Nonprofit Board Members - You're Not Ambassadors. You're Enthusiasts. Zealots. Funders. Advocates. Champions. Aren't You?
Alan Harrison FRSA
Nonprofits a career, writing a specialty || Cogito, ergo sum, ergo scribo.
“Here’s how we grade this course,” said Professor McIntosh. “If you do every single assignment correctly, you’ll get a basic C. If you apply your knowledge and achieve good results in many of them, you’ll get a B. If you do them all well, showing initiative and drive, you’ll get an A.”
“If I see that you’re working hard but just not getting it, you might get a D, but that’s rare.” he continued. “Anything else is an F.”
Nonprofit arts organization board members - especially those board members of large, institutional organizations upon which your region depends - this one’s for you. And on you.
There’s a nifty, well-accepted list of ten basic responsibilities for nonprofit boards. Brilliantly titled “The Ten Basic Responsibilities of Nonprofit Boards,” it is a compendium of the bare minimum asked of every nonprofit board member (thus, the word “basic” right there in the title). Under the grading system described above, all 10 responsibilities must be executed in order to garner a C on a board evaluation.
Let’s concentrate on two of these responsibilities for nonprofit arts organizations, now that we’re in a pandemic and all:
4. Ensure Adequate Resources – make sure the nonprofit has enough money to execute its mission
8. Enhance the Organization’s Public Standing – tell the public what the company is doing and why it deserves financial support from the people you know and meet within the community.
Let’s start with #4.
“Adequate” resources – defined as “just enough money to keep the doors open.” For many members of nonprofit arts boards, the company – usually from a phone call from an active board chair or, unfortunately, from a phone call from an executive director who does not have an active board chair (or, even more unfortunately, from a development director who does not have an active board chair or executive director) – asks members to give, get, or get off. If a board member has to be asked, coaxed, pressured, or shamed to give enough to his or her own organization, that person should likely not be on the board of that organization.
Do you personally require that kind of attention from your nonprofit? What about the other folks you pay?
The electric company probably doesn’t have to flatter you to pay their bill. Neither does your cell phone provider. They each have plenty of cash on hand and neither will go out of business if you miss a payment. If you choose not to pay them at all, the service will just go away. That’s why, for the most part, you pay them because, well, that’s the deal.
The supermarket cashier doesn’t have to say, “Have a nice day,” when you check out in order for you to pay for your groceries. It helps to ensure repeat business, to be sure, but has nothing to do with the financial transaction at hand. If you didn’t pay them but still took all the groceries, you’d be stealing. Regardless of the legality of that, the market will not go out of business if you don’t pay them. You pay them because, well, that’s the deal.
So why does your nonprofit arts organization – you know, the one for whom you dutifully go to board meetings each month and whose work in the community is important to you – have to spend its limited time and money to recruit your gift and your other basic responsibilities each year (season tickets, for example)?
If you choose not to pay your own nonprofit, the company may well go out of business.
Here's how: the vicious cycle you trigger can result in a devastating set of circumstances. The public (you know, those people mentioned in Responsibility #8) assumes you’re giving your money to the company because, hey, you’re on the board of trustees/directors, after all. If they were to discover that you don’t give unless pushed to a deadline (or worse, if you don’t give much at all), they would assume something is terribly wrong at the organization and that an investment in it would be lost to deficits and closure.
It’s not dissimilar from an actor telling people in the ticket line not to bother because the play is awful. That actor’s voice carries a little more weight, don’t you think?
And, like the Henry Ford quote “Whether you think you can or you think you can’t – you’re right,” they would be correct in that assumption.
And now…
- with no earned revenues coming in (or, at most, a trickle);
- with no contributed revenues coming in from external sources that are not devoting their funding directly to healthcare nonprofits and basic needs nonprofits;
- with no revenues from government sources except special Covid-related funding (PPP, for example) because local and regional government coffers are mostly empty;
- with no date certain on opening something resembling the front doors;
- with substantial layoffs, salary reductions, and low morale eating up time resources from staff (*note – your executive director can tell you how much these folks have been forced to donate in terms of lost wages and increased time per active employee);
- and with substantial time, effort, and financial resources perhaps newly-devoted to diversity, equity, and inclusion programs for the purpose of making sure that your organization is not only color-blind, but actively anti-racist (you’d better be, or you might actually deserve to close down);
…that leaves you.
Okay, don’t hyperventilate. We’ll get you through this. Breathe.
Now that you have your wits about you, call your executive director with your credit card number and an amount that exceeds (by a lot) anything you’ve ever given in the past. Without having to be asked. Or, if you really want to get an A on that board evaluation, just bypass all of that by going to the website, clicking the DONATE button, and doing the whole transaction there. Don’t worry about others being made aware of your gift. They’ll know by the next day at the latest, even if you give in the middle of the night.
#8: Enhance the Organization’s Public Standing. So many organizations have leaned on the word “ambassador” to describe a board member’s standing in the community. That seems like passive acceptance of a nonprofit, not active advocacy. Ambassadors, at least in my mind, sit behind big desks and people go to them to request access of some sort. And while that is a small part of the board member’s duties (a small part of the bare minimum, to say the least), it is not even close to the entire job, unless the board member is of such standing, fame, and prominence as to increase visibility and the reputation of the nonprofit. And even then, they have to donate a lot of money, especially right now, or potentially risk being exposed as a fraud using the nonprofit as a status image.
The preferred word is “zealot,” although to some that has negative or religious baggage attached to it. Still, it’s a more active description than simple ambassador, as zealotry toward a nonprofit indicates a passion for its work, something that is the bare minimum an outside public would expect from its closest allies on the board of trustees/directors.
In hiring practices, wouldn’t you seek passion from your executive director? From your artistic director? From your artists, including administrative artists? Then why would you accept anything less from a board member, the one whose influence and connections can make or break the finances of the organization?
Simply put, you wouldn’t – and you shouldn’t. So don’t.
While the parody image above the top of this article might imply that your nonprofit seeks more than an ambassador, don’t stop at being its champion. Be its zealot. Actively bring up its work, its needs, and its meaning to you and to the community. If you, as a member of its board of trustees/directors simply cannot raise awareness of the organization, then quit the board and just be a fan and a donor. Or, better, ask your board chair what steps you can take to be an active cheerleader and advocate. And then do those things.
Finally, and perhaps this is self-evident, if you are a member of a board of trustees/directors and you don’t find the passion to invest a lot of money in it, advocate to the hills about its programs and results, and get an A on your board evaluation, it might not be you.
Or, you might believe in your heart of hearts that the organization does not deserve that kind of support. Take a look at the measurable results (not the butts in seats or economic impact – those are commercial results that any restaurant or baseball team can use) of its work within your community to make lives quantifiably better. Use that information to determine whether this is organization is something that deserves your passion, time, and money.
If it is, jump in with both feet.
If not, continue to fund it but not from its board roster.
This is a lot, I know, to take in. Consider this your Cliff notes for getting that A.
Because if you don’t get an A, you probably don’t deserve re-election to your seat. In fact, there exists a distinct possibility that the company may not have any need for a board at all...after it closes.
Tag. You’re It.
Many thanks to the brilliant Steven B. Libman of the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra for his inspiration on this subject, counsel about active board members, and ideas on how nonprofit arts organizations succeed. You would be well served to have Steve in your corner.
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Thanks for reading (and commenting and sharing). I recently completed a 12-part series for nonprofit arts organizations post-Covid. If you missed any of them, just click on the link. Or send a DM and I’ll be glad to respond.
Post-Covid Article #1: Don't Ask
Post-Covid Article #3: The Sacrifice After the Sacrifice - Go Small or Go Home
Post-Covid Article #4: In the New Normal, You're Going to Need Some Mischief
Post-Covid Article #5: Shedding Egos and Empowering the Tribe
Post-Covid Article #7: We're All Startups Now
Post-Covid Article #8: Just When You Thought It Was Safe...
Post-Covid Article #9: Remember the “Nonprofit” Part – It’s Way More Important Than the “Arts” Part
Post-Covid Article #10: The 5 Stages of Stages
Post-Covid Article #11: Are your impacts intentional? Incidental? And what if…?
Post-Covid Article #2047: Why Did THOSE Nonprofit Arts Organizations Succeed
Alan Harrison is a writer, father, performer, nonprofit executive, artist, blogger and impresario (in no particular order). He has led, produced, directed, promoted, raised money for, starred, and failed in over 300 theatrical productions on and Off-Broadway and at prestigious (and not so prestigious) nonprofit arts organizations across the country. He’s also a two-time Jeopardy! champion so, you know, there’s that. The arts invoke passion (mostly from artists), but nonprofit arts are only successful when they result in measurably positive change among those that need it most. When a nonprofit’s donors are also its recipients, then its mission is meaningless puffery, flapdoodle and codswallop.