Board Development Services
Turn your dreaded board meetings into places of meaningful dialogue, helpful brainstorming, and supportive guidance for your mission. We’ll cover everything from preparing a board docket and agenda, tips for great board meetings, board member selection and onboarding, creating helpful committees, and tactics for board transitions or conflicts.
For many organizational leaders, working with their board is a private source of frustration. They feel trapped in an awkward dance between the positional authority of the board being their boss, and the reality that most organizations led by a team of volunteers will devolve into chaos.
Your healthy board members know the organization must be led by the leader to keep pace with a growing organization. Most feel limited on how much they can contribute as volunteers and secretly worry that they are not performing the way the organization needs them to.
Our sector is split into two camps when it comes to boards. On one side, a growing number want to do away with boards entirely while others have resigned themselves to archaic forms of board governance complete with large committees, lackluster meetings dominated by reports, and unclear expectations. And it is killing them.
There is a third way.
You don’t have to settle for hand-holding a board stuck in a past century, nor do you need to invent some new form of governance. You just need to re-tool your board so it will work for the demands of a growing organization.
I’ve reconstituted large, entrenched boards and I have built good boards from scratch. Either way, you can develop a board that functions like a high-performing team of volunteers who are focused on helping you move the mission forward, by helping you think and plan at the highest level, invest in your development through thoughtful evaluation of your performance, and be capable advocates for you and for your mission. And then stay out of your way so you can lead.
Timeline and Process
The timeline on this service varies from 6 months to 2 years depending on the board.
The process often includes an assessment on selection, onboarding, board role clarity, selecting board performance criteria, advising on meeting cadence and agenda, and bylaw and policy assessment.
I don’t want to scare you, but if your board is dysfunctional it will not get better. In fact, the data says that it is likely to get worse and probably sooner than later. As the leader, not only consider the Return on Investment (ROI) of an engagement like this (less stress for you, a board raising more funds, less staff cost in prepping for meaningless board meetings, etc.), but more importantly, you need to think carefully at the Cost of Inactivity (COI) – Board Conflict, a Board Turning on You, Mission Drift, Etc. The Cost of Inactivity with a board that is trending in the wrong direction can be devastating to you, your team, and your mission. If this is connecting with you, let’s talk soon.