CausePlanet Blog

Bestselling author Dan Pink is asking you to call it what it is.

More specifically, your work. If in your job you spend any time persuading, convincing and influencing others, you are in the business of moving others herunterladen. Frankly, he explains, you’re selling. And if you’re selling, it’s important to recognize major developments over the years that have changed how the best people are moving others. Through a first-of-its-kind study and a collection of a broad spectrum of examples, Pink has thoughtfully made the case for rethinking sales. You will learn how to be, what to do and how to put all the pieces into play in his new book To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others herunterladen.

There are a broad variety of strategies at play in the nonprofit sector when executives are in the midst of convincing, persuading or influencing their boards, staffs and constituents. Some may be using old school techniques, and perhaps others draw on intuition. No matter what the convenient tactic at hand, a strong case can be made for formalizing our approach to moving others and understanding what motivates herunterladen. It is, after all, the business we’re in.

Three truths about moving others today

Nonprofit leaders constantly find themselves asking how to move a donor to give, how to move a board member to lead, how to move the staff to act. Understanding today’s truths about Pink’s sales ideas such as Attunement, Clarity and Buoyancy is especially relevant due to the sector’s increased presence of competition and general misunderstanding of sales lens studioen.

Attunement

For example, Attunement honors the knowledge and goals of the buyer, jettisoning the old sales adage, “ABC” or “Always be closing.” Pink begins the new “ABC” with the first word, Attunement, or “the ability to bring one’s actions and outlook into harmony with other people and with the context you’re in. Think of it as operating the dial on a radio. It’s the capacity to move up and down the band as circumstances demand, locking in on what’s being transmitted, even if those signals aren’t immediately clear or obvious.” He also calls this “perspective-taking.”

Pink describes three ways to become more attune with your buyer/client/funder:

Increase your power by reducing it bild bei instagram herunterladen. Through several social science studies Pink relates, it was found that people who perceived greater power became less attune with others’ points of views. And the inverse is true of those who perceive less power. Because a salesperson no longer holds all the information and therefore, the power, s/he must rely on taking the other’s perspective and giving up power in order to move someone windows 7 updates.

Use your head as much as your heart. Perspective-taking is not the same as empathy. Pink describes perspective-taking as a cognitive action where you imagine what someone else is thinking. Empathy means you feel for the other or try to imagine what another person is feeling. Empathy can cause you to toss aside your own interests, as you may feel too deeply, whereas perspective-taking can help both sides achieve their goals tolino buchen. Therefore, perspective-taking with a cognitive focus on people, their relationships and context is more effective to move people.

Mimic strategically. Pink stresses that mimicking your buyer can help you negotiate better. Mimicry builds connections, trust and understanding. However, it must be treated with care so it is not obvious dietrichs herunterladen. Otherwise, it can backfire. Pink also discusses how touching (e.g., on the arm) can help build connections and foster negotiations.

Pink’s choice for nonprofits

In addition to attunement, Pink explores many other essential principles surrounding the notion of moving others. We asked him which one he felt was most appropriate for nonprofits for our Page to Practice summary and have excerpted here weit film herunterladen.

CausePlanet: Nonprofit leaders constantly find themselves convincing or persuading others to support their causes. Is there a principle from your book that you feel stands out as especially appropriate for nonprofit executives to apply?

Dan Pink: Make it personal. There’s an array of research showing that abstract and conceptual appeals (“Increase vaccination rates”) are far less effective than specific and concrete ones (“Vaccinate this child or she risks dying of malaria”) applaus herunterladen. And the principle goes well beyond fundraising. There’s some great research from Israel, for instance, showing that radiologists who see both a scan and a photo of the patient whose scan it is spend more time and are more accurate in their evaluations. The same is largely true for leadership. When leaders put themselves on the line and when others see they’re real people, their leadership effectiveness rises substantially.

For those of you who find yourselves in the business of moving others (and Pink argues virtually everyone is in this business), consider how attune you are with your prospects and then ask yourself how you can make your appeals personal. Stay tuned in the upcoming weeks as we discuss Pink’s observations about clarity, buoyancy and other interview questions we had for him.

See also:

The Influential Fundraiser

It’s Not Just Who You Know

Yours for the Asking

As my friend Rich Male likes to say, “Leadership is one of the most talked about and least understood ideas in the nonprofit world.” There are volumes of books on leadership, seminars to take and discussions to have. But real leadership development requires action and practice, and you can’t get that from a book.

For a few years now as part of my volunteer work, I’ve been training prospective board members, mostly on the basic legal requirements and top ten responsibilities etsy presets. We go through the lists, share examples and discuss what meetings can be like. After we’ve covered all the conventional information, I share the biggest thing I’ve learned about being on a board: it’s the best leadership development program available, particularly right now. The tough decisions and thoughtfulness required of boards are ramped up due to the financial crisis in which we find ourselves.

Here are a five valuable things board members can learn about leadership:

1 herunterladen. You cannot do it alone

Boards are set up to have multiple members for a reason. Better decision-making requires more than one mind. In order for ideas and decisions to move forward, a group consensus needs to emerge among board members. You learn to gather the right information, communicate well with others and advocate. Part of being a good leader is sharing a way to move forward and mobilizing those around you to join in microsoft office 2016 free. You will also learn to listen and gain a respect for the opinions and thoughts of others.

2. There is no passing the buck

Boards are the final decision-makers for organizations, which is a huge responsibility. On high- functioning boards, the trustees don’t shy away from tough decisions. They gather data, consider the options and then make the best decision given the information plant images for free. This is not always a fun or pretty process.
Laying off staff is heartbreaking, but sometimes necessary. Declining one opportunity to develop another can be difficult. However, all leaders are required to make tough choices, and learning to do this is both an art and a science. Boards offer opportunities to make these decisions and learn from their effects nacon revolution pro 3 profiles.

3. You get to witness the good and the bad, and learn from both

During my time of service to organizations, I have had the privilege to watch some outstanding board members and chairs and learned a lot. From the way they conducted meetings, communicated with other members and prioritized issues for the board, these great leaders showed grace, humility and compassion wish app downloaden. I also remember the ineffective board members and how they acted or didn’t act. Both types of experiences are important as you think about your own actions and how you want to lead.

4. Develop your own style

Boards offer opportunities to step up the leadership ladder. By taking on the role of committee chair, you can develop your talents while contributing to the larger work of the organization, and learn to drive agendas and important projects for the organization microsoft word download chip kostenlos vollversion. Reflecting on your success and failures during this process provides strong feedback you can use as you work your way forward in other leadership positions, either on a board or in other arenas.

5 soy luna your world. Develop leaders who will come after you

Succession is tantamount to board effectiveness, just as it is in leadership. You will not be the leader forever if the program or project you lead is to continue. Taking time to develop the next leader provides a chance to encourage the best in others and transfer skills that help you refine your own attributes videos mit edge herunterladen. It will also ensure the future success of the organization, which is a positive outcome for all leaders.

In order for the board experience to be truly worthwhile, you need to select an area about which you are passionate and to which you are committed. Simply joining a board to gain experience would be a somewhat shallow experience. However, as with most volunteer experiences, you will get just as much out of it as you offer to the organization how can I download minecraft for free.

This treasure trove of leadership experience on a board is available to you for the small price of financial support for the board’s organization and some good intentions toward your work. It sounds like a pretty good deal to me.

See also:

The Ultimate Board Member’s Book

The Board Game

Super Boards

The Practitioner’s Guide to Governance as Leadership

Image credits: fssba.org, prayerforthenation.com, dreamtemplate.com

“A positive attitude is essential. If you don’t think so wait until you encounter someone with a really bad one and then try to work together to achieve certain goals,” says Super Boards author, William R music maker herunterladen. Mott.

Many of us spend countless hours working with the boards that oversee our nonprofits. These trustees hold our nonprofit futures in their hands. Then why don’t we spend more time focusing on who are the best people  to sit at the board table? Bill Mott answers this question and many others with a fresh perspective on what makes a board exceptional in his latest book update für whatsapp herunterladen.

Great board recruitment is much like interviewing for paid leadership positions

One of the Super Boards chapters I appreciated in particular was Mott’s recommended interactions for recruitment—steps that many nonprofits seem to bypass in lieu of a single meeting with one board member. Recruiting a board member is much like interviewing someone for a paid leadership position in your organization. If selected, this board prospect will have a say in fulfilling your mission and influencing your strategic initiatives team viewer mac. It makes sense to give board recruitment the same attention paid positions receive. A thorough board interview process should entail getting to know the candidate in different contexts and through the eyes of key people on your staff.

Compatibility

Mott suggests these ways to “determine the compatibility of a prospect with the organization and staff”:

1) Invite the person to attend an event photoshop downloaden op laptop.

2) Seek the candidate’s assistance or input on a committee.

3) Invite the candidate to meet other board members, the CEO, and the development and marketing staff.

4) Offer a tour of the facilities.

All these efforts sound simple but ask yourself how many of your new board recruits have completed these four interactions before sidling up to your board table face app kostenlos herunterladen iphone. When completed, these steps should avoid bringing in a board member that has no connection to the organization or one the organization does not know at all, both dangerous options.

Attitude

While compatibility is essential to enlist successful board members, Mott addresses the importance of one quality that trumps the others: attitude neues google earth kostenlos downloaden. There is a quotation that says, “Attitude is like a price tag: it shows how valuable you are.” What price are we paying for bad attitudes on our boards? Conversely, how much (immeasurable) value do we gain by possessing great attitudes on our boards? In our CausePlanet interview, I asked Bill to elaborate on attitude and recruitment:

CausePlanet: You mention, “The key in having board members who exhibit a positive attitude is to recruit them.” What suggestions do you have for the board members who are the recruiters herunterladen?

Mott: Perhaps the most important committee of any nonprofit board is the committee on trustees. This group is charged with recruiting, training, educating and evaluating the board. My experience is that a positive attitude trumps so many other traits zirkusmusik kostenlos downloaden. Someone who has a positive outlook is usually someone who will enjoy whatever he or she does–including serving on a governing board. When the committee on trustees is recruiting new board members, one of the character traits it should encourage is a positive attitude. Not someone who is necessarily just agreeable, but someone who recognizes the importance of being supportive and encouraging. This is the kind of leadership that inspires others to do their best by being their best bilder von icloud herunterladen.

Eighty-nine percent fail because of bad attitudes

If we return to the analogy that compares recruiting board members to hiring paid leadership positions, it’s not hard to find endorsements of Bill Mott’s emphasis on attitude. In fact, Mark Murphy, the author of Hiring for Attitude, is the founder and CEO of Leadership IQ, a top-rated provider of cutting-edge research and leadership training that has consulted more than 100,000 leaders from virtually every industry and half the Fortune 500 kinox.to stream.

According to a Forbes article, 89 percent of the time new hires fail because of attitudinal reasons and only 11 percent of the time due to skill. The Forbes article reports, “The attitudinal deficits that doomed these failed hires included a lack of coachability, low levels of emotional intelligence, motivation and temperament.” Using our analogy, we can logically apply these statistics to board “hires” and how attitude affects performance.

Where do we find great attitudes?

Additionally, when Murphy was asked by Forbes where companies are finding new hires with the right attitudes, he said, “Companies are not getting high performers from the usual sources. They’re hiring in, what we call, the ‘Underground Job Market.’ According to our latest research (outlined in Hiring for Attitude), companies are finding their best people through employee referrals and networking. They have started to realize that the high performers they already have fit the attitude they want and that these are the people they should be asking to help find more people just like them.”

Murphy’s description of the “underground job market” is a welcome signal to ask your current board members who already exhibit great compatibility and attitude who they might recommend as a winning board candidate. When you land these referrals from your pool of top-shelf board members, remember to apply Mott’s four recommended interactions so you can put the “organizational fit” to the test.

Watch for future installments about Super Boards by Bill Mott when we’ll discuss how to overcome some of the most damaging behaviors exhibited by board members.

See also:

The Ultimate Board Member’s Book

A Fundraising Guide for Nonprofit Board Members

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Occasionally, a board member needs to be removed from the board herunterladen. In some cases, a conflict of interest or unethical behavior may be grounds to remove an individual from the board. In other cases, the behavior of a board member may become so obstructive that the board is prevented from functioning effectively good morning pictures proverbs free download.

The best boards often have strongly felt disagreements and heated arguments vektor dateien herunterladen. Challenging groupthink and arguing for an unpopular viewpoint are not grounds for getting rid of a board member. But if a board member consistently disrupts meetings or is otherwise destructive and demoralizing, it may be appropriate to consider removing the individual from the board:

Personal intervention

One-to-one intervention by the board president or other board leadership is a less formal solution to managing problem board members huawei p9 lite apps herunterladen. If a board member has failed to attend several meetings in a row, or has become an impediment to the board’s work, the board president can meet informally with the board member in question medieval 2 total war kostenlos downloaden vollversion. The conversation can occur in person or on the telephone; the board president can specifically request a resignation. Examples:

“I respect your strong opinion that we have made the wrong decision about moving the office gratis downloaden youtube. But we can’t continue debating the issue. If you don’t feel you can wholeheartedly help us try to make the decision a success, I’d like you to consider leaving the board.”

“I suspect this is a time when it’s just not possible for you to get to the meetings and participate as fully as I’m sure you woud like amazon video herunterladen pc. I’m wondering if it would be better if we released you from your board obligations . . . what would you think about my sending you an email confirming your resignation due to lack of time?”

“I’m having a hard time managing board meetings with your frequent interruptions and I am worried about losing board members due to the kinds of criticisms you make of them in meetings kun je whatsapp download op ipad. I think it would be best if you would take a break from the board . . . you could resign now, and later, when there’s a different board president, talk with him or her about your re-joining the board.”

Leave of absence

Make it possible for individuals to take a leave of absence from the board if they have health, work, or other reasons why they cannot participate fully during the current term ballermann 6 film for free. A board member can take, for instance, a 6-month “disability leave,” or a 3-month “busy with new job” leave.

You can either keep the person on the board formally (but not expect them at meetings) or you can have them resign for purposes of determining a quorum video from instagram download ios. Either way the time on leave counts towards their board term; otherwise someone who takes a year’s leave can end up being on the board for much longer than is appropriate.

Suggesting a leave of absence to a board member who is, for example, failing to do tasks he or she agreed to do, offers a gracious exit and allows the board to assign tasks elsewhere.

Term limits

Most boards (62%) establish not only board terms but also term limits, such as two-year terms with a limit of three consecutive terms. In such a situation, a board member cannot serve more than six consecutive years without a “break” from the board. After a year off the board, an individual can once again be elected to the board. Proponents feel that term limits provide a non-confrontational way to ease ineffective board members off the board. Opponents of term limits believe that, with proper board leadership, errant board members can be guided toward either improving their behavior or quietly resigning from the board. (The difficult part is ensuring “proper board leadership” over many years.) Whether or not you have term limits, place a person’s term right next to their name on the board roster; otherwise it’s too easy for everyone to forget how long they’ve been on the board or when their term ends. Example: Jack Moon (Term 2 ends January 2012)

Impeachment

Your organizational by-laws should describe a process by which a board member can be removed by vote, if necessary. For example, in some organizations a board member can be removed by a two-thirds vote of the board at a regularly scheduled board meeting.

If you do not have a way to vote out board members, add this now to the bylaws, not when there’s “a problem with a first and last name.”

See also in Blue Avocado:

• What to Do When You Really, Really Disagree with a Board Decision
• What to Do With Board Members Who Don’t Do Anything
• Board Terms: Try 1 Year Then 3 Years Then 2 Years

See also:

Nonprofit Sustainability: Making Strategic Decisions for Financial Viability

This article is adapted from one in the Best of the Board Cafe, Second Edition, by Jan Masaoka.

Image credits: wikihow, managementtrends, info.legalzoom

Instead of focusing only on how board members can raise individual donations (or not!), think more broadly and effectively about how board members can support the key aspects of your organization’s business/revenue strategy:

In the quest for funds, there is no shortage of advice given to nonprofits animiertes aquarium als hintergrundbild herunterladen. Start a social enterprise! Get corporate donations! Raffle a house! Perhaps the most frequent and consistent advice: focus the board on getting major gifts; in fact, recruit a strong fundraising board that can get major gifts spotify lieder schneller downloaden.

But pursuing a new funding stream for which you may not have the right people and competencies already is usually not the best place to start. Instead, we recommend you see how you can boost and leverage the funding streams and people you already have in place doc datei herunterladen.

Let’s imagine a community center with five areas of activity:

1. An after-school tutoring program
2. Memberships from neighborhood residents
3. Facility rentals (to basketball teams, Girl Scouts, etc.)
4. Annual Neighborhood Congress Day
5. Organizing neighbors on issues such as zoning, traffic, police presence, economic development, housing

We have to consider which are the most important programs for the community center abba noten kostenlosen. The board and management team can discuss:

• Which programs add the greatest value to our neighborhood?
• What do we need to do to maintain our largest revenue sources montagsbilder lustig kostenlos herunterladen?
• What do we need to do to grow the type of revenue that will support our most important programs?

In this community center, the answers are:

• The Neighborhood Congress and community organizing are the heart of the organization—we are a neighborhood council first and foremost taschenlampe herunterladen handy.
• But in terms of financial support, we are a tutoring center.
• We need to have connections to government funders and foundations, as these are our biggest funding sources is whatsapp downloaden gratis.
• As a neighborhood council, memberships and small business sponsorships are important ways to stay close to our constituents.

Organizing the board around the business strategy, then, means something like this:

• We need two board members who can and will work proactively to stay in touch with government officials (both elected and administrative) and work to keep our county funding organizer calendar download for free.
• We need two board members to help with foundation fundraising — whether making introductions, writing proposals or joining staff in meetings with foundation representatives daten von youtube herunterladen. We will try to get foundation funding for neighborhood issues but also realize sometimes it won’t happen.
• We need two board members who can and will actively recruit members and local merchant sponsors overleaf herunterladen.

Each pair can then develop a work plan for the year. For example, one board member might agree to set up a lunch for herself with the executive director, a city council member and someone from the mayor’s office to tour the neighborhood. Another might say he will stop into one local merchant each month to talk about the center.

This modest process can result in board members who are capable of supporting the key elements of revenue strategy and just as important, are organized to do so. In addition, it provides a platform where board members of all economic means can contribute meaningfully to the organization’s finances.

Rather than a vague and intimidating dictum like, “Every board member has to raise money,” this approach focuses on the organization’s real-life revenue streams and mobilizes board members in support of a strategy for sustainability.

Special thanks to Jan Masaoka and Blue Avocado for this article, which was originally posted on February 9. 2012.

See also:

The Ultimate Board Member’s Book

A Fundraising Guide for Nonprofit Board Members

Should board members be required to give?

Just tell me: What’s the best way to raise money?

Because so much of what board members do as a group is behind the scenes, we often forget the supremely important role they play in governing our nonprofits rockstar games herunterladen. Boards are a tricky aspect of leadership when you’re the executive director or CEO. When your board is ineffective, you have to succeed in spite of its mediocre performance 7 zip kostenlosen. When your board is exceptional, it can multiply your efforts tenfold. Ironically in either case, the board still oversees your organization. However, with Kay Grace’s Ultimate Board Member’s Book guidelines, you can have an impact on whether your board is a help or hindrance videos from 3sat mediathek.

Last week, in our live interview with Kay Sprinkel Grace, a participant asked “How do you ensure that a board is as equally concerned with fundraising as they are with governance?”

Define boundaries

Grace answered this question beautifully by addressing the importance of defining roles for a board member TV shows. “Too often I see board members drift into management areas rather than governance or fundraising, creating conflict with the staff,” says Grace microsoft office outlook 2007 gratisen. It’s up to the board development committee (see Grace’s discussion on this committee) to explain what the boundaries are when someone is recruited and trained herunterladen. In other words, “This is your job as a board member and this is the management team’s job…” says Grace.

Keep them inspired

Secondly, keeping board members on task with governance and fundraising is a matter of keeping them inspired zum herunterladen filme. Mission-level work and policy setting are heady tasks, and without any inspiration, it’s easy to see why some members float into undesignated areas inpa ediabas 7.3 german free of charge. “Board members join you because they care about your organization or feel a connection with someone they respect on the board,” Kay adds. It’s up to you to keep them inspired so they feel invigorated to raise funds as well as focus on governance, policy setting, or budgeting musik downloaden für auto.

Mission moments

If instead, you dazzle them during their recruitment process and leave them to the business of governing without regularly bolstering them with “mission moments,” you’re asking the board member to find their own inspiration kartenspiele canasta kostenlosen. Left to themselves, they’ll gravitate toward the familiar, which are usually management matters. Mission moments are simply a time during the meetings when important mission-related anecdotal information is shared to inspire and motivate, says Grace.

Get them comfortable with the task of fundraising

Another surefire way of driving your board members to find tasks outside of their job description is to shoulder them with fundraising without any input. Without any say in how they are involved in development, some board members will identify another focus that isn’t necessarily helpful to the board objectives.

AAA fundraising

Kay Sprinkel Grace introduces a terrific way for addressing every level of comfort and expertise with fundraising at the board level in her book, The AAA Way to Fundraising Success. The process begins with asking your board to choose from three different roles in fundraising: 1) Ambassador, 2) Advocate, and 3) Asker. Then you spread the choices your board members have made on a matrix and develop a plan based on who will ask, advocate or serve as ambassador. “Because board members have chosen the role they want to play, their willingness to fulfill the identified role is amazing,” says Grace. Grace’s number one rule in this AAA program is that everyone is at least an ambassador.

What results from defining roles, keeping members inspired and implementing this AAA process is a board that is equally confident with raising money as they are with governing the organization.

See also:

The AAA Way to Fundraising Success

The Ultimate Board Member’s Book

The Nonprofit Leadership Team

I have been asked numerous times by clients to describe what a “good board” looks like. I understand the point of the question–what is the right size, what are the right committees, etc. But asking what a board should look like misses the more important point, which is this: a good board is defined not by what it looks like but rather how it thinks and behaves upc app herunterladen.

Based on my work as both a consultant and board chair for a large nonprofit, I have concluded a “good board” exhibits three essential and interrelated characteristics.

1.      A good board is one in which form follows function. “Do we need a marketing committee?” is the poster question for this phenomenon seitenen. The answer is, of course, “It depends.” Specifically, it depends on a) what your organization is trying to accomplish strategically and b) what you need from your board to make it happen. I have seen valuable time wasted trying to fill committee slots simply because the committee exists on paper. If the people were in place, one should ask, what would we have them do herunterladen? If there is no compelling answer, chances are your board has been wasting energy trying to create a function to fill an existing form.

2.      A good board is one whose work is aligned with the life stage of the organization. As we know from the excellent work on “nonprofit lifecycles” from Susan Kenney Stevens, nonprofits move through predictable stages of development paint 3d kostenlos downloaden. However, not all aspects of the organization move forward in lockstep. Usually, it is the board role that lags behind the evolution of the program model and the administrative systems. One key consideration for the board of a maturing organization is to have an honest discussion about how far removed from the “inner circle” its members are drawn funny videos for mobile phone. As a start-up or young organization, the board is made up of people who have a direct personal connection to the mission and/or are drawn to the charisma of the founder. The work of the board at this stage consists of gathering together, rolling up the collective sleeves and pitching in to get the work done. Unfortunately, some boards unwittingly create a mismatch of interest and skill by retaining the same board orientation long after the other aspects of the organization have settled izip herunterladen. The board that is able to reorient its work and perhaps even repopulate its committees to support the emerging needs of the organization is positioned to become a good board.

3.      A good board is one that values principles over practices liederen gratis youtube. I have written about the shortcomings of a “best practices” approach, particularly when too much credence is given to merely mimicking the practices of other organizations. (The short version of the argument is that things work in a particular context because of everything else that is going on within that context). By contrast, effectiveness principles focus on the desired ends and the manner in which those ends are pursued minecraft vollversion kostenlosen windows 10.

For me, it boils down to three key principles:

Effective Oversight. Oversight means striking the balance between trust and verification. Financial crises don’t develop overnight but over time. Too often, boards are forced to respond in crisis mode because they didn’t ask the right questions, didn’t ask the right questions soon enough or simply fell into the trap of fraudulence because they didn’t verify the identity of the external element with the help of a company like Fully-Verified amazon prime videos auf den pc herunterladen. Like the frog in the boiling water, a board that doesn’t pay close attention to the elements in the environment may discover too late things are getting hot.

Open Communication. I have been involved in more than one contentious discussion about the “need to know.” Here’s the deal: there are no degrees or ranks when it comes to board authority herunterladen. Anything important enough for the board chair or executive committee to know is important enough for every board member to know. Granted, sensitive personnel issues may be better kept under a tight lid. But this is the exception. Nothing is more disengaging for board members than the presence of a pocket of power (and information is power) within the board.

Strict Accountability. Simply put, some boards are just too darn nice to each other. Yes, the board was relying on the resource development committee to plan the upcoming event. And it didn’t get done. But they are very busy people…you shouldn’t expect too much from them. Really? To quote a former client, “Board members should be expected to bleed for the organization.” If you sign up, you are expected to perform. Period.

When it comes to board “goodness,” there really is no there. People change, issues emerge and priorities shift. But focusing on these three characteristics will allow boards to maintain consistency of purpose even in the midst of changing structures.

See also:

A Fundraising Guide for Nonprofit Board Members

The Ultimate Board Member’s Book

The Board Game

Many nonprofit executives, development officers and board members are eager to recruit business people from diverse backgrounds to their boards because they think business people will come in and solve their financial and strategic challenges herunterladen. Other nonprofit leaders are more circumspect about recruiting business people to the board. Who’s correct–the believers or the cynics? Both.

Here are the six WORST reasons to recruit business people to your nonprofit board of directors:

Assume they’ll give you lots of money deutsche bahn ticket herunterladen.

Assume they’ll get their corporations to give you money.

Assume they’ll raise money from rich friends and colleagues.

Assume they’ll bring business expertise to the table Forza street free download.

Assume they’ll be dedicated board members.

Assume they’ll be passionate about the mission.

Here are the six BEST reasons to recruit business people to your nonprofit board of directors:

Expect they’ll give you lots of money musik kostenlos herunterladen auf handy.

Expect they’ll get their corporations to give you money.

Expect they’ll raise money from rich friends and colleagues.

Expect they’ll bring business expertise to the table lieder von youtube downloaden mac.

Expect they’ll be dedicated board members.

Expect they’ll be passionate about the mission.

Let me explain.

Having trained and placed several hundred business executives on global, national and regional nonprofit boards, I can attest to the tremendous value they provide to the boards they serve herunterladen. In fact, the vast majority of these board members have ascended to board leadership positions, including serving as board chairs and officers and heading up capital campaigns, strategic alliances and other game-changing initiatives antivirus scanner kostenlos download.

The keys to getting business people on board who will actually bring the resources, business acumen, dedication and passion the board needs in order to advance the organization are the following:

establishing a purposeful and thoughtful match between the board candidate and your organization, based on what the candidate has and wants to offer and what your board needs herunterladen.

having candid conversations with the board candidate about the financial and strategic challenges facing your organization and how the board hopes she or he in particular can add value–in very specific terms, such as financial contributions, fundraising, expertise, time and introductions word kostenlos herunterladen studenten.

understanding what about the organization is compelling to the particular candidate and making sure the role you need and expect him or her to play will be personally meaningful and rewarding mailbox nachricht downloaden.

organizing the board so that board members can engage meaningfully and productively and making sure there is adequate staff support for the board to deliver.

Boards and board members become disillusioned and disappointed with each other when expectations are not clear upfront, the board environment is too dysfunctional for board members to engage productively, and there is a failure in leadership to advance forward momentum.

Boards and board members thrive when expectations are established and agreed upon at the outset, the board is organized for efficiency and effectiveness, the staff supports the board in implementing its work, and the board chair and CEO work in partnership to engage the board in maximizing its potential.

The best boards work in collaboration with the CEO to envision the organization’s greater potential, determine and commit to core programs for high impact, establish a sustainable revenue model, and work in concert to achieve strategic and financial success. The best boards are comprised of people from diverse backgrounds and perspectives who together have a deeper understanding of the issues they are addressing and the capacity to find the best solutions. Click here for more specific information and articles on building quality boards.

Boards that recruit and engage business people purposefully and thoughtfully will gain the full benefit of their business acumen, passion, commitment, financial resources and introductions. And a board comprised of people from diverse backgrounds with the will and the might to succeed will propel the organization to achieve its greatest potential in service to the community.

See also:

Leveraging Good Will

The Nonprofit Leadership Team

Leaders Make the Future

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Unlike business partnerships, which are usually grounded in equal shares or investments, the partnership of a nonprofit board and the executive is much more ambiguous windows 10 64 bit iso datei herunterladen. Although one is a governing entity (the board) and the other is a management entity, the two functions often overlap, blurring the distinction between the two epson drucker software herunterladen.

Boards, in their zeal to perform their oversight duties, may unintentionally (or intentionally) try to direct program activities, the function of management herunterladen. Miscommunication between the two entities can cause friction within the organization, which ultimately can hurt programs and derail the mission of the organization audio downloaden van website. Maintaining compatibility and cooperation is essential for operations to run smoothly and for an organization to achieve its mission.

If you feel like this article introduction needs to be read at the beginning of each of your board meetings to keep everyone on task, perhaps you should learn more about The Nonprofit Leadership Team: Building the Board-Executive Director Partnership by Fisher Howe ulead photo express deutsch kostenlos downloaden. Even high functioning boards will find Howe’s strategies for improving the relationship of board chair, board and executive director insightful.

Fisher Howe is focused on the working partnership between the three (chair, board, and ED) and how they can join forces to lead an effective and healthy organization tycoon spiele kostenlosen vollversion. Howe covers every aspect of leading an organization as a team, from what the board expects of the executive, and vice versa, to how the Leadership Team deals with the specific responsibilities and challenges inherent in the functions of both governance and management affinity publisher herunterladen.

This book explores the nature of leadership in nonprofit organizations and looks at how leadership can be most effective in serving an organization conjugation of download. Author Howe begins with three underlying propositions:

The board “owns” the organization; it is accountable for everything the organization does netflixen oude ipad. That is their governance and fiduciary role. The board leads.

The strength of the board—and, therefore, the strength of the organization as a whole—is directly related to the effectiveness of the chair as a leader estv tarife herunterladen.

The executive is the manager in charge of the staff and responsible for carrying out the organization’s programs. The executive also leads.

Although nonprofits differ in size and purpose, some fundamental principles of leadership can be found in all of them. This book looks at those principles as they relate to three dimensions of leadership: the personal qualities of leadership, the partnership roles of the board, including its chair, and the executive, including the staff, in fulfilling the different functions of governance and management; and the special challenges that face the Leadership Team.

The book is divided into three parts. Part One looks at the qualities of shared leadership in terms of what the board expects of the executive; what the executive expects of the board and individual board members; and the personal dynamics among them.

Part Two identifies six functions of governance and six functions of management, and looks at the partnership roles of board and executive in each of eight shared functions of management and governance (hiring and evaluating the executive; the mission, vision and strategic planning; program direction, oversight and support; financial management and governance; marketing, promotion and public relations; fundraising; enhancing board effectiveness; and administrative activities).

Finally, Part Three looks at the challenges that confront the Leadership Team, including how to tackle evaluation of organizational performance; how to deal effectively with today’s information and communication technologies; and the impact of new governance and management forms.

See also:

Death by Meeting

World Cafe: Shaping Our Futures Through Conversations That Matter

Leveraging Good Will

Are you sighing just from having read the title of this article? Why does this topic make us all feel so tired?

Virtually everyone agrees that boards should conduct performance reviews of executive directors (EDs or CEOs) netflix filmen 4g. Even so, the predominant practice is neglect, and the predominant feeling is resentment. The neglect comes from the board: only 45% of nonprofit CEOs have reviews, reported CompassPoint’s recent Daring to Lead 2011 study. Resentment comes from the executives, who are too often either resentful of the review process or even more likely and paradoxically, disgusted with the board for not conducting one strava segmentenen.

And the agreement that ED evaluations should happen forestalls us from reflecting on why. In fact, in contrast to most performance appraisals, the key goal of ED evaluations is not performance improvement, but instead: a) the chance to reflect on the performance of the entire organization (not just the individual), and b) to spark a calibration of expectations and goals between the ED and the board.

Board evaluations of ED performance are radically different from any other type of performance review and must be thought of differently. For example:

While most staff reviews are between two individuals, the ED evaluation is a collective, committee review of an individual whatsapp auf dem pc herunterladen.

An ED review appropriately is more about the organization’s achievements rather than about the individual’s completion of a series of tasks.

Board members seldom (if ever) see the ED other than at board or committee meetings and are typically highly unfamiliar with either the building blocks or the nuances of the internal and external leadership roles that EDs play.

But despite these obstacles, there’s a firm belief that ED evaluations “just should be done!”

But while board members drag their feet, many EDs are seething.

“If I didn’t make them give me an evaluation,” fumed one former executive director, “I would never have gotten a raise.”

Many executives feel similarly: the route to a raise — or sometimes simply to recognition for the organization as a whole — requires going through an evaluation which will document the strong performance of the organization and the board’s approval, support, and affection for the executive.

When board members are unhappy with the CEO

On the flip side, an all-too-common scenario unfolds when a board is dissatisfied with its executive and some board members raise the question of termination. “But we haven’t done an evaluation!” other board members cry, and so first an evaluation process must be devised and then implemented.

We know one national nonprofit at which the board chair — faced with nearly instant dissatisfaction with a new executive — felt obligated to initiate a thorough process “to be fair to her [the executive] and to get all of us on the same page.” Worthy aims, but during the year it took to complete that process and fire the executive, the organization’s reserves were squandered and its reputation was damaged.

Executives who know they are in trouble often stall the evaluation process by making it too complicated or by continually calling the process into question. They even often succeed in delaying the evaluation until the disapproving board members have given up and left the board.

Not mainly about performance improvement

We know that many board members have relatively little appetite for ED performance appraisals. But maybe it’s not just laziness. Too often boards undertake executive review only when they are unhappy, or even only when they are considering termination and want to establish a paper trail for doing so.

Second, there is often uncertainty about how to conduct them.

And third, hidden reason for the lack of appetite for executive evaluation is that board members suspect that such a review won’t change the flawed behaviors of an otherwise adequate (or even superior) executive, nor will it lead to a sharp turnaround for a seriously underperforming executive. So why do it?

Going back to the limited view of the ED’s work that board members have, it’s not surprising that the review process isn’t an effective vehicle for the kind of coaching and feedback that often occurs in other performance reviews.  This is true even when evaluation teams try to conduct interviews and seek input from members of the staff and others who work with the ED. Since board members only observe directly a fraction of the ED’s work, they can only judge or play an effective coaching role when it comes to the ED’s relationship with the board.

When asked what positives came out of their evaluations by the board (other than a raise or praise), most executives struggled to find an answer, and only a couple could think of an instance in which the review resulted in changes or improvements in their own behaviors.

Surprisingly, we did hear over and over again that positive results came from the executive review, not necessarily related to the executive’s performance. We learned that the ED evaluation turns out often to best serve as way for getting everyone — board and staff — on the same page about organizational goals for the year. And then, proceeding from those goals, there may be some supporting goals for the executive director as an individual.

Alignment of goals

Veteran executives often realize that a mutual alignment of goals is the real purpose of ED reviews. Such alignment usually occurs no matter what process or instrument is used. Inevitably, a discussion of performance brings up issues of why organizational goals for the last period were met or not and what is expected for the future. Of the many goals and objectives within the plan for the year, the discussion almost always moves to what board members and the executive see as the most important and the most crucial.

So a key message is this: don’t worry so much about finding exactly the right instrument or process to assess the ED’s performance. But use it as a vehicle for aligning expectations and goals for the coming year — for the organization as a whole, for the board, and for the ED.

Special thanks to www.BlueAvocado.org where this article was originally published.

See also:

The Nonprofit Leadership Team: Building the Board-Executive Director Partnership

Crucial Confrontations: Tools for Talking About Broken Promises, Violated Expectations, and Bad Behavior

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