Time: B - 5 to 15 Minutes

Connecting with Your Nonprofit Board is FREE courtesy of Funding for Good

1 Lesson / 7 Minutes / FREE

This video is part 1 on Ways to Maintain Momentum and Engage Your Board from a distance. The first step is to Connect with your Board of Directors. Remote Board meetings may be new or occasional for some while others are part of national or regional Boards that typically meet virtually. It’s important to maintain Board momentum, not just having a Board meeting for the sake of meeting.

It’s easy as Executive Directors, Staff members and volunteers to just get into our routines. It’s easy to forget that Board Members do have other things on their plates but want to also be involved. Studies show that ‘lack of meaningful work’ is the most common reason why Board members quit the board.

Ask your Board members how they are doing. This is a powerful question and can open lines of communication and engagement. Then ask “what is your current capacity?”. Knowing what a Board Member is able to do is key to getting results. You should also ask ‘What is your preferred communication style?”. These could be things like email, text, phone, Facebook, etc.

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Mobilizing Your Nonprofit Board is FREE courtesy of Funding for Good

1 Lesson / 6 Minutes / FREE

This video is part 3 on Ways to Maintain Momentum and Engage Your Board from a distance. Now that you have connected (Part 1) and engaged (Part 2) with your board members it is time to prioritize and mobilize. It’s important for Executive Directors and Staff directors to have delegated tasks for the board members to accomplish.

Board members can do things like bringing in a donated Item or volunteering an hour of time. Not all Board members can come meet with donors. Board members should keep each other accountable, perhaps the Chair monitors the completion of tasks by all members. You want to avoid Staff trying to hold the Board accountable for things.

Board members need clear messaging. They need to understand what the nonprofit they are serving is doing in the short term and long term. A Nonprofit’s board can help with messaging by posting on individual social media and communicating things like e-newsletters.

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Engaging Your Nonprofit Board of Directors is FREE courtesy of Funding for Good

1 Lesson / 7 Minutes / FREE

This video is part 2 on Ways to Maintain Momentum and Engage Your Board from a distance. Now that you have connected (Part 1) with your board members it is time to engage the board. This can be tricky with remote Board Members and various video chat and virtual meeting software. Sometimes remote board members will multi-task and not pay as much attention you would like.

Once the board is meeting virtually, how do you keep them actively engaged? Perhaps the Nonprofit Staff as well as the board complete an assessment to determine critical needs and top issues. This leads to a collection of these ideas and a clustering exercise where you compare how many people have the same idea. That’s a good way to prioritize the Nonprofit Board’s ideas and priorities.

There are various online meeting/project management tools you can use. You can create “virtual” white boards and sticky notes with remote Board Members. Or, just share in the chat feature or verbally with someone making documentation to be emailed later.

The Board doesn’t need to know everything. Some tasks are handles by the Nonprofit staff and should not involve Board members. Some things are Board worthy and should be communicated. It’s good for the Board to have the key talking points so at a high level everyone is on the same page. A Board member should know key things as an ambassador for the nonprofit.

It’s important to know what tool you Board Members need to act. They may need a letter crafted on the Nonprofit letterhead to solicit a sponsorship for example. It’s also important to have something like a sign-up sheet so the members have a public record of their commitment and a reference point to keep things moving as deadlines approach.

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