Board Development - Seven Tips For An Effective Board Development Program
Research into board development found that high performing boards generally have some form of board development program in place but many nonprofit organizations do not have a development program for their board members. A nonprofit board is a team and, like any team, training is needed to develop and perform at its best. But there are two other reasons why board development is important:
Providing board members with an opportunity to learn and develop has been found to build motivation.
There is a direct relationship between board performance and organizational performance which means that improving board performance can be expected to lead to an improvement in the performance of the organization.
For this article, we draw on the opinions of experts in this field to provide practical advice for creating a development program for your board.
1. Program objective: It’s important at the outset that everyone involved in the board development program understands three things:
The overall performance of the board depends on the individual performance of each of its members.
The aim of the board development program is to give each board member the opportunity to develop the competencies needed to be an effective member of the team.
Improving board performance is contributing directly to the performance of the organization and the achievement of its mission.
So the objective is to get everyone on board with a full understanding of the benefits that the program will bring to the board, the organization and to their own personal development.
2. Board development committee: It’s a good idea to set up a board development committee that is responsible for planning and coordinating the board development program. The committee approach avoids having valuable board meeting time taken up with this task.
3. Orientation program: Getting new recruits to the board up to speed is an important part of a board development program so make sure you have a comprehensive orientation program in place. You can follow this link to an article that provides lots of practical advice for creating an effective program: https://www.npdirection.com/blog/57f594cd2c6f7b6057cc7e70
4. Board strengths and weaknesses: Before you get down to program details it is recommended that an assessment of board strengths and weaknesses be carried out. This information will help you to effectively target your development program to address areas of weakness up front. You can use the services of a consultant to help you with this task or you can use a board self-assessment tool, such as that provided by NPdirection that provides a detailed assessment across the main dimensions of management performance.
Even within a board that has a good compositional balance, the members’ strengths and weaknesses will vary across the different elements that make up what collectively we call management skills. You can use members’ strengths and particular talents to good advantage by having them lead training sessions in those areas.
5. Brain storming sessions: A lot of benefit can come from including a brief, unstructured session in a day’s training that targets one particular process, with open discussion on ways that processes can be improved. Some processes to consider are board meetings, communication and board recruitment, but there are many more that would be suitable for your board. Appoint one person to lead the session and another to document outcomes.
6. Timing and venue: It will help the board take ownership of the development program if they have some involvement in planning when and where the training sessions will take place. The board room will do for a venue if you have the audio/visual equipment needed for the planned training sessions but there is a lot of support for using an outside venue, particularly one where there is an opportunity to incorporate some time when the board members can relax in a casual setting and get to know one another on a more personal level.
7. Make it fun: Having people just sit for hours and listen to someone talking to them is a great cure for insomnia. Board training sessions will be much more productive if they have an element of entertainment. Here are some tips others have found useful:
Use colorful power point presentations or some other form of visual stimulus.
Get board members actively involved in the training sessions. You can follow this link to an article that provides advice on audience participation techniques:https://www.fastcompany.com/3029074/5-tips-for-powerful-audience-participation
Follow a day’s training with a board dinner that concludes with a guest speaker.
Remember, you want board members to be willing participants, something more likely to happen if they feel they have some ownership of the development program, they understand the benefits that will come out of it and they know it will be interesting and even entertaining.
About the Author
Dr Lawrence Hunt is an expert in management of nonprofit organizations and board competency. He has held management positions and served on the board of both nonprofit organizations and corporate organizations in his career. His PHD thesis was focused on improving board competency in the nonprofit sector.
