As I meet and speak with nonprofits, I always ask what their biggest pain points are. More and more the Board is mentioned as a friction point.
Let’s start at the beginning: The Board gives their time, effort and know how to managing the organization and making sure its short and long term health are secured.
Some of you work in concert with your Board. And some of you… well, you’re pulling your hair out. The Board isn’t helping with fundraising (see the “they’re crashing to the earth” section below for help with this!), they’re making unreasonable demands, they have no idea what they should be doing.
I completely get it. It’s frustrating and hurts your ability to not only get your job done but help the organization grow.
Let’s look at one of the areas where the Board should be front and center. They are hopefully serving as ambassadors for your organization. They are proud to be associated with your nonprofit, they tell people about your mission and work and get others involved (in different ways).
But for Board members to be effective ambassadors, they need YOUR help! They need information, impact data, stories and more from your team. Without that, they don’t have much to say when presenting to others.
Fundraising and marketing are a two-way street. You have to provide value for your audience, educate them, give them a reason to connect and engage with you.
The same goes for your work with the Board. This is a two-way street and you have to help them, just like they have to help you.
What does that look like? I have a great example for you to learn from.
How to update the Board
The Good People Fund (GPF) identifies creative visionaries addressing compelling societal challenges primarily in the U.S. and Israel and provides them with financial support, mentorship, education and a supportive community.
Full disclosure: I am very familiar with GPF’s work. I know current and past grantees. Additionally, I believe I wrote a grant request to them 15 years ago and they funded a program at the organization I worked at.
I love the work of the GPF. It’s not just who and what they fund but that they bring added value to their grantees with educational sessions, helping them grow and creating a community that grantees can use.
GPF has a Board. Part of the work the GPF staff is involved in is keeping the Board informed. They do that with their weekly Friday email called Shabbat Snippets (Shabbat is the Hebrew word for Sabbath).
Each Friday Board members receive Shabbat Snippets, a quick recap of what happened that week at GPF. Think about the value of the Snippets as an internal communications tool for GPF.
A short snippet, a picture, a link. Simple but enough to keep the Board informed about an article about a grantee that was recently published.
A gratitude snippet! Founders of a grantee said thank you to GPF. GPF staff made sure to share that gratitude video with the Board.
I love that GPF sends out these snippets every week to Board members. The Board stays on top of what’s going on with grantees in the field, learns more about grantees and has plenty of content to share and talk about when going into ambassador mode.
This is how you create that two-way street with the Board!
I know that some of you present the latest and greatest at monthly/quarterly Board meetings. But what if, instead of throwing everything at them at once, you broke it up into digestible pieces of content?
And yes, I am very aware that some of you may not have the bandwidth for a weekly email to the Board. But keep in mind: The more they know, the better they can represent your mission to others. And that’s critical for growth!
There are many ways to create a two-way street with the Board. Today I’m sharing one way with you. A strong relationship with the Board can be a huge plus for your organization.
Wanna grow and thrive? Keep the Board up to date.
