Best Practices for Strengthening Non-Profit Board Engagement

 

Strong boards can spot opportunities (and potential problems) on the horizon—and help your organization adjust. They also advance your fundraising and advocacy work, ideally using their unique roles within the community to enhance your non-profit’s finances and standing. Your board also brings broad perspectives to the table, so that you can stay abreast of the latest ideas and practices.

 

But finding such a skilled and engaged board doesn’t happen by accident. It’s the result of developing your board with intentionality and purpose. We share some actionable strategies for cultivating board member engagement.

Build a Strong Board Culture

Don’t just pay lip service to culture building—put in the effort to really do it. When done well, it can have a transformative impact on the cohesiveness of your group and their willingness to commit to each other and your organization’s cause. Here are three strategies to get started.

 

Invite Experienced Members to Your Board Orientation. Ultimately, new board members should draw on the experience of current board members. Why not kickstart that process? Consider inviting all your board members to attend the orientation, especially if you use a “board buddy” system. You’ll find that experienced board members may learn a surprising amount, now that they have perspective on your organization. Additionally, they’ll naturally chime in to teach new members, which will help your whole board develop synergy and an understanding of each other’s mindsets and skills.

 

Regular Icebreakers Can Help. It may sound corny, but it works. Your board members, by design, will come from a variety of personal backgrounds, income levels and professions. Using a thought-provoking ice breaker is way to get everyone’s voice and perspective in the room, which can help build an inclusive culture for your board and organization. 

 

Have Board Members Replace Themselves. You’ll be recruiting and onboarding new members regularly. While you’ll want to use a board matrix to ensure your board is composed of a variety of backgrounds and experiences, your board members are valuable recruiters—and likely already comprise a diverse set of people.

 

Create a culture so that as a board member’s term reaches its final year, they know to identify and recruit their own replacement. This can help your organization expand connections in key areas of influence, while maintaining personal connections with outgoing board members, since they will be invested in the success of the incoming board member who replaces them.

Processes to Improve Awareness and Engagement

While there’s an ephemeral quality to any culture-building project, concrete documentation and reporting can measurably improve engagement. After all, each member is more likely to deliver within their role when they know what’s expected of them—and what’s going on within the organization. We offer three such opportunities. 

 

Create a Custom Board Engagement Form. You want to clarify the basics, like meeting attendance expectations and if board members are expected to donate to the organization. But you also want to tailor your expectations to the unique talents of each member. What should advocacy and fundraising look like for them, based on their particular skills, as well as their social and professional circles?

 

Create a custom board engagement form that each member signs annually. Then, have them provide regular updates on how they’re doing with their commitments. Your board members will appreciate your focus on what they bring to the table—and also be more motivated to deliver an engaged, high-quality tenure.

 

Evaluations Allow for Formal Reflection. There are several goals with this process. First, to determine sentiment and whether the board is functioning in a healthy manner. Second, to uncover weaknesses or blind spots of the board (or organization) that may not be top of mind for the group, but that have been identified by some members. Third, to get a temperature check on each member—is someone unhappy, is there an issue that needs to be addressed? Better to know and work to fix it. 

 

Evaluations should be done annually, or at least bi-annually. Strive for 100% participation. Consider having some portions of the evaluation be anonymous and other parts not. You want each board member to feel comfortable participating—but you also want to be able to work directly with board members who’ve identified problems or who are unhappy.

 

Lastly, you’ll want to share anonymized results with the whole board. This will provide an opportunity for constructive discussion and benchmarking of your progress. 

 

Committee Report-Outs Are Important—and Should Be Brief. While board meeting minutes are valuable, targeted report-outs of committee progress can help shape decisions going forward. In your board packets, include committee meeting minutes and progress summaries. This way board members will arrive prepared and won’t need background information during the committee report-outs. 

 

You may even want to devise a formal method for committee report-outs that communicates highlights without monopolizing meeting time. Consider including this protocol as a section within your board’s governance norms, so that expectations are codified and clear.

Intentionality and Forethought Lead to Success

Careful planning and the pursuit of clear, outlined goals go a long way toward cultivating an engaged board.

 

At 1834, our tenured Wealth Advisors within the philanthropic space help organizations build and maintain high-quality investment programs. As part of that work, we regularly see the difference that board engagement makes for an organization—and we also have experience fostering success.

 

We work directly with boards on everything from Planned Giving Programs to Fund-Raising Strategies to Board Training & Development. If you’re interested, we’d be happy to bring our expertise to your organization. Connect with us to learn more.