Building an Engaged, High-Performing Nonprofit Board with Alyce Lee Stansbury

Yeah, it's a big, big question.

I mean, we could spend all our time just on this one question, right? I think it's a lot of things.

It's kind of like a soup.

It's got lots of ingredients in it.

I think it starts with board expectations so that people really know what they're saying yes to when they say yes, when they're even approached.

You know, having a list.

Here's what we're looking for.

Here's what we're asking you to commit to.

I think that sets the stage from the beginning of with the recruitment process.

I think having a really strong orientation and onboarding, not just one month, but really for the first full year.

You know, I like a board buddy where you pair up the new board member with a seasoned board member and have somebody for them to bounce off questions that they really don't want to ask in front of everyone, but would ask their board buddy for that first year.

So tell me what was that again? And what's that acronym? And things they don't want to stop the meeting for.

I also think, and I know we're talking more about this, you have to be very intentional about how you design a board meeting so that it's designed to get people who are serving on the board to contribute to the conversation and the decision-making rather than it being reactive.

And if I mean, I've been in thousands of board meetings and I know you probably have, too.

And unfortunately, the lion's share of board meetings are 70 percent reporting and 30 percent conversation decision making.

And it should literally be the flip of that.

You know, a high performing board, 70% of their meeting is focused on actions and decision making and vision and forward thinking.

And 30% is how did our event go last week? And what do we need to do next Thursday when we're all going to show up in our blue shirts and do this and do that? You know, so there's some of that, but it takes a lot of intentionality.

for the board to be engaged.

And it also can't just come from the executive director or CEO.

It has to come from within the board itself.

So the board chair, the board leadership, all of those people all saying, we want to be on a high-performing board.

I'm not here just to sit here and eat your turkey sandwich and look pretty.

I'm here to make decisions about a mission and a program that I care about.

So lots of ingredients in that soup, I would say.