Building the Ultimate Board: Maximizing Impact

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Building the Ultimate BoardMaximizing Impact

• Kay Sprinkel Grace, Presenter
• WVDO/VAN
• April 24, 2009 830 1030 a.m.
• Hillsboro, Oregon

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What We Will Cover

• Welcome, introductions, overview and participant
  expectations
• Defining an ultimate board or board member
  (discussion)
• AAA Boards and the culture of philanthropy
• Discussion of leadership assets and deficits in
  your organizations and remedies/strategies
• Mission, vision and values and board motivation
• Putting it all together implementing these
  strategies
• Summary and close

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Defining The Ultimate Board and Board Member

• Impossible Dream?
• How does your board measure up?
• Discussion

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Ultimate Board Members Are

• Wise
• Visionary
• Assured that being a board member is one of the
  most enriching experiences theyll ever have
• Aware that service is frustrating at times and
  exhilarating at others
• Engaged in the idea that the role makes demands,
  but gives huge rewards

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Ultimate Board Members Are(2)

• Cognizant of how the experience will connect them
  with people who will add new dimensions to their
  lives
• Confident they are helping provide resources for
  the present, and hope for the future
• What else?
• Has this been your experience?

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How Satisfied Are You or Your Members?

• Three key factors determine long-term
  satisfaction with board service
• How much board members believe in the issues the
  organization is addressing
• How well the values of a board member match those
  espoused by the organization and its leadership
• How motivating the board finds the tasks to which
  theyre assigned (AAA)

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Helping Board Members Evolve

• Motivate them by using the reasons they were
  recruited expertise, connections,
  representation from new constituencies, previous
  experience as a starting point for building
  board service
• Offer information and presentations that will
  expand their knowledge and inspire them
• Help them stay close to the programs to stay
  renewed, and give them great impact stories to
  tell
• Connect them with board members of other
  organizations
• Help them become informed advocates, passionate
  pragmatists

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Qualities of an Effective Board

• Boards that work, work
• Standards for effectiveness that span different
  types of boards
• Clear mission that is revisited often and
  understood
• Shared vision for the organization and its
  potential impact
• Shared values among the board members that align
  with the values of the organization
• Goals and strategies are defined and endorsed

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Collective Wisdom, Individual Initiative

• In addition to individual responsibilities, a
  duty to ensure that the board acts effectively as
  a whole
• Implement decisions once made
• Each individuals role is strengthened when s/he
  participates as part of the group
• Subvert mediocrity

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Board or Bored? Check Out Your Meetings

• Do your board meetings
• Promote a sense of teamwork
• Reinforce the shared vision
• Afford time to share stories and successes
• Connect board members with the work of staff
• Offer stimulation for ideas
• Provide opportunities for social interaction
• Reinforce the sense of the mission and its
  importance in the community?

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Role of the CEO

• Both leader and subject relative to the board
• Drucker A team of equals
• Dangers burnout, feeling unappreciated, boards
  that micromanage rather than govern, too little
  help with fund raising, below market pay scale
• Power sharing what it takes to keep the
  delicate balance
• Clear understanding
• Well defined roles
• Good communication practices
• Mutual respect

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Board Members Resisting the Urge to Micromanage

• Even if you have great management experience,
  dont try to run the organization
  micromanagement is time consuming, frustrating
  and nonproductive
• The boards job is to govern it helps capable
  CEOs flourish

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Resisting the Urge to Micromanage - 2

• Leverage board member skills through positive
  actions
• Strategic planning
• Development and fundraising
• Helping with performance objectives
• Working with the CEO and others on progress,
  planning and other reports
• Other skills or expertise they bring to the Board
  room table

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Gathering the Ultimate Board

• Recruitment and Retention of
• Board Members

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Recruitment

• Work from a recruitment matrix based on the
  composition of the sitting board and the needs
  indicated in your strategic plan
• Continually think about and provide names of
  potential board members
• Recommend, dont recruit (use a process and a
  policy)
• Get to know potential board members
• Reach out to new members
• Model ultimate board membership through your
  actions and involvement

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The Most Important Committee of the Board

• Board Development (Nominating, Committee on
  Trustees, Committee on Directors)
• Determines the future of the organization by its
  selection of board members
• Prepares and implements the policy, plan and
  procedures for board recruitment
• Encourages full board participation in submitting
  names
• Prepares and presents a slate of nominees and
  officers
• Organizes and conducts board orientation
• Builds relationships with board members
• Spearheads annual self-evaluation

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When a Board Member Isnt Working

• A challenging decision to de-enlist
• Be comforted most uninvolved board members are
  looking for a gracious way out
• Annual meetings with CEO, board chair and each
  board member provide opportunities to prevent
  drift or address the issue
• Prune the deadwood, but find out why it is dying

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When Board Members Resign

• Reasons people leave boards
• Management has failed to meet financial
  performance standards
• Mission, vision and values have shifted or not
  been followed
• Other leaders have succumbed to mediocrity or
  ambition (or abused power)
• Time, circumstances or health have changed
• The organization is no longer a priority for them
• Resignation is a last resort

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Performance Factors

• Part content, part style and part dynamics
• Content
• Make good decisions, raise money, champion the
  organization and do the boards work
• Style
• Uniquely your own
• Dynamics
• Working with others to make your board work is
  what makes the quality difference

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The Impact Board Members Have

• Powerful impact
• Organizational capacity increases
• Help create a dream board strong, dynamic and
  well-functioning
• The ultimate board member
• Draws on his/her gifts and talents willingly
• Offers his/her network of contacts appropriately
• Thinks beyond the boundaries when confronted with
  a challenge yet thinks procedurally when the
  organization needs to steady its course

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Creating a AAA Board

• Building a culture of philanthropy

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What is a Culture of Philanthropy?

• An attitude, more than anything involves the
  full development team (Board, staff, non-board
  volunteers, donor champions)
• Organization-wide commitment to mission, vision
  and values and building lasting relationships
• An understanding that each interaction with
  anyone from the community is part of the
  development process

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Culture of Philanthropy? - 2

• Everyone thinks development (of relationships)
• All staff and all board and non-board volunteers
  understand the importance and purpose of your
  work
• Visitors, employees, donors and volunteers feel
  the culture when they are with you

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Defining a AAA Board

• A board with a AAA Rating is one where every
  board member is motivated to be an Ambassador,
  Advocate and/or Asker tapping into board member
  motivation and designing assignments that are
  specific and geared to the board members
  motivation
• Commitment to AAA at the board level spills into
  the entire organization, engaging staff in
  appropriate and supportive roles as well

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How Board Members Help Create a Culture of
Philanthropy

• Ambassadors
• Making friends
• Building relationships
• Advocates
• Making the case (formal and informal)
• Key to solid board recruitment
• Askers
• Making the ask
• Front line fund raisers

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Ambassadors

• A role everyone can (and should) play
• Starring roles in relationship building through
  cultivation of prospective donors and stewardship
  of continuing donor-investors
• Need to be well oriented and coached in the
  message and the facts
• Masters of the elevator speech (and the
  elevator question)
• Catalysts for donor-investor renewal
• Are all of your board members Ambassadors?

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Advocates

• On the golf course or in the car pool these
  individuals are strategic in their information
  sharing
• They may also advocate for your organization on a
  more formal basis with government, another
  organization with which you are partnering or an
  institutional funder
• Are informed not only of the case for support,
  but also are well integrated into your strategic
  plan and vision
• Are well coached on desired results of the
  advocacy and how to handle objections
• Do you have good Advocates on your board?

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Askers

• Enjoy asking
• Well informed, well trained
• Matched with prospective donors (or current
  donor-investors) for maximum possibility of
  success
• Teamed with another board asker or staff leader
• Staff organizes the ask so the Askers focus can
  be on the single purpose of getting (or renewing)
  the gift in a way that builds the relationship
• Benefit from the work of the Ambassadors and
  Advocates
• Do you have Askers on your board?

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The AAA Rating

• Some will do it all (how many AAAs do you
  have?)
• Most will excel at one or two
• Motivation is increased when board members are
  assigned to roles that draw on their skills and
  align with their confidence zone
• Create a AAA program on your board that engages
  each member in a role that contributes to the
  organizations advancement and helps everyone
  feel respected and engaged
• As motivation increases, you will find board
  members moving among all the roles earning
  their AAA!

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Creating a AAA Board andA Culture of Philanthropy

• How to keep the culture and leadership alive!
• Board, staff and non-board volunteer training and
  orientation
• Steady internal marketing and communication about
  the impact of your philanthropy on your programs
• Positive feedback showcase successes and
  encourage people to keep engaging people
  (newsletter, bulletin board, intranet)
• Invest in it retreats, materials

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Creating a AAA Board andA Culture of Philanthropy

• Encourage each other (board and staff) to
• Be a champion and create champions
• Be a leader and create leaders
• Treat each gift as an investment each donor as
  an investor
• Be a steward of investments and investors
• Believe in philanthropy voluntary action for
  the public good based in shared values
• Market your successes in your community

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Tools for Setting Up a AAA Board

• Review of Handouts
• Survey and Summary Grid

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Moving from Transaction to Transformation

• The boards role in donor developmente and
  fundraising
• Keeping the donor-investor in the loop and
  sustaining the relationship

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Transactional Bell Curve The Way We Have
Solicited Gifts
High Impact Philanthropy Kay Sprinkel Grace, Alan
Wendroff
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Transformational Infinity LoopThe Way We Can
Build Relationships
High Impact Philanthropy Kay Sprinkel Grace, Alan
Wendroff
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Maintaining the Relationship Requires Information
About

• Program impact
• Financial performance
• Return on donor investment relative to the
  donors values
• Responsiveness to changes in organization and
  marketplace
• Willingness to plan continually based on shifts
  in the marketplace and to have working systems
  and structures to support change

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Infinity Loop Keeping Your Donor-Investors
Engaged
2. You Tailor Your Case
1. You Make Your Case
3. Your Donor Investors Champion Your Case
High Impact Philanthropy Kay Sprinkel Grace, Alan
Wendroff Adapted by Papilia, 2003
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Positioning Your Organization as a Community
Investment

• 21st century philanthropy including board
  member giving is increasingly done from a sense
  of wanting to invest
• Obligation is not a lasting motivation for giving
• People invest in impact, issues, ideas and want
  involvement
• You are the connectors that move community
  investors into a relationship with your
  organization
• A gift to your organization is really a gift
  through your organization into the community
• People give because you meeting needs, not
  because you have needs (key to investment
  positioning)

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Mission and the Ultimate Board Member

• A keeper of the mission
• Mission is why your organization exists the
  human or societal need you are meeting
• Board members have to master the mission and
  insist on a strong mission statement
• To keep the mission, board members have to be
  able to articulate it and stay connected with the
  mission (mission moments, e.g.)
• Windows vs- mirrors keep the mission fresh

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Mission Example

• Vector Health Programs (medical agency treating
  hands)
• Next to the human face, hands are our most
  expressive feature. We talk with them. We work
  with them. We play with them. We comfort and
  love with them. An injury to the hand affects a
  person professionally and personally. At
  Vector Health Programs, we give people back the
  use of their hands.

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Mission Example

• For a campaign brochure for the Science Museum of
  Minnesota
• From ancient chipped stone tools, to modern
  computer chips, ingenuity is the human signature.
  We seek to understand and mimic a world and
  universe in which we are newcomers, to fly with
  birds, to communicate at the speed of light.
  This scientific quest is written in things we can
  touch, each of them a window to the future. At
  the Science Museum of Minnesota, we touch the
  future, hands on.

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Vision and the Ultimate Board Member

• Leaders share the vision with others
• Vision is larger than the organization it is a
  vision of the community if the organization is
  successful
• Board members must be able to convey the vision
  it is key to engaging other board members and
  donors in the organization
• The boards vision will inspire others, including
  staff

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Head Start Organization in New Orleans

• Our vision is that every child in the greater New
  Orleans area will be ready when it is time to
  start school.

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Values and the Ultimate Board Member

• Board members are champions and guardians of the
  organizations values
• John W. Gardner Affirming values
• Nonprofits are driven by values, so is
  philanthropy important to keep them aligned
• A board members own commitment to values is
  first
• Ensure that marketing and development materials
  reflect the values
• Know how to articulate the values

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Philanthropy
Based in values
Development
Uncovers shared values
Fund Raising
Gives people opportunities to act on their values
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An Expression of Values

• A thank you card sent to institutional and
  individual donors to a special campaign for a
  university library flooding emergency
• Your gift to the Stanford University Libraries
  helps us assemble the sources, the arguments, the
  hypotheses, the wisdom and controversies of the
  ages. For all those here, and those yet to come,
  please accept our gratitude.
• Michael Keller, Librarian

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Stepping Up to the Challenge

• Reflect on what you have heard and learned, and
  pick one idea out that changed your thinking and
  be prepared to share with the others
• Then, working as organizational teams, list 3 5
  ideas you have about how you can work more
  effectively together. You may select tasks from
  the AAA survey or use them as a guide.
• Be prepared to tell others what you are planning
  to do.

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My Closing Thoughts

• Potential for change and impact is huge

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The Impact Board Members Have

• Powerful impact
• Organizational capacity increases
• Help create a dream board strong, dynamic and
  well-functioning
• The ultimate board member
• Draws on his/her gifts and talents willingly
• Offers his/her network of contacts appropriately
• Thinks beyond the boundaries when confronted with
  a challenge yet thinks procedurally when the
  organization needs to steady its course

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Druckers thoughts.

• The leaders who work most effectively, it seems
  to me, never say "I." And that's not because they
  have trained themselves not to say "I." They
  don't think "I." They think "we" they think
  "team." They understand their job to be to make
  the team function. They accept responsibility and
  don't sidestep it, but "we" gets the credit. This
  is what creates trust, what enables you to get
  the task done.
• Peter Drucker

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John W. Gardners Thought.

• Most important, leaders can conceive and
  articulate goals that lift people out of their
  petty preoccupations and unite them in pursuit of
  objectives worthy of their best efforts.
• John W. Gardner

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Building the Ultimate BoardMaximizing Impact

• Kay Sprinkel Grace, Presenter
• kaysprinkelgrace_at_aol.com
• 415-831-2923