Episode 13: New Board Member Orientation

welcome to another edition of “Around with Randall,” your weekly 10 to 12 minute podcast about making your nonprofit more effective for your community. And here is your host, the CEO and founder of Hallett Philanthropy, Randall Hallett. 

Thank you so much for your time this week on “Around with Randall.”  We want to spend a few minutes together talking about Boards. And I'm going to treat this in a very narrow perspective, but as we are at the beginning of the year, a lot of times, this is the first meeting for many new board members and in doing so when you bring on new board members, I've always found it that not enough time is taken to get them ready for the first meeting or two and to better understand the nature of the structure, the emotional stability, which may sound funny, of the board. 

So, I want to start with a quick story. Many years ago, I joined a nonprofit board.  I've served on local boards and even national boards. In this particular circumstance, I went to my first meeting in late January. I had gone through the process to become a board member and really had no orientation. I got into the first board meeting. We went through the board meeting, it seemed like a pretty normal board meeting. Like most new board members, I kept my mouth shut. And then there was the call to go into executive session, in which the staff left and leaving only the volunteer board members and a member of the executive committee.

I believe it was the chair of the board and the board was probably 25 or 27 people spread out in this large room, indicated that based on a number of issues the executive committee wanted to bring before the board, they needed a formal motion to remove the executive director - the CEO of the nonprofit.

As I was sitting kind of in a corner, I had a wide vantage point of the entire room. And while the words were somewhat surprising, what was beyond stunning for me was the fact that almost everybody who I could see - and the executive committee was very small - was stunned. And thus began a very robust conversation, asking a million questions about why this was important.

At the end of that conversation, because sometimes I'm a little bit blunt and not known for silence at times, I was called upon after raising my hand and said, “I don't have an opinion on retaining or terminating the employee. I don't have any context because I've been on the board for about three weeks, but I want you all to know that as someone who does this for a living, I am sitting in the back of the room and there's not a soul in here that knows what's going on, and I'm concerned about that. So while it doesn't pertain to this decision, I would like to make it known that we need to be having a conversation about how we're structured and how people are oriented and how we can make sure the entire board feels vested interest in major decisions that are going forward.”

And a lot of people were surprised by my comment, but it led of course, to when you open your mouth, you're asked to then take on that responsibility. The chair of the board called me the next day and said, “I think you're a hundred percent correct. We've never had anybody say it. Would you help guide that?”

And then I was asked to chair the selection committee for the new executive director and re-do the board governance, bylaws, and committees. And one of two things is true. Either it was a great thing for the house, or I got myself into hot water because I opened my mouth. It actually turned out to be a great thing for the organization.

The reason I bring this up in the story is, I ask questions for a non-profit and of the board chair, of the CEO to say, you know how important it is to orientate your new board members to have the right governance structure. Tell me about your process. And normally it's benign at best. 

And so I thought I would share some thoughts I have on what might be appropriate for nonprofits to consider when bringing on new board members and at the end, we'll talk about the tactical, which is actually going to be very short today because it'll apply to the things that we're going to talk about here for the next several minutes. So not to recreate the wheel, but we want to deal with the why, the, what, the, how the who, and the when. And we'll take those apart one at a time. 

So the why…why is this important? Well, first of all, new board members usually bring a great deal of enthusiasm to their first board meeting. And there could be nothing more demoralizing than sitting in a board meeting and realizing, you know absolutely nothing. And you frankly also probably know very few people. And so one of the first things which is more philosophical is let's not tamp down on enthusiasm. If you've been on the board for several years, you might gain energy from new board members who come in and say, I want to make a difference. The board as a whole gains enthusiasm and direction and, and an “oomph” with a group of new people, and so I don't want to ever try to destroy that. Number two, there are fiduciary responsibilities that come from being on a board. And normally in the early part of the year, there are decisions to be made  - budgets, evaluations. If you have board members who walk into the room and have never been a part of a larger conversation about those type of items, or don't have basic fiscal understanding, they feel alienated and they're not able to discharge their duties effectively.

So the why is not only, best practice or giving the context for fiduciary responsibility and it's discharged to be done appropriately, but it's also about emotion. Why would you want to destroy someone's enthusiasm to make your organization a better place? Just because no one took the time to help them better understand how the inner workings of the organization.

The second is “when.”  Before the first board meeting, please. An orientation or conversation is not good after the meeting occurs. Now, it's better than never having it, but carving out purposeful time is important. I like most other boards seem to find my tenure starting about January 1st, which means that you may have to take some time over the Christmas holidays or just before the Christmas holidays or right after the first of the year, if your board meetings the third week or the second week of January doing it after the first board meeting is not helpful. So keep in mind, it's a planning, you got to get new board members, thoughts and calendars and travel plans and their business needs aligned so that you can grab them. 

Which leads you to the “how.”   Gathering them is important in some way, shape or form, getting them in the same room if possible -and obviously these are interesting times - is great. Because number one, you get to see the full picture, the verbal, and the non-verbal, and they get to see you. Number two, they get to meet other new board members. It's. A little intimidating to walk into a room of people that have well-established relationships and you're the newbie, but it's much easier if there's a small group, two, three, four people that coming together, they know people. And so doing it in a group setting, if at all possible creates relationships that are the foundation for their comfort in the conversations to come.

The other part of the, how is a board binder. I put a couple of them together for nonprofits I've been on because there hasn't been one.It should include the board's job description, the bylaws, the last year's worth of meetings, the committee structure, , some statistics on the organization and their outcomes, and what they're trying to accomplish. Certainly things like I like to include - the last year or two of 990s, the tax form that has all the financial information on it, anything budget, finances, what tells me what's going on inside the organization, having that document or documents in a binder allows the board member to take it home after the orientation and really study it become more familiar.

And that means putting some effort into putting the binder together. It can be a really important document for them to be better prepared. Who does it? Well, my opinion, it should be either the chair of the board or the chair of the governance committee and the CEO, and maybe the finance person comes in and out of the room or the pro somebody in a program or a membership or whatever your organization does.

Who's leading kind of the daily effort. If it's a -  if there's a facility involved, like my time at the Ronald McDonald house - how about a tour? If you've never been through it, like through the bowels, how's this place work, but it's led, and there's a small group, the chair of the board, the CEO, maybe the chair of the governance committee or board selection, and then other people that come in to help the new board members who gather to better understand the content.

The last piece is the, what. What is it you're going to do for two hours? And yes, I said two hours. You should have an agenda. Your agenda should list out a ton of things you want to talk about, and it should start with the structure, the bylaws, the committees of the board. How does it operate?

And what are the board's philosophies or what's the board philosophy? I would spend a lot of time on this one. I would really try to help them better understand as a new board member. We don't talk about organizational daily life. Our board does not review job descriptions of the administrative assistant.

And yes, that's actually a true example of something that came up in a board meeting where I had to stand up and say, you know, we're not talking about that. That's a, that's an operational problem. We hired people to worry about that. We're going to be about strategy. You can establish a really strong ability to set precedence.

If you don't allow new board members to come in and talk about things that really aren't board level,  establish that from the outset. Obviously a review of finances is critically important, frankly, it probably should take place before they ever agree to be on the board, but a review of it where you're at, what are the struggles?

I walked into one board meeting at a national board and about quit because I walked in and they said, well, I think we're going to go broke in the next like three months. And I went, you know, that's probably something that could have been discussed before I joined the board. But at least during an orientation, I would have known that instead of being just beyond stunned, when the finances were handed out the first time in the actual board meeting, are there any major issues that need to be discussed?

Is there a staffing problem? Like what I talked about in the opening about an organization I belong to and the stunning first meeting where we're talking about letting someone go, are you anticipating certain aspects or needs? Is there a strategic plan? That's been established. What is that plan? What are the directions? Where are we headed? Are there any goals for the organization and now to the more important thing goals for the board member? Is there a job description? Does it clearly define what the expectations are not about? Attendance is a part of it, but are they responsible for introductions for fundraising goals, for a hosting receptions once during their term? Are they, do they know when the meetings are? Are they laid out well in advance - a year in advance  - so we can lock them in and then some information about the house….Key facts, figures, staff, bios, all of those things. If you're listening, I hope you're writing them down. We'll give you your agenda. This is what we're going to cover.

And certainly we want questions, but my experience is it becomes more of a one-way conversation and it's a data dump. I wish it was a better way of doing it. Maybe if you could elongate it and do two or three of these, but I find that it's hard to get board members together at one time, more than once, like for an orientation that we want this to be a real sense of complete. And sometimes that means it's a little overwhelming and I I'm notorious when I've done these time and time again to say, I'm sorry, this is a data dump. I don't know a better way of doing it. I want you to take this, take some notes and we'll have like meet 15 minutes for the first board meeting and I'll answer any additional questions or here's my email address and phone number.

I'll answer them further, but you've got a lot of information to get out. I would be remiss if I just didn't throw this in and then we'll get to the tactical. Is, is that your timeline? Should be a year-long to go through this process. And what I mean is not the actual orientation, but the process of identifying a board member starts with where are our holes in the community. What skills do we need? How do we bridge new relationships with certain segments of our population? Well, who are the people that might fit into that category? Okay. Now we got to create a list of those people. Now we need to run that past some type of committee that see what they think there should be an interview process.

That interview process should be reviewed by the board. Then the committee makes a final determination of who they're going to offer invitations to the job description. Responsibilities should be shared. We need some basic financial information. Before I go on a board, I want the 990, because I want to know what's going on.

And then finally there's a vote. All of that takes place six-to-nine months in process before you ever have an orientation. So remember it takes time to build that out. 

So what's the tactical. The tactical is some of the things that I just talked about today. What are some of the guiding principles about the who, what, where, why, and when for your board and getting them up-to-speed and getting them ready to serve their responsibilities. If you need to go back and listen and take some notes and say, gosh, we can do these things. The tactical is having a conversation with your board leadership and say, “Did you feel like you were ready to go in that first meeting?”

And if you weren't, maybe here are some thoughts that we could help you with as a board, as a staff leader. To help the next series of board members be ready for their responsibilities. The tactical is asking the question, “Are we doing what's right? Are we doing what our responsibilities should be? And can we create an easy, not overly difficult, but incredibly important plan to help our board members be ready to fulfill the mission that they believe it.”

Couple of quick reminders. Appreciate everyone who emails and sends me questions or has a comment that they don't agree with. Comments that they don't agree with me. If you want a recommendation regarding the podcast subject or something of that nature, a podcast, HallettPhilanthropy.com. That's two L's two T's Hallett, Philanthropy.com.

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If you find this helpful, and if you find it incredibly helpful, why don't you go ahead and. Send an email or for dater or connect to it on Spotify, Apple, any of the platforms or even on the website and share it with a friend, see if it can be helpful to them. I'd be remiss if I didn't end like I normally do.

I love what I do. I am the most fortunate person to be in this profession. I hope you feel the same because you are doing an important job in making your community a better place. And I don't know, what's more valuable professionally than that feeling alive, feeling enriched, feeling like you're contributing and no matter what part of the organization you're in or the level you're in your, an important cog in that success.

And so I hope these podcasts, the blogs, even if it's time with me, gives you a sense of the, your importance and helps you be better at what you want to do. And most importantly that helps your organization be more effective. Remember my favorite saying some people make things happen. Some people watch things happen. And then there are those who wondered what happened. Philanthropy and non-profit work is about being people who make things happen for people wondering what happened, gosh, is that a good feeling? And I hope you feel it every day I do through my clients, I have through my career. And I want you to feel as good about what you do is what I do, because this is a calling it's a vocation.

And that makes me proud to be a part of it. Appreciate your time this week. Thanks for your listening about boards. I hope you have a great week and remember, make it a great day.