Ten Ways To Improve Your Board Of Directors

1. Recognize that the most important assets that Board members bring to the agency are their passion for the Mission and their intellectual capital.
2. Make Board meetings more productive and enjoyable. Keep meetings focused on the future and the strategic initiatives. Provide plenty of opportunities for discussion and decision making.
3. Get the agency’s work done through committees and task forces. Don’t use the board as a committee.
4. Improve reporting systems. Use a Consent Agenda. Standardize committee reports.
5. Invest in leadership development. Have a plan so that all future officers will be qualified to step into top leadership positions.
6. Create an Annual Board Calendar.
7. Bring board members closer to the services of the agency through live testimonials by clients at board meetings and visits to experience agency services in action.
8. Teach the board “relationship-based” fund-raising to overcome their fear of asking for money.
9. Clarify the role of staff and Board.
10. Have a strategic plan and renew it annually.

Barrie Segall, M.S.W.
Segall Nonprofit Consulting
Los Angeles CA 90035
bsegall@segallconsulting.com