Tips From The Trenches

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/ban.31191
• Published date: 01 December 2020
• Date: 01 December 2020

December 2020 • Volume 37, Number 4 7

DOI 10.1002/ban© 2020 Wiley Periodicals LLC • All rights reserved

Tips From The Trenches

After board member recruitment,

focus on retention

Recruiting qualified and enthusiastic board

members is a challenge for many nonprofits. But

once they get them on board, too many organiza-

tions take those new members for granted, instead

of actively working to keep them sufficiently en-

gaged such that they want to remain on the board

beyond their initial term.

According to Amy Eisenstein, a fundrais-

ing consultant and CEO and co-founder of the

Capital Campaign Toolkit, executive directors

should ask themselves the following questions

that help focus their attention on board mem-

ber retention:

1. Are you providing them with interesting and

meaningful work? Are you actually utilizing their

skills and talents?

2. Are your board meetings boring? Do you go

over report after report or are you having meaning-

ful discussions and engaging board members on

important topics? Are you sharing success stories

about clients’ lives that you’ve touched?

3. Are you providing regular and ongoing train-

ing? Do you have an annual board retreat? Do you

have training at regular board meetings through-

out the year on topics like fundraising, governance

and budgeting?

4. Are you expressing gratitude? Do you thank

your board members in person, in writing, in pub-

lic? Do they know how important they are to your

organization?

A simple assessment using these as a guide can

help EDs identify areas that need improvement, so

that their boards remain committed for the long

term.

For more information and tips on board recruit-

ment and retention, visit https://www.amyeisen

stein.com. ■

Keep board meetings strategic,

at least a little bit

While it’s true that many mundane things are

brought up, discussed and decided on during a

typical nonprofit board meeting, these are also the

forums for members to examine the multitude of

critical strategic matters that face the organiza-

tion throughout the year. Experts suggest that

executive directors and board chairs take steps to

ensure these weightier tasks receive their due at-

tention alongside the routine agenda items.

According to experts and DonorBox, a provider

of fundraising software and other services to non-

profits, there are some simple ways to make sure

every nonprofit board meeting is strategic, at least

in part.

“You could make sure you review one strategic

goal during each board meeting (depending on the

number of your strategic goals and the number of

board meetings you have in a year). Otherwise, try

to arrange your board’s entire agenda around the

strategic goals of your nonprofit,” DonorBox staff

said on the firm’s blog.

The blog post goes on to say, “Sometimes,

it’s difficult to make the change to the format

of your board meeting, especially if your board

members are used to the more routine format.

In this case, it might be helpful to appoint one

board member to be the ‘strategy’ responsible

and remind the board to be more strategic dur-

ing the meeting by asking: ‘How will this circum-

stance help us do a better job at achieving this

strategic goal?’”

DonorBox also noted the importance of remind-

ing the board of the organization’s mission—its

reason for being—at every board meeting.

“For a nonprofit, achieving a mission is as im-

portant (some might even argue more important)

than many other items that are regularly found

on many nonprofits’ board meeting agendas,” the

firm says.

“To keep your nonprofit board meeting

agenda mission-focused, write your nonprofit

mission statement on the top of the agenda

so that everyone is constantly reminded of it,”

DonorBox said. “You could also have someone

your nonprofit helped tell their story or a vol-

unteer talk about a typical day in the field. This

helps the board stay connected to your non-

profit’s purpose.”

For more information, visit https://donorbox.

org. ■