeping in mind the number of openings as specified in the By-laws.

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Step 6. ?Candidate Sourcing - Liken it to using GPS driving directions. Starting Point - Board Opening; Destination – Great Candidate(s); Get Directions…

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Discuss sourcing of candidates (at least among the CEO, board members, or committee of board members) - who might know a possible candidate, and very importantly, may know someone that might I.D. possible candidates? If no one can make a connection for you, then research sources and make the call/contact cold.

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Use the Willie Sutton approach - he robbed banks because that is where the money was. When looking for a particular skill, trait, or competency, look where you might find it. E.G. want an African American, approach the AA Chamber of Commerce, AA Faith communities, and local politicians. Caveat Emptor, when dealing with politicians consider the “I scratch your back you scratch mine” possibility concern. You can reach out cold to any possible source, or ask board members, staff, and donors who might have such a connection if he/she will make the contact. Other groups (business, government, civic) to contact would be local Rotary, Lions, Kiwanis, Jaycees, women’s and other service clubs in your community, Chambers of Commerce, United Ways in general, and their “Leadership xxx programs” in specific, local colleges 2 and 4 year with Leadership Centers/programs/certificates (See Addendum A for an expanded Annotated Listing of potential contacts). Maybe board members, and senior staff, belong to one of these or know someone who does. Maybe the CEO and some senior staff should belong to one or more for recruitment and other purposes, now and in the future. When you approach these sources ask three things, might they be interested, do they know of anyone who might be suitable and who else would they recommend you speak to who might know someone?

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Step 7. ?Two heads are better than one, three or more are even better.

Share the recruitment responsibility by practicing these four asks. Ask a Board member. Who better knows what the Organization is about and what the role and time commitment of a board member is? Ask donors. Committed donors might be interested in serving on the Board or willing to suggest someone they know with the characteristics you are looking for, even willing to approach the person(s). Ask volunteers. Committed volunteers may be willing to extend their volunteer work to board membership, or like donors, be willing to approach their contacts with the characteristics you are searching for. Ask your most valued staff. Passionate and committed Staff can be good recruiters among their connections.

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Step 8. Divide and conquer.

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Discuss who will approach potential board members. Prepared a packet (e.g. board member job description, board member application, annual report, Mission Statement, PR/News coverage, and other sacred documents). Weigh solo versus pairs making the ask. A tag team may complement each other and impress the prospect. Maintain timely and clear communication among recruiters to avoid duplication of effort. What kind of message do you send when unknowingly a second recruiter contacts the same prospect?

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Step 9. ?Make the ask.

?Approach candidates – Arrange to get to know each other starting with initial contact, meet and greet, visit/tour agency, receive Step 8 packet all at once or gradually, perhaps attend an agency function, perhaps attend a board meeting, get the application, get Board approval. Have a script and practice it before you make the pitch.

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Step 10. What’s that old saying, “You can’t tell the players without a program”?

?In identifying possible candidates use the right side of the Board Member Matrix Spread Sheet (matrix) document to add to the visual graph of characteristics to see what gaps they might fill.

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Step 11. Maintenance of Recruitment Effort

Post it on your website. Caution, you may get people who are unqualified, and/or not a good fit who may be offended if not accepted. Use events to surface people who might be future board members. If by-laws allow, have non-board members serve on Board committees (from that experience they might be invited to join the Board). Use some of the same approaches the agency uses to recruit paid staff.

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Step 12. Recruitment, Succession Planning, and Waiting Lists

?Have board recruitment as a part of your Board Succession Plan. Recruit anticipating member/officer departure gaps. Maintain a waiting list of interested prospects. Keep folks on your waiting list engaged, perhaps serving on a committee, as a volunteer, or both. Be sure prospects are on your various distribution lists.

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CONCLUDING REMARKS:

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This article lays out a 12-step process for recruiting great nonprofit board members. While the bulk of this article is on the “how” to go about finding great board members, Step 1 and Step 12 stress the importance of becoming the kind of board people will want to be a part of.? Consider Steps 1 and 12, a word to the wise, perhaps a subject for another article.

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CAVEATS:

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1.???? Make certain the candidate knows the time commitment and Mission of the Agency (Culture fit).

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2.???? Before recruiting for more diversity, consider whether the board and agency are welcoming of the desired trait. If not, address that first. Have policy and training. Don’t recruit to check off a box, have multiple people, perhaps reflecting the catchment community and or client base. For example, if the community is 30 percent Latino, should the board be that too, etc? Don’t settle just for a particular characteristic, be sure they will commit to the time and embrace the mission. The point is if you successfully recruit a person for a particular characteristic, such as Ethnic Diversity, LGBTQ, gender, occupation status et al, but are not welcoming of them, they will not stay long. And if they do not fully embrace your Mission, Vision, and Values, you will hope they do not stay long.

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3.???? ??Realize recruiting a board member is different from engaging and keeping board members.? Consider having an onboarding process, pairing with a seasoned board member, ongoing board development, and individual and whole board evaluation.

?ADDENDUM A - ANNOTATED LIST OF BOARD RECRUITMENT SOURCES

NOTE: For any of the sources below, external to your Organization, you can contact them cold. Consider inquiring of Board Members, Staff, and Volunteers, if anyone has some connection and could make the contact or introduction.

Fellow Board Members

Agency Staff

Agency Volunteers

Donors

Funders (Corporate and Community Foundations) - More and more, Corporate and Community Foundations prefer partnering with funded agencies rather than being their ATM. If they think enough of you to fund you, likely they will consider strengthening the partnership and assisting with board recruitment.

Rotary*

Lions*

Kiwanis*

Jaycees*

Women’s Club*

Chambers of Commerce in general and for specific ethnic groups e.g.? African American COC or Hispanic COC

United Ways in general, and their “Leadership xxx programs” in specific

Profession and/or, trade associations related to your service line and/or, the particular skill you are recruiting for

Elected Officials (Local, County, State) (Optimally person making the connection can open the door to the official)

Faith-Based Communities (contact those serving some or all of your service area). Can be an individual parish, temple or mosque, or a group, e.g. the ABC city pastors’ association. Hispanic Pastors’ Association etc.

Local colleges 2 and 4 years with Leadership Centers/programs/certificates.

Local Hospitals – Hospitals have all sorts of expertise, and generally want to be involved in their communities. Nonprofit hospitals need to be able to demonstrate they provide a community benefit to maintain their tax-exempt status. Having a hospital representative on a nonprofit board is one way of doing this.

Graduate Schools with degrees related to the characteristic you are looking to fill. They may have a student with that skill looking to invest some time in board work.

Social Media Platforms e.g. Facebook (META) and LinkedIn

BoardLead.com is a nonprofit board placement, and training program managed by Cause Strategy Partners. Thanks to the generous support of their corporate partners, nonprofit participation in BoardLead is 100% free.

Boardstrong.org, previously CharityStrong and Governance Matters, offers a free board matching portal for nonprofits nationally. It is a free resource for nonprofit boards needing new board members and for individuals interested in serving as trustees to find each other.

Volunteermatch.org is a national search portal to post your board member job description. The award-winning nonprofit service has complemented and co-existed with commercial technologies to become the web’s largest and most popular volunteer recruiting platform

Councilofnonprofits.org (National Council of Nonprofits) is a robust membership organization that among its portfolio of services, can help with Board Member recruitment. When on the Council website, click on the interactive map selecting the State you are interested in, to find your local State organization.

Networks specific to individual board members and/or, senior staff.

FEE-BASED SERVICES

Boardspan.com has decades of experience utilizing technology, data analytics, supporting board governance, and board recruitment.nbsp; Their approach to board recruiting combines a high level of service with proprietary algorithms to deliver an efficient process and high-impact results at a fraction of the cost of a traditional search firm. Fee-Based Search.

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BoardAssist.org. BoardAssist finds fantastic people for phenomenal nonprofit boards and incredible things happen. Their mission is to identify and personally match high-impact New Yorkers who want to be real agents of change with the hardworking boards that make our city the best it can be. Fee-Based Search.

LinkedIn Board Connect is a program that helps nonprofit leaders find high-quality professionals to join their boards.

BoardMatch.org offers a range of services to nonprofit organizations, including board member recruitment. BoardMatch utilizes technology to assemble databases of individuals wanting to contribute their time talent and/or treasure and match them with nonprofits seeking board members.

*Often, service clubs such as these, welcome guest speakers.