0:00  
Hey, welcome. My name is Alex Huntsberger. I'm going to be the host for this session today. My role is to introduce Christal M Cherry, principal and CEO of The Board Pro, and to outline how this room works. So the platform we are using allows attendees to share their video and audio during the presentation. In a moment, I will hand things over to our coach, but this is how things will work. Our coach is an expert in board member management will be ready to answer any questions that you have. There is not going to be a formal presentation. Instead, this is an open forum, it's going to focus on anything relating to Christal's expertise, so attendees may share both as someone speaking or they can rely on the chat to ask their questions in our previous session. Pretty much all the questions came in through chat. You do not need to join the rooms video in order to participate. You're totally okay to just Just watch. Now this room is being recorded. We do ask that you be respectful of the presenter and the other participants by muting your microphone if you're not talking. Thank you. I'm excited to introduce you to your coachChristal M Cherry, Principal and CEO of The Board Pro. Now Christal is a nationally recognized nonprofit executive and professionally trained fundraiser, who with over 20 years in the nonprofit sector, she has supported higher education institutions, human services organizations, and faith based missions. Her career portfolio as a full time professional and consultant includes American University, Nicholas House, the Interdenominational Theological Center, there's a lot of syllables in that one, Florida A&M University, and the Georgia Center for Nonprofits. And with that, Christal, take it away.

1:46  
Welcome. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much, Alex. I appreciate that. I'm so excited to be here with Neon One and the generosity themes this year. And I'm open for any questions that anyone might have. I've been doing this work for a long time. Working as The Board Pro officially as The Board Pro for about three years for, the year right before the pandemic, decided to put out my shingle and start my own consulting firm is, as Alex mentioned, had been working in the nonprofit sector for about 24 years as a nonprofit fundraiser. And sat in a lot of boardrooms, watching the watching the board and watching the staff watching the CEO and just decided that there was room in this space for for someone like me who can come in and support our nonprofits who might be in need of how to engage the board how to govern and how to get the board to fundraise how to recruit the right board members, how to resolve conflict resolution, and all those kinds of how to onboard your board properly, all of those things. So I decided to hang out my shingle, and here I am. So I'm open to any questions that that come in from the audience or even from you Alex.

3:05  
Great, we don't have any questions in either the chat or the q&a yet, so I'll just get the ball rolling for us. What would you describe as the qualities of a quote unquote, like good board? Or a strong board? Like what is it? What does that look like? 

3:22  
Oh, goodness, gracious. Oh, boy, a strong point is a board that has been trained and equipped. They know the organization's mission. They know their case for support. They know the fundraising goals of that organization, the board chair and the executive director or the CEO, have a healthy relationship where they're communicating regularly. They're meeting once a once a week or once every other week, and just keeping each other apprised of what's going on with the board and with the organization. Sharing wins sharing concerns and challenges. Your board members are, they know when the board meetings are? They come and they come on time. And when they come to your board meetings, they are ready. They've read the reports, they've looked at the budget all those things and so they know what the agenda items are and will be prepared to participate and weigh in and ask questions and share their own ideas on how that organization might want to to solve some of the problems or the challenges that might be on that agenda. So yeah, so those are the you know, and then you have a board that's, you know, hopefully diverse, hopefully representing the communities that your organizations are starting with, with folks who have a wide breadth of experience and expertise and lived experience who can come to that board and share all of their use, use talents and skills With that board and with that organization, so yeah. 

5:05  
What are some of the most common types of issues or conflicts that you see arise with boards, either between, like the board and the staff, board and donors, board and constituents? Like what are some of the most common things that you come across in your line of work? And of course, what are you the sort of the some of the solutions that you put forth to address those?

5:30  
Yeah, so the thing that I've been hearing, the projects I've been working on mostly in the last year or two, is, is diversifying the board, one board saying that they cannot find people of color, or people who represent their communities to actually serve on their board. And so that has been one of the biggest challenges I've been trying to help solve by helping them to cast a wide net, to really look looking within their own networks, their own sphere of influence, to see who's in their phone, who's in their Rolodex, that they have not thought about. And then, if they've done all of that, you know, we try to come up with a matrix where we come up with, you know, who's on the board right now, right now, what skill sets do they bring and what's missing. And then if they want to hire me to do a search for them, that usually takes you know, three months to a year, Alex, for me to actually do a comprehensive, thorough search to find the right individuals based on what you've told me based what's on that matrix, to do a search to identify the people who would really do a great job of serving that organization. So I think diversifying the point of finding the right candidates to serve your organization has been the most pressing challenge I've seen in the last two or three years. However, the most ever present challenge is getting your board to raise money for you. As fundraisers, right, we know that that is the ever present all time biggest hits. And so what would I do is, you know, talk to the organization about training, and what can they do to actually train their boards, you know, give them the tools that they need to make sure they're equipped and comfortable with asking people to support the organization. So those are the two biggest things right now. Diversifying the board and fundraising.

7:22  
Great, looks like Lorene would you like to? Uh, did you have a question you wanted to ask Christal?

7:36  
I don't know if Lorene know she's on. Okay. Yeah. And so, um, one of the other things that we're finding, Alex, is that when you start diversifying, you're bringing in different voices. So we are helping our boards to make sure that they have a culture where people who are different, who do come with different experiences and backgrounds and feel welcome to ones they're invited to serve on the board. So making sure that that environment is one that is inclusive. And people feel like they voices matter, and that they can weigh in, on and on the problems and challenges without being, you know, looked down upon. So I think that that is one of the biggest things also as we start to diversify, boy, you know, we start bringing on different people. It might be some conflict. So conflict resolution is another thing that I work on boards.

8:42  
And I do believe we had some, there were some questions that did arrive in the chat.

8:49  
Okay. Let's see. Here. I see the last question. I see it was from Carla Levy. It was a crypto question. I don't think that was for me. You see something else?

9:08  
Yeah, one second. 

9:09  
Okay. 

9:13  
Okay, are you looking in the q&a?

9:15  
Yes. Uh huh. Should I be looking into chat instead. Oh, well, the

9:20  
thing is we have we have questions in both of them. 

9:25  
Okay. 

9:25  
there for you. So you said the last one was from Cathy yen. That was last one you saw.

9:30  
Okay. Now I see some questions in the chat. Okay. How do you define what a working board is? A working board is a board that well all boards should be working. Working with the board that's ready to roll up their sleeves. You know, some organizations who have large boards that well first of all, they have large staff. big budgets, large staff on the board is really more of a governing board and they probably come in and you know, kind of stamp the big items that need to be approved, make some big, you know, review some big policy changes, approve those, you make sure they make their donations, and they pretty much go on about their business they're working board is the board, though, for for probably the majority of nonprofits, which are smaller, right made to smaller organizations that need help, they may not have the staff and the resources that they need in order for them to do some things. And so the board has to kind of kind of insert themselves a little bit more in some of the activities that may be needed, they may be working closely with the fundraiser, the Director of Development and going out to, to visit donors with that development director, they may be helping to write thank you letters, they may be reviewing grants, all kinds of things weighing in on, you know, the special events and buying tables and selling tickets and all the things that we know that some of our smaller nonprofits that might not have the staff to do those things might need support from the board. So, um, yeah, that's really what a working board is one that's really kind of rolling up their sleeves and kind of getting in the nitty gritty of what's happening with that organization may be more involved than maybe some of our larger boards. Okay, and then we have a question here from Mary Bergen. Hi, Mary, how do we get the board more engaged, they often only show up for the board meetings, even if they show up for those, and then we hear nothing from them until the next. Okay, well, usually, boards do what they're asked to do, right. And so we're not asking them to do things in between board meetings. And I was really good for that when I was when I was on the inside Alex as a staffer. And as the chief development officer, I had a menu of things that needed to be done during the week. And we often asked my board to to help me, right. And so I would call and say, this week, I need you know, so I need a donor, thank you call, we've had a donor that's given, you know, every year for the last five years, and I would like a board member to make that call and just say thank you, even if you leave a voice message, and you didn't make a call today, or we want to go down to the shelter and visit some of the clients, I would love for you, as a board member to come down with me to say hello to the clients, we get an understanding of what it was like to be a client in our organization, or we have a grant application that's due on Friday. I know that you know, Alex, I know you have a real eye to detail. We love it. If you check out that grant application before we send it. Or we're having to think about next Thursday, we're asking all board members to come in and we're going to have a bank of phones and the old fashioned way. We're going to ask board members to make calls and just thank people for donating to our organization. Or if you have a facility, you know, we have leaves in the backyard that need to be raked. We would want board members to come and get their hands dirty and rake some leaves. I mean, they're just things that happened at the organization organically that we don't think about that are opportunities for our board members to engage. When I was on the inside, you know, I was responsible for GivingTuesday, which is coming up in just a few weeks right here in Georgia, it was called Georgia Gives day GivingTuesday. But that's the kind of kicks off the fundraising year end celebration, right. And so I created the GivingTuesday committee right and where we several months before GivingTuesday like in late August, September, we started gathering together to start talking about what it's like GivingTuesday campaign going to look like this year. And I on this committee, I had different stakeholders, I had staff people, I had volunteers and I had board members. And I asked board members to come and join that committee and from everything about what campaign we're going to choose what videos we're going to use, what language is best how much we're going to ask for all those things were the things that this committee discussed and board members were right in that room with us talking to us about the GivingTuesday campaign and what that was going to look like. And so just being creative and thinking of ways that you can get your board members involved in your work in between board meetings so that they feel like they have an opportunity to do something they want to do something they don't want to just come sit in a boring meeting. Sometimes it just stamp off reports they actually want to get their hands dirty. If you're going to be releasing a new campaign video, you might want to send it to them and say listen, we want a couple of eyes on the video first, before we release it to the public. What do you think about this video? Do you feel like it's impactful? Did you like the image how did you feel after watching the video? Should we change this? Should we change the shirt this person is wearing, like ask your board members for their input on some of the things that are happening. I remember when I was doing gift acceptance policies, we had an old old gift acceptance policy plan that had not been looked at it years. And so I reviewed that gift acceptance policy in terms of what kinds of gifts we receive, what happens when the gifts come in, who signs off on the checks, who deposits the checks? How do we receive in-kind gifts, how a volunteer is cultivated all of those things were in this gift acceptance program. And I asked board members to take a look at it. Right. So I'm thinking as a fundraiser, what are ways that I can keep my board members engaged in the life of this organization? Until we meet again, so as an official board? All right, let's see. Christie says Hi, Christie Lampright, how would you recommend working with a board who has traditional has traditionally been hands off? Because the nonprofit has the same Executive Director for over 40 years? But now it's working towards something with a new ED, how do you change the culture of the board? Oh, that's a really good one.

Well, you know, now's the time to start looking at some of those board terms, right, hopefully, there are board terms where there are going to be some folks who are going to be rolling off, and you're gonna be bringing on some new, new fresh ideas and new fresh faces to your board. But for those who are still remaining, you know, have that talk, have the talk that you know, we are in the middle of a transition, there's a changing of the guard, if you will, we have a new ED who's coming in. And we would like to change how this board is operated. We want to change the culture of our of our board culture. And so what I would first start doing is talking to them about the values of the organization, what are the things that are important to us, at this organization? How can we use these values to kind of dictate how we move as a board? What things are important to us? What's important to us in our actual board culture in terms of board meetings, like how do we want our board meetings to look and feel? How often should we meet? Should we have some networking social time before the meeting starts or after the meeting, and should we have food, should we have music, and give people an opportunity to get to know one another before we start our official business? Right? I would also give them opportunity to to look at those bylaws, right? Where were those bylaws, they may sit on the shelf for four or five years. They're probably old and dusty. Let's take a look at those bylaws to see if based on what's going on with our organization right now in this current climate. Oh, those bylaws still applicable? Do we need to update do we need to revise do we need to take something out because something in because your bylaws are like your Bible, right? And so you want to make sure your bylaws are reflective of what's going on with your with your organization right now, and with society and with the world right now because everything as you know has shifted since since the pandemic, and since since the racial awakening, and all the things are happening in politics and things are happening. And so we want to make sure that those bylaws are current and relevant to our current situation. And so all of those things, taking a look at your bylaws, looking at your values as an organization, and as a board, trying to get a feel for what do you want this board experience to feel like for your board members? Why should I want to serve on this board? Yes, you have great mission. What are the other things that would lure me into wanting to serve on on the board, they have good people, good staff, people who are passionate, a good executive director who has great vision, they're organized, right, they start their meetings on time, and they have all the documents and everything that we need as a board. To review it to us in ample time before we have to meet at the board meeting, like make my you know, make my experience as a board member easy and convenient and enjoyable, right? Create a culture where not only do I feel good about the work that I'm doing to help the people or to help the environment or animals or whatever we're serving. But I'm having a good time serving on this board. This culture feels good to me, right? And so therefore, I want to come to a board meeting. I Don't lament that there's a board meeting next week and I have to be there in person or on Zoom. I really am looking forward to being on in this in this culture and in this environment with my colleagues who are working with me to support this great organization. So I think you have to be intentional about creating an environment where people feel good, they feel like their voices matter. Everyone has a say in what's going on. Maybe just this less top down and more leading from the center where everybody has an opportunity making sure your your chairs or your committees are diverse, giving women and giving people of color an opportunity to lead and to have a voice instead of just sitting at the table but actually leading a committee leading a charge you know, maybe being the chair of an event. Make it so that people want to be a part of that culture. You can decide what your culture looks like. And even if it's been some way for 30 or 40 years, bringing in new, new leadership, it's a wonderful time to transition, to change it to be what you are, but bringing in new fresh ideas and refreshed people will, I think will also help that as well. Let's see what else we have any more questions,

20:19  
We did have, I think, three questions that were submitted via the q&a, which is a little confusing the chat, the most recent stuff appears at the bottom, the q&a, the most recent stuff appears at the top. So it can be a little odd to navigate. But the first one we got, which I don't believe we answered that we did touch on a similar subject was a best way to find diverse board members for a newly formed nonprofit.

20:45  
Well, I think you once you do your matrix, and you figure out what things are important to you for your nonprofit. And when you say diverse, it depends on the nonprofit. So for example, a nonprofit that's working with the LGBTQ community, right. And so they might want a whole host of diverse individuals on their board, they may want some heterosexual individuals, they may want some transgender folks, they may want some folks who are who identify as bisexual on their board, you know, in addition to all of the skill sets that they need, and the industries that they want represented. So their, their mixture of diversity is going to be very different than maybe, let's say, a faith based organization who might want a mixture of Christians and Muslims and Jews on their on their board, right. And so depending on what you, you determine is important to you, will be on that matrix, right? And that we create, and we'll fill in the names of all your board members, and what boxes they check off so that we can see what gaps we have. And then once we look at our matrix and say, Okay, great. In this particular case, we don't have as many Christians on our board as we want, and we don't have as many women on our board. And we have a lot of older people, we need some more younger people or, you know, we were a homeless organization, we don't have anyone who's homeless, who's been homeless, serving or whatever it is that you're that your matrix reveals as a gap. Those are the things that you're looking for. Right? And so that will kind of dictate where you go to find those individuals, right? And so if you were to hire me, to, to identify those people, and I'm doing a search for you, I'm going to look in those places, right? So if you're looking for people of color, or professional people of color, I'm probably going to check the Black Chamber of Commerce or Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, I'm going to check in with the fraternities and sororities in your local town each a lot of these big fraternities and sororities have chapters in your town, right? I would, which is what I do. I would contact some big churches, right. And, you know, some of those mega churches where there's going to be a whole three, four or 5000 Black people coming in to church on Sunday, right? This is a plethora of people who are might be interested in serving on your board. So depending on on what the need is, will dictate where I will be looking. There are some places some websites where you can go like board net USA, right. I actually post job board announcements when I'm actually doing a search, I post them in Work for Good. I post them on LinkedIn, I post them on different places. I do a wide search, I go on LinkedIn, and will type in like I remember I was doing a board search for an organization out of Keller, Texas, and they want to individuals who lived in Keller, right? I'm in Atlanta. So like, how am I gonna find board members in Keller? Right. So I actually went on LinkedIn and actually put in, you know, some I Googled some companies that were located in Keller, than I put that company actually in LinkedIn, and all of these names popped up people who work at those companies in Keller and I actually just started doing some call outreach and reaching out to people and saying, Hi, my name is Christal. I'm a Board consultant, working for this nonprofit. They're looking for board members to serve on their board who live in your area. Is education of interest to you Do you have children who live in this school district? If so, if you're interested, I would love to talk to you. And I got two board members from doing that. Right. And so I didn't know these people from a can of paint. But I was willing to do the search based on what they said they needed. So it just depends. Cast a wide net. Some of the some of the resources that I've mentioned. But yeah, your local and civic organizations, you might want to consider radios, I called them to a radio station. Alex, this is how bold I am, right? I called into a radio station and talked to somebody about whether or not they would be willing to have me on to talk about this nonprofit and they said yes, so I mean, it just depends. And like I said, I'm you know, I'm always casting a wide net I'm not scared to ask. So I'm always looking for different places where I can call and insert myself to try to find the right board members for your organization. But if you don't have the resources to hire someone like me, and your board is trying to do it by themselves, and I would definitely start with just taking out your phones, and scrolling through your phones, looking in your contacts to see who you go to the gym with who you go to church with, who's in your local Rotary, who's in your book club, who comes over to watch football on Sunday, like, like seriously, like who's your phone, and you start looking at them and go, Oh, my God, George does work at Bank of America, Sidney she's general counsel for Home Depot, I didn't even think about. She works she's the superintendent of the public school system here in Atlanta, whatever, you start realizing that in your phone, you have people who have influence, right, they are connected, you've never thought of them. You never thought that they don't even know you serve on this board. And you've never thought to ask them or even tell them about your organization. So let's start here. And then use our social media networks to say Hey, guys, you know, I have gone on social media when I'm looking for like a mechanic like anybody know a good mechanic who lives in Atlanta? Do I want to go to this great organization, this is their website, they have a wonderful mission. If you have a picture or a video posted, they're looking for board members, anyone know anyone who might be interested? Right. And so I just said, we have to be creative and cast a wide net when we're trying to diversify, and find the right woman and insert your place yourself in those rooms, or in those spaces where the people who you are looking for are. Right. All right, what's the next question? 

26:47  
Great.We had another one from the q&a. As from Andrew Gillihan, we have a very friendly and passive board, we would like to move forward getting them more engaged and involved. How would you introduce that and implement it over time without scaring them away?

27:09  
Well, I would probably if your board is very passive, I would probably start by learning a little bit about your board. Right? Like what are some of the things that you guys enjoy doing? What What? What do you think your What are? What are your best assets? What are you strong at? You know, how do you how I often do this exercise? Describe yourself in one word using the first letter of your of your, of your first name, right? And so I am Christine, and I'm charismatic, or I'm Bill and um, you know, I'm real whenever people are giving themselves adjectives to describe who they are you get I'm I'm a strategic thinker. I'm detail oriented. I'm a visionary. I'm you know, I'm cas- whatever, and you start. So Oh, okay. So then you start seeing that there are people in your room with all kinds of different skill sets. So you kind of know, okay, so Bill, you're detail oriented, you know, we got to audit coming up. We would love if you would be on the Finance Committee, committee, and work with us, as we begin to start looking at this, I will use someone who has an eye for detail and really, really loves working on looking at numbers, you know, or, you know, you know, Kathy, you said, you were creative, we need someone to help us with this campaign that we're about to create, it's going to be a visual campaign, we're gonna, you know, have some real strong imagery of our children or of our clients, we want you to weigh in on what we should use for for for our video, would you be willing to do that. So just find ways for them based on what they tell you there. And just because people will, people will perk up and get excited when you give them something that's in there that's in their, in their wagon, something that they feel like they're strong at, oh, yeah, I'd love doing that. I'd be happy to participate. So I say get to know who your board members are, learn their skills and their strengths, and then start introducing in small ways, things that they can do to to become more engaged with, and then talk to them about their passiveness or the passivity. I don't know what the word is Alex, you know, but we you know what I mean? Hey, listen, guys, I love that you guys are really passionate about our work. But we need more from you. We know that you're skilled, we know that you're talented. And there are things that you can be offering us to help us with our work and we want to tap into those things. So if you're a creative writer, you know Lorene I might ask you if you tell me you're a creative writer, listen, we're going to write some, some language for our next social media ask and one thing I either have you write it Come on, look at it when we create it or weigh in on it, would you be willing to do that? And if you tell me, you're a creative writer, you like writing, and I give that to you as an assignment, you might be like, Oh, my God, that would be awesome. I would love to do that for you. So I think we have to get to know who our board members are understanding what their skills and their talents and their passions, and then tap into those things to invite them to get engaged with organizations, I think saying to them outright, we really need more from you all, we want to create a space where you feel like your time and your talent is being used optimally. And you tell us what are the things that you like that you wouldn't that you think you can kind of insert yourself in to to help us to get our work done?

30:47  
Awesome. One more question from the q&a. Okay, this is from Carla Ivey. And this is sort of on a similar topic, okay, managing a board, and trying to get them engaged and effective can take a ton of work time. What advice you would have do, you have to ensure time is being spent as efficiently as possible, I'd love to hear your top tips.

31:14  
Well, you know, for those organizations that have the resources, and particularly if you have a large board or a board that's not engaged, you know, if you have it in your budget to hire a board liaison, or to hire someone who can help manage those relationships, and to keep your board apprised of what's going on inside the organization, even if it's a part time person, it doesn't have to be a full time position. If you're if your organization can not pay a full time person, but someone to actually manage those relationships, to keep your board apprised to keep them excited to make sure that they have access to all the documents that they need, I would definitely look into bringing in someone who can manage those relationships, if you don't have the capacity. I mean, the executive director is busy, the staff is busy. And sometimes those things get lost in the sauce, right? And so if you're in a position where you can bring someone in to kind of manage that would be great. Read the question to me, again, Alex,

32:16  
Managing a board and trying to get them engaged and effective can take a ton of work and time. What advice do you have do you have to ensure time is being spent as officially efficiently as possible?

32:27  
Right, so the other thing is, if you're not in a position to, to hire someone to actually help manage those relationships, there are a whole bunch of board portals that there's one called Easy Board that is really easy that has places for you to put all of your board documents in one place, you know, your minutes to your meetings can be there, the calendar of events and activities, and when the next meeting is going to be there. Um, they even have a place for you to put the bios of the board members with pictures with their hobbies, there's all kinds of things in that portal so that for your board members, they can go right into that portal and get all the information that they need about board work, right at the finger at their fingertips, the minutes are om there the bylaws in there the bios of the board members are in there the calenda of when the next meeting is going to be, the calendar of all the upcoming events, the volunteer opportunities, all those things could be in one place, so that your board members have access to it. And then you can always refer your board members to it. You know, Hey, guys, check the portal for the latest update on ABCD. Right. And this is an efficient way for you to house all of your documents related to board work and board service in one place and make it make their lives a lot easier and make your life a lot easier.

33:43  
Great. Looks like we don't have any new new questions in either the chat or the q&a. If anybody has any questions they would like to offer please send them through. In the meantime, I'll ask something, especially for your your smaller and your mid size nonprofits. When it comes to engaging board members and fundraising, board members who are not already, you know, great fundraisers, I guess where do you start with that process? What are the basics of getting a board member more engaged in fundraising for your nonprofit?

34:24  
Yeah, so I just did a webinar on this with Bloomerang last week, right. And so what I say is, you know, at this point in the year, you know, we're gonna give them if they're not, we need to give them a crash course in fundraising and give them the tools they need. So we I have a fundraising toolkit that I create right in your toolkit is, you know, here, here's the case for support, which can be three pages or 30 pages, right? There's some talking points or points of pride, right? There's the fundraising goal, right? You know what the fundraising goal is that you all The special projects that are going on with the organization, and how much they cost, right? So we'll know exactly when people give their money, where's the money going, like, how's the money going to help the organization and, and help the people, right. And so you give them a crash course, on fundraising one on one, you have all of those documents in there, you might want to have a compelling story with some great photos, you may want to have a good video or two some feel good videos that they can access, right? So all of that is in your fundraising toolkit. And then if you know if they're going to be responsible for asking, you might want to have some, some tips on how to make an ask, and maybe some role playing even on. Okay, so you're going to ask your friend, Sam, who you went to college with, you guys are going fishing next week. And Sam has just recently retired from this big job. And you know that he has little, some funds, and he's very passionate about education, and you guys are going to be fishing and you want to talk to him a little bit about the organization? How might that conversation go? Right? So I'm just saying that, you know, you might want to prepare your board by having all this information at their fingertips and at their ready so that they can be prepared to make an ask, but you can't expect people regular layman people who have no idea what fundraising is about who's never besides maybe selling some Girl Scout cookies for your kids have never really done any real, true fundraising, we can't expect them to become professional fundraisers. So as the organization, our job is to equip them with the things that they need with so that they feel comfortable, right, because a lot of times people are reticent to ask because they're not comfortable. They don't know what to ask for. They don't even know what programs are going on at the organization. They don't know what the fundraising goal is shoot, they don't even know what the mission is. Right? It's so brief. That they have the mission, they know exactly what this organization does. Why it's important the impact that that organization is having in the community? What happens if that organization goes away? What's the problem that will exist if that problem if that organization goes away, like so that they have all those answers in their head so that when I call you up and say, Hey, Alex, Hey, I just wanted to chat with you about an organization that I'm involved with. This organization has a great mission, they do A, B, C, and D, I've seen how the work impacts the community because of what they've done. There are less children who are failing school because of this after school program, the not only that it's impacting their behavior, their good grades, and because of the work they're doing, they've seen a 25% increase of their children on the honor roll. So I know the work that they're doing is true blue, I know the work that we're doing is having an impact. And I'm serving on the board of this great organization. And because of the work that we do, we're able to help more and more children. Every year, I want to share this great story with you and have the story ready, right. And so therefore, we are asking our friends and our colleagues who we know are passionate about organizations just like you, we're asking each one of our friends and colleagues to make a $250 donation before the end of the year, so that we can continue our great after school program, we have a great need for new laptops, our laptops are old. And we know that with a $250 donation from you, Alex and friends like you, we were able to purchase new laptops for our children next year, would you be willing to support us and make a $250 donation. So you have all of your information right there, who this organization is, what they do, what the money is going to be used for how it's going to help the children they're going to behave and or they're going to be on the honor, roll, whatever. So I have bought. So once I feel comfortable with all that information, I can go in boldly. I'm not stuttering, I'm not uncertain, I'm not confused. I can go in boldly and talk to someone about what this organization does, and make an ask in behalf of the organization. So prepare them, equip them, help them with their comfort level so that they know that it's not hitting people up for money, you're not trespassing on anyone, you're boldly asking for support for something that you wholeheartedly strongly authentically believe in.

39:16  
You know, if you if you were asking me for money, genuinely, I would have a hard time saying no, that was a great ask. On a sort of similar note, with GivingTuesday, coming up, and obviously giving Tuesday, so much of it is about social media and raising your profile on social. What have you found are the best way for nonprofits to get their board involved when it comes to GivingTuesday?

39:40  
Yeah, so like I said, that GivingTuesday committee that I created when I was at a nonprofit really, really was was a nice way to get people involved. But they were invested once they were involved in like I said, we started in late August, right so we didn't even wait. I mean, GivingTuesday, is not until what sometimes. Most of the time late November. In some cases it's been early December. So we started three or four months out to give ourselves ample time. But even at this late juncture, if you're still in the process of creating your content, that's great. But get your board members involved, ask them to weigh in on it right? And then create content. That content is shareable. Right. So if hopefully, if you're you haven't GivingTuesday page up, you know, a lot of states will have, you know, like the Georgia center for nonprofits here in Atlanta, which is responsible for Georgia Gives, they, they have an extra platform. So if you register with him, you get up in his free, you actually get a GivingTuesday page with a URL that you can share, on that page, you can post videos, you can post stories, and emotion you want to get, you want to make me feel something, right. So this is the time of year to have your cute video with babies and puppies and elderly people being helped. And all the things that we know make people feel warm and fuzzy, because this is the we're tender at this time of year. This is the time of year when we feel benevolent, you know, Thanksgiving is coming, Christmas is coming, we feel good. We want to do something we're baking cookies and dropping by the eggnog and all that stuff that we don't do all year long. All of a sudden, now we recognize we have neighbors next door, we haven't seen or talked to in six months, and I'm gonna ring the bell and sing some songs and give me some warm cookies. Right? Okay, that's fine. Let's take advantage of all of that. So you want to make sure that whatever your committee has come up with in terms of your campaign for GivingTuesday, your board has access to those things, whether it's going to be a video, whether it's going to be the URL for the page where the video sits, and you want to give them a page that they could actually share, because we find that GivingTuesday is, everybody on GivingTuesday is looking for some nonprofit to give to, we got a whole slew of first time donors on GivingTuesday who hadn't had no relationship with our organization whatsoever. But because the links were shared, everybody knows that we're doing something on GivingTuesday. Right? You see people say, Okay, I got $400 I'm gonna give out this year which organization am I gonna search for, they're on social media, they're seeing what their friends have, oh, look at this organization, I've never heard of this one here? Okay, I'll give $50 here, I'll give $100 Here, I'll give $100. And they get people to post that they did it. Right. So I remember one year what we did at my organization was we had people we had hats, we had stickers and everything. So staff, we had everybody come into the conference room. And we had banks of computers and the little things that you slide the card in the in the conference room, and we asked them to make a donation $5, $10, $15, $100 Whatever you felt comfortable. And when they made the donation, a sticker I just gave for GivingTuesday or a hat right? Take a picture of yourself. Selfie. Post it. I just made a $10 donation or a $100 donation to American Cancer Society. Woohoo! Join me today. And helping to alleviate cancer for someone in your family. So make it fun, make it exciting,  ask, give, make it easy for me to share because I'm busy, right? So I gotta go. And I got to search for something. But if you send me the link, and all I had to do was post it on my social media, okay, hey, guys, great organization, check them out, this is the page give them today I just made my donation, here's my button, here's my hat, support me, and nothing else support me and keep people just give to organizations because they love somebody, somebody else's, you know, has multiple, you know, multiple sclerosis. And so because they have multiple sclerosis, they're gonna give to the Multiple Sclerosis Society or whatever, because I asked you, so take advantage of these relationships that people people give because of the trusting relationship with of the person who's asking, so take advantage of all those people who will be making ask for GivingTuesday this year.

43:46  
Great, great, wonderful. Setting aside fundraising for a moment. And I just want to remind everyone, if you have any, any questions for Christal, you got any more questions? We've already had a bunch of great questions. You can put them either in the chat or the q&a. And we'll get right to them. We have about 15 minutes left in this in this session. So we'd love to hear from you. But in the meantime, setting aside fundraising, what are some of the skill sets for board members and prospective board members that you have found are the most useful in helping to run and lead a nonprofit? 

44:26  
Mm hmm. Well, certainly folks who have who are visionaries, and can kind of see far out where the organization is going. It's one thing to see where we are right now. But what is this organization look like? What can it look like in five years? You certainly want to have visionaries on your board. You definitely want to have people who are strategic thinkers because that strategic plan is our Bible. Right? And just like the bylaws is the Bible for the for the board. The strategic plan is the organization's is the organization's Bible, right? And so we need folks who can who can help in developing that strategic plan, if we need to pivot and maybe make some changes in that thing, you may want some board members to weigh in. So we need visionaries really strategic we need strategic planners. These days, we do need, Alex, we do need social media influences, right. And so if you are a person who is prone to be on social media and people pay attention to you, we definitely want to use the fact that you're an influencer and ask you to spread the word, the good word about the word, there's no such thing as doing all this. If it meant doing all this great work in the dark and no one knows about us. We don't want to be the best kept secret. So if you have someone who's a social media influencer, I think get the word out to a mass group of people, we certainly want to use them. Certainly someone with finance background, right, you know, to be sit on that finance committee because you know that 990 has to go out this audit is coming up. And we need some folks who can weigh in and help us with some of this red that we see on this budget help us get back in the black. And then of course there are your fundraisers people like me who are not scared to ask who used I use my creativity, and my type A personality, to, to advocate and to ask for what's important to me, right? That's just the kind of person I am. If it's important to me, and I believe in it. I don't care who you are. My book club, they always whenever I come in, they go, Oh, God, what is she going to ask us for today? Hide the credit card here she comes. Because I'm the somebody who's like, Hey, guys, I got a new nonprofit I just found out about before we started talking about the book and the $10 from everybody in the room, just put it here, put it in the bucket, pretend that oh, hey, cash app me cash app me $25. I'm gonna send a group donation and they're like, Oh, God, can we just talk about the book, we're gonna talk about the book. But before we do that, I need $25 from everybody in the room, because I just got this great organization, and we're going to make a good donation. They're like, Oh, God, so that's just me. But you want to get people like me, an opportunity to do that. So your fundraising, strategic planning, visionaries, people with finance background, I mean, and then of course, you always want you know, people with legal background, in case the organization needs any kind of legal advice. Depending on the industry you're in, if you're an organization working with, you know, in education, you want to have some teachers or some folks who are in education on your board. But I think in general, those are the ones: legal strategic planning and visionary, fundraisers, social media influences.

47:37  
Great. That sounds like a that's a nice full board right there.

47:42  
Yeah, yeah. And then of course, you want to make sure there's a mixture, you want to have some younger folks. And some of you need some older folks who have some wisdom and maybe some institutional history. But then you need those young people who can come in and start talking about some of this new stuff that us old folks don't. I mean, every time I talk to my son, I learned about something new that we can some new, fast, efficient thing I can be using to make my life easier that he knows about it at 13 That my old butt doesn't know about. So you want to have some younger folks on your board who can keep us old, old folks, that the new hipsters keep us apprised of, hey, there's a faster way we can do it. Do you know about this new whatever. We can be doing this differently? Who know about digital is the other thing using digital strategies for fundraising. That is a new big thing for boards. I mean, yes, this time of year, the card in the mail, the letter in the mail is still okay. And permissible, people don't frown on it as much because it's Christmas time we used to opening Christmas cards. So direct mail is still the still permissible at the end of the year. But during the year, most people don't want mail. They want fast, quick, easy ways to give you know, there was one organization I can't remember what it was they had. They had a what do they call a button a give button or something was like this little round button that they tell you in the mail, I swear to God, and the button is programmed, $25. And anytime you want to make a donation, hit the button, I forget what it was called, I think it was. I can't remember what it's called but digital, right? This button is connected to my bank account. And I push this button. And when I want to make a $25 donation, hit the button. Digital. just people think of all kinds of creative ways to give so you need young folks on your board who have all these crazy ideas about ways that we can do things that might save us some time.

That button sounds like a pretty wild, wild idea/ I just keep thinking like my daughter is almost one and I just keep imagining her getting the button and be like, Oh, this is fun. Oh no mom and dad don't have any money anymore. But a very good cause was funded. What do you see, you mentioned digital fundraising, and a lot how in your experience, have you found that a lot of the organizations you work with, where are they at? When it comes to digital? What are some of the ways that you think a lot of again, especially for smaller and mid sized nonprofits, like where? Where can people really advance when it comes to digital fundraising?

Yeah, I think people should find the one thing you don't have. Because there's so many options that we can get, it can become overwhelming, I think you need to find the one thing that works for you. If that button works for you use the button. If, you know if you find that you have a whole lot of folks, there's there's all this talk about whether or not we should be using, you know, all these, these giving mech these cash payment mechanisms like Cash App, and Venmo and Zelle. What is it ethical to have cashapp, is that's gonna be the way it Look, my church, the best thing they could have ever done for me was to create a cash app account, right? So that means I don't have to sign into the app, they also have an app. But in order for me to sign into the app, I gotta go, I gotta know my username, and my password. Not gonna happen. I can't remember it, right. But my cash app is open and ready. So when church happens on Sunday, and they're doing the offer, and everybody's feeling good, they actually make a donation, I'll go to cash app, I put in $50, to my church, and I hit send. So if that look, if that's the, that's how you're gonna get people to give, then by all means, so if Cash App works for you, then do Cash App, news, owl, do Venmo, do PayPal, you know, give me lots of options, do the, when you call the thing, where you can scan the whatever, whatever it is, but find that one thing that's working for your donors that your donor seems to respond to, and weigh in on that the people are not writing checks anymore, right? Even having to go to get my credit card means I still gotta go find it. And now I gotta punch in all these daggone numbers. And I gotta know, the day that the card expires, and the three digit pin on the back, oh, my god, Cash App. Right. So I would say find that one thing that works for your nonprofit that things that your donors are gonna respond to and embrace that digital platform, you know, there's something called omni channel marketing, where we are really responding to our donors in every in all ways that they live. So, you know, you might have an email that goes out, and in the email, there's a, there's one of those cute thing codes where you scan the code, right. So there's multiple ways to communicate, I'm communicating to you with your email, but then the email, I'm giving you an opportunity, just like that code, they send you on Amazon, when you have to return something and you get, you have to print that code out and go to UPS and they scan that code. And you don't even have to have the back of the envelope that the thing was in, they just scan the code, you hand them those shoes and you walk. Right? So make it so that wherever I am in my life, however I'm responding, make it so that it's easier. If it's easy for you to send me an email, send me an email, but in an email, have the QB code, right. Omni channel marketing, right, where you're asking me to do things based on how I'm moving in this society, right? So all different ways of marketing. So I say to your organization, find that thing that works for you, and go for that thing.

53:19  
Great. Yeah, I should check. My wife's church I don't think they have cash app, I'm gonna go and recommend recommend that they get that

53:29  
that was the best thing for me, because I'm not gonna find my credit card or checkbook.

53:36  
When it comes to onboarding board members, 

53:42  
that's another one. 

53:42  
Yeah. What are some of the I guess? What are some of the common issues you see there with with getting a new board member up to speed?

53:49  
Yeah. So after all this work, we've you know, we've done all this work to try to find those diverse board members, right, those people that we've been looking for the right people, we've done the wide search now they've said yes. And then we fall, then we fall through the cracks because we don't do the right thing right out of the gate. Right. So right out of the gate, you want to make them feel welcomed, you know, tell the world post on your website, post on social media, welcome to our new board members and post their face faces, if they allow you to post their faces in the flyer, right, and then onboard them properly. So they should have proper onboarding. You know, before the first meeting for their first board meeting, have an actual onboarding orientation, where you bring in your new board members whether it's going to be a zoom or in person and introduce them to the organization have the executive director there, make sure there's a couple of board members there, invite a couple of staff people to be there, right. And then ask each board member to stand up, introduce themselves, why they applied for the board seat, you know, I'm married, I have children. I love this mission because ABCD gives me an opportunity to speak and stand up and be seen and then introduce some of the people who are in the room and let them tell what their roles are at the organization. Of course, you get to talk about mission, you got to talk about all that kind of stuff, then you get to give them some some hinters about, these are some of the committees, these are ways that you can get involved with our organization, today. We don't want you to leave this first orientation, and not have a way to get involved. We have a finance committee, we have a development committee, we have a budget committee, we have whatever we have a program committee, we have new event event committee that we have an event coming up at the end of the year, and we need some folks to be on this committee, sign up for a committee today. Get them involved and engaged right away, give them all those tools that I just told you about, because they have the bylaws make sure they sign their their letter of agreement, which is their pledge of what contracts that they're clear, or what the responsibilities of being a board member are. They know when the meetings are they know that, you know, we're asking each board member to give or get $500. And we'd like you to make 50% of that a 50% pledge on that today. So it's $500, can you make a $250 donation today before we leave. So make sure that you bring them on properly. If you haven't introduced the other board members introduced to other staff people, tell them about the events that are coming on when the meetings are going to be and then give them a match, like buddy them up with someone else that's been on the board for a long time. Hey, listen, Alex, I've been on the board for four years, we're going to buddy up, I'm going to tell you all that you need to know that they're not gonna tell you I'm gonna tell you where to sit in the board meeting. She's an ally, she's an alligator stay away from her, she's really cool, we need to get there 20 minutes early, because they got they got good wine they serve at the beginning of the meeting, we got to park in a certain place because when we come out, it's gonna be dark. I mean, it's gonna be well lit underneath this lamp. So let's park here, like give them all of the nuances, all the things about the board meeting, the chair often comes in and he's late. He's grumpy. Let me just tell you about him. So like, let me give you the scoop of what this board culture of what it's like being on this board. Make sure you read those budgets beforehand, because they're gonna want your board your vote as soon as we get in there. So make sure you review the agenda. So buddy me up with somebody who's been on the board for a long time who can kind of show you around and get you used to what being on this board is like. So give them a proper onboarding Alex so that they feel welcome. And they know exactly what they're getting themselves into before they even start their tenure? Yeah.

57:21  
Great. Yep, that sounds exactly right. Especially the buddy system. You gotta get gotta get the real skinny on what's going on?

57:28  
Yes. Yes.

57:31  
You're at 12:59. So that means we're pretty much at the end. Christal, thank you so much. This has been wonderful. Great hearing about all these of these subjects. Is there any words of wisdom you want to give us before we part ways?

57:50  
Yeah, no, I it is a responsibility of the organization to make sure that your board members are prepared to help you. We can't expect board members to come in and know exactly what what they're supposed to be doing. So when I hear that boards are not doing my board members are lazy. They're not doing anything for us. My question is, what are you doing to prepare them? So make sure that you give them the tools that they need to help you fulfill your mission?

58:14  
put people in a position to succeed? 

58:16  
Right. 

58:18  
Okay, wonderful. Well, we are officially at one o'clock. Yes. Again, thank you so much Christal. This was this was wonderful.

58:25  
And I just want to tell you listeners that if they have any questions or want to learn a little bit about me go to my website, theboardpro.com And I'm happy to give a free 15 minute consultation and if you need help with your board, I'm happy to support you

58:42  
Thank you so much again, Christal.

58:44  
Thank you Alex. Take care everyone. Bye you too.

58:52  
Alright, that's the end of this session. I believe we're coming up on a on a little bit of a break and this room will be back online at 1:30 for a coaching session called So Called Major Donors

Transcribed by https://otter.ai