Recently, Blair Search Partners CEO, Trevor Blair, went live with Tim Ducker on LinkedIn to discuss nonprofit boards of directors. From board recruitment to CEO and board member relationships, Trevor and Tim discussed the ins and outs of serving on a nonprofit board and what it takes to help nonprofit organizations thrive.
Meet Tim Ducker
Tim Ducker is Chairman of the Board for San Diego Youth Services, and has served on numerous boards starting when he was 23 years old. He runs Consultd, an organizational consulting company doing work that his team calls “organizational therapy,” where he partners with corporate and nonprofit clients to help them resolve conflicts, enhance employee engagement and efficiency, facilitate workshops for executives, and build tangible tools and techniques rooted in understanding the human elements that drive organizational success.
Tim’s through line during this discussion, and throughout his commitment to nonprofit board service, is the importance of honesty, transparency, and trust in building effective organizations.
Choosing to Serve on a Nonprofit Board of Directors
When asked how to choose which boards to get involved in, Tim shares that it’s a personal decision.
What he recommends looking for first, is mission alignment. How do you relate to the work of the organization? For Tim, working with youth has always been important to him, so he looks for organizations doing important work for young people. Serving on a board whose mission you connect with allows you to be more invested in the work and the success of the organization.
Second, do some research on the organization to figure out if it is a good fit for the particular skills you have to offer. What’s their current board makeup? Are there opportunities on the board that match your specific skill set? How financially sound are they?
Finding that a board is facing particular challenges doesn’t necessarily mean you shouldn’t consider going through the process of becoming a board member, though. In fact, Tim shares that when he’s meeting with the CEO or current board member to learn more, he often looks for honesty and transparency about an organization’s struggles above all else.
If an organization’s leaders are able to be honest about their challenges, it opens up opportunities to discuss what they are doing to overcome those challenges and how a prospective board member may be able to offer guidance or support in certain areas.
Finally, when deciding to move forward with an organization as a board member or not, he recommends having a discussion about the level of engagement they’re looking for and open to.
For example, Tim very much enjoys being involved beyond board meetings to more deeply connect with the mission of the organizations he serves. This can look like volunteering, offering mentorship to clients, or attending events. Finding a board role that matches the level of engagement you’re looking for can help you decide if serving on the board is a good fit.
What Makes a Great Board of Directors
There are many different kinds of nonprofit boards with a wide array of skills, needs, and strategies. Tim and Trevor discussed a few.
The elusive “perfect size” for a nonprofit board of directors
There is much conversation, discussion, and differing opinions in the nonprofit world about what the perfect number of members is for a board of directors. The truth is, there is no one-size-fits-all answer.
What’s the sweet spot in terms of size? Well, it depends on the type of board you want.
Some large national organizations rely on large boards of directors full of high level leaders in local corporations to bolster their fundraising. Others, whether government funded or smaller in nature, have less of a need for a board that brings in major gifts and can focus more on efficiency and specific skill sets the organization needs.
Having too many members on a nonprofit board has the potential to introduce challenges like difficulty being mindful of time and efficiency, and diffusing responsibility across too many members, making it tough to drive accountability. Too few members, though, and a board may be missing a variety of expertise, opinions, or oversight.
At the end of the day, finding the sweet spot for the size and specific needs of each organization is the best move.
Board relationship with the CEO
The relationship between a nonprofit’s board of directors and its CEO is vital to the health of the organization and the ability to deliver on its mission.
Open and transparent communication between the board, specifically the Board Chair, builds trust and accountability that is essential for a successful environment.
Tim shares that he is always up front and honest in his relationship with an organization’s CEO because he believes it’s always better for everyone.
“[when I’m speaking with a CEO or other board members], I’m going to ask hard questions. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t believe what [they] are saying. I just believe that I have a level of responsibility as a board member and community member to ask those questions. I ask them from a place of experience, not from a critical place. I’m always curious rather than critical. Really trying to drive that transparency.”
When a board of directors and CEO have a relationship where people have a willingness to engage in tough conversations rather than shy away from transparency, then accountability and trust is inevitably higher, ultimately allowing the organization to be able to do what it needs to do to remain successful.
Synergy between board members and staff members
Another element of a healthy board of directors is that the board is not relying solely on information channeled through the CEO. When a board of directors has relationships with staff members and hears from them regularly, the level of trust accountability is higher.
Allowing board members to have healthy relationships with staff is an inadvertent way of holding CEO’s and organizations accountable because it allows for multiple perspectives to be heard and experienced. Again, it’s all about trust.
CEO Evaluation
Finally, a healthy and thorough CEO evaluation is a great way for a nonprofit board of directors to ensure that the organization is moving in a healthy direction.
While a board should absolutely hold the belief that their CEO is good at what they do and is honest and effective, having a thorough means of tracking progress is always the sign of healthy accountability.
An even higher level of CEO evaluation should include feedback from staff members and community members as often as possible. It’s one thing to evaluate a CEO’s efforts in accordance with the strategic plan and measure their results from a wider outside perspective, but making an effort to also hear from staff members and community members from the bottom up allows a board to confirm success and paint a more well rounded picture of a CEO’s performance.
Recruiting and Retaining Top Board Members
As we’ve heard, it takes high levels of accountability, honesty, and trust building to make a great nonprofit board of directors. But how is it that we build and retain great board members to serve great organizations in the first place?
There are over 10,000 nonprofits in the San Diego area alone. At the very least, that means there’s a healthy need for high-quality and committed board members. There are, of course, the go-to board members who serve regularly on many boards. But there are also many community members who would love to serve on a board of directors yet remain untapped or are unsure of how to get involved.
Tim suggests that it’s time for organizations to break the stereotype of what it means to serve on a board of directors, and get curious about inviting different types of people to serve.
Oftentimes, the first thing a board thinks about when they’re on the hunt for a new board member is money, money, money. They know they need to be sustainable, so they look for high value donors or people who can leverage corporate giving to serve on their boards.
While this is indeed important, it’s not the only thing nonprofits should be looking for when building their board of directors.
Tim encourages organizations to engage in targeted recruitment, aka taking a look at what skill sets might be missing from their day to day operations that could potentially be filled by a new board member. This could be a wide range of skills, such as marketing, finance, or even operations. Finding board members who can share their skills or leverage their network for support in areas outside of solely financial support can help build a well rounded and effective nonprofit board of directors.
Next, Tim suggests embracing young professionals in board recruitment. While younger board members may not have the same financial capacity as established professionals, they’re eager to learn, they often care deeply about getting involved, and they have much less hesitation to ask hard questions and shake things up.
They may not be able to give, or even get, $10,000 a year, but they will drive change and work hard to prove themselves in the role, which is a huge benefit.
By cross pollinating board skills, experience, and backgrounds in the makeup of nonprofit boards, you are much more likely to build a healthy and thriving board that will stand the test of time.
What’s Next
We send a huge thank you to Tim for this powerful discussion chock full of useful insights about nonprofit boards of directors.
Next up in our LinkedIn Live series we’ll be chatting with Kate Lang, Principal of khl consulting about mentoring and coaching in your organization.
Join us on Monday, August 19th at 2pm for Creating Win-Win Moments in Mentorship with Kate Lang.
Until then, you can visit us at the Blair Search Partners website, or contact us if you’re interested in working together.