By Tom Sack

As Executive Director of a nonprofit, you are the driving force behind your mission. You juggle fundraising, program delivery, and community engagement. But what happens when the very body designed to support you – your board of directors – isn’t functioning to its full potential? Are you facing challenges with engagement, oversight, or a lack of skills needed to propel your organization forward? If so, it might be time to consider a board refresh – a strategic process to ensure your board is equipped to be the strong, supportive partner your mission deserves.

Before diving into how to strengthen your board, it’s important to understand what a high-functioning board should be doing and the responsibilities it holds.

Nonprofit boards have three explicit legal duties:

• Duty of Care: Ensuring good stewardship of assets, including facility, people, and goodwill
• Duty of Loyalty: Ensuring that your activities are focused on the mission, and all (staff and board) make decisions in the best interest of the organization
• Duty of Obedience: Ensuring that everyone working with or for the organization obeys applicable laws, bylaws, regulations, and the stated mission

To exert these legal duties, a well-functioning board engages in a variety of activities that include:

• Establishing your vision, mission, and purpose
• Creating a strategy
• Monitoring and managing financial resources
• Hiring, supporting, and reviewing the Executive Director
• Providing governance oversight that includes self-evaluation of the board and its operations
• Recruiting new board members

You expect your board members to:

• Commit their time to board meetings and organizational activities
• Serve as ambassadors for the organization to the community
• Ensure compliance and integrity of the organization around board legal duties
• Provide specific skills to support board duties, such as legal, finance/accounting, HR, management/leadership, planning, facilities, operations, etc.
• Financially support and recruit contributors for the organization

How does your board stand up?

Now that we’ve outlined what an effective board should look like, it’s time to reflect. Is your board aligned with these expectations and responsibilities? If not, start your journey to elevate your board by assessing how your organization and board currently operate. Follow this with a frank dialogue about your observations and ideas with your board Chair to configure the first steps. Ideas to consider:

• Review and refresh your bylaws to include term limits, defined participation metrics for meetings and committees, etc.
• Review/develop effective board development resources and materials for board orientation and training.
• Conduct a skills gap assessment of the board followed by targeted recruitment of new board members.
• Review and restructuring of the committee organization.
• Ensure effective communication with your board. This can include meeting notices, sharing information, posting agenda/materials in a timely basis, informal and regular dialogue with your board members
• Frequent opportunities for fostering communications between you, your executive team with the board, and among board members. These can include social events tied to board meetings and ensuring that board members are invited to organizational receptions and events.
• Conducting a board retreat

Effective board management can be a very rewarding part of your role as Executive Director. By taking these steps, you will elevate your board and empower your organization to thrive.