At a recent Seminar, the speaker, after people in the audience had introduced themselves as staff, Board or volunteers, made an excellent point. Let’s not forget that Board members are volunteers, too!
The implications of this are profound. When we chastise Board members for not stepping up to the plate on their fund raising obligations, we must remember they are just volunteers. When Board members don’t follow through after they made a commitment, letting us down and making us angry, they’re just volunteers.
What does this mean? What can we learn from this?
Often they let us, and the agency down, because they don’t really understand what they are suppose to do it, or how to do it. Do they really know how to make telephone calls to thank people for their donations? My experience has been that while it seems so easy on the surface, most need to go through this exercise in a role play, before they can do it comfortably. Do they know how to organize an event, do a strategic plan, do a fund cultivation interview, conduct a meeting effectively? Some might, but most don’t, and so they will avoid doing these things, or will do them reluctantly.
The implication here is that we must train them. We can’t assume anything. Board members come aboard because they support the Mission of the agency. They often have little experience doing the tasks that are required by voluntary Boards. They want to do these things, but they need to know how. That is why we need to do a great deal of training, leadership training, at Board and committee meetings.
Don’t assume! When we ask our board members to do something, let’s be sure they know how to do it-that they have never done it before, or could use a good refresher. Print out a simple instruction sheet and review it. People who answer telethon calls are given training just to answer incoming calls properly.
That’s a good guideline for starting any new task-go over the basics. Ask Board members who have done it to demonstrate. Bring in outside experts. Give the staff the responsibility of sharing their experience. Give them written crib sheets.
One of the benefits of being on a Board is to grow as a person or professional. Let’s remember that these are volunteers, and we wouldn’t give a volunteer a task without first being clear as to what we want and how to do it the way we want. Board members are volunteers, too!
Tags: Boards, Leadership, nonprofit, Volunteers