Governance Under Pressure The Board’s Role in a Sector Under Strain

Raa, thank you so much. And for everyone sending in their answers about what they had for breakfast, I am sitting here green with envy. Uh, this is the benefit of having too many cats and just enough dogs, which means we're up at 5:45 feeding them and I get to have two cups of coffee before I start my day. So, already getting a little bit hungry just hearing all these wonderful things everyone had for breakfast. But I digress. We are not here to talk about what we all had for breakfast. We are here to talk about just the state of governance, the state of nonprofits and how we are all existing in this current moment that we find ourselves in. Now, very very quickly before we start to get too deep into anything, just to call out, my name is Bradford Peters. I've had the great pleasure of working with Tech Soup for more than a year at this point, hosting several of these webinars. As a quick background on myself, I am a lifelong worker in the technology space, not just geared towards nonprofits, but specifically within that space towards small, medium uh small to medium-siz nonprofits. all of those wonderful organizations headed by such brave and fantastic leaders that are trying to do the most while managing with the least. And in that time, I have been able to help thousands of organizations not just survive but to utilize technology to get deep roots into their communities to thrive and create sustainable change. But we are also not here to just hear about me. I have my fantastic and wonderful colleague Nick Gaggliardi here as well. Nick, can you give a quick introduction on yourself? >> Hey folks, uh, nice to be here today. >> Um, I'm Nick Galardi. I'm a governance consultant. I'm based in Peterbor Noji Wanong in Mitis gig territory in Ontario and I work with nonprofits right across Canada um doing governance and strategy work. >> Nick, thank you very much for that introduction and asth did bring this up. I am coming to you live from onboard digitally. Um we are a software organization that helps nonprofits simplify their governance. So that members, especially on the board, can quickly find what they need, act upon it, be those very, very efficient and effective board members to get the strategic goals accomplished, but also to save a massive amount of time on the administrative end to make managing the board from the leader perspective at the front end of the nonprofit so much easier. So, we work across 60 countries with 6,000 and counting. I think we might even be up to 7,000 organizations served, hosting over 150,000 uh meetings per year, I will let you read all of the other stats on here. But the big thing, if we do get to the end of this and there is some interest in learning more about how onboard can help with governance, hey, we are partners with Tech Soup. We have some very specialized pricing to help incentivize this and not make it a financial burden to see those impacts happen on your board. But we will get to that because today we are talking about the overall state that this nonprofit sector finds itself in. We're going to talk about some of the strain that is happening with governance within this time. We are also going to learn from Nick. And hopefully I have one or two insights to help about best practices to create a boardroom that is able to operate and succeed within these times we find ourselves in. And then at the end, we'll be here for a live Q&A. So do not worry about waiting until the very end. Please throw those questions in the chat as they come up. I'll be reading. I'll be making sure that we respond to these in time. But today is going to be just a little bit different than many of the webinars that I have led before because that has very often been me doing a monologue talking about the state of things. But we have Nick here. So here is what we're going to be doing with the next hour. We're not here to tell you that the sky is falling. That is a bit of doomerism that I find not just to be false, but to be a very negative headsp space to even operate in. But Nick and I are here to talk and have a conversation about how things are shifting within the nonprofit space and what we are able to do about it. So let's set the stage with just a few numbers because I think it is worth grounding this into some really concrete information. So more than 80% of the nonprofits over in Canada have identified funding as a major instability and uncertainty in the future of their financial uh uh steadiness. It's a concern. It is not a fringe worry. That is the vast majority of the sector telling us that the ground is shifting under their feet. And at the same time, roughly half of these same organizations are reporting that they are falling short of the volunteers needing to help operate these organizations. Now, turnover, that steady churn within the nonprofit space, that is nothing new with volunteers. That is unfortunately table stakes. we know all too well. But the real shift is that this is not just being seen within the volunteer space. This is being seen with actual paid staff. This is being seen with leadership. This is in some places being seen with board members. There is burnout that is happening these days. And what makes it even harder is that demand is not slowing down. These days, we are finding oursselfves in a section where more and more people are needing nonprofit services than ever. And as nonprofits are shuttering their doors, we have nonprofits with less people trying to address a larger population. And that is also coming in the face of this funding uncertainty. So the pressure is real. It is very understandable. It is measurable. But numbers only tell you so much. So Nick, you are doing a lot of this work with organizations every day in your work with these nonprofits all across the country. What are you hearing from executive directors in boards right now? >> Yeah, I think I think the having this data helps describe what's happening at that high level. Um, and I'm always curious, you know, when I work with organizations to see how this plays out on the ground, right? And knowing that it's different in every organization. Um, but definitely, you know, on the on the staff on the exact side of things. Um, I'm seeing EDS and CEOs that are, you know, um, you you talked about burnout. I kind of feel like it's almost a moot point to talk about burnout in the sector at this point. Um, but but staff are as stretched as ever, right? And there's this sort of um strain of um leaders who who went through the pandemic and still haven't been able to sort of catch their breath since then um because it's you know things have been so um challenging and uh you know they've been dealing with so much uncertainty in their environment uh for years now. Um what I'm seeing for organizations is yes um demand is rising but it's also changing in the sense that um the work that organizations are doing needs to be more complex. You're addressing more complex needs. Um you know some cases this is driving some pretty innovative uh collaborations across the sector. um it's driving different kinds of professional development inside organizations, but it's also stretching, right? Um because the um the resources that organizations have access to just aren't kind of keeping pace. And I think what's happening in so many organizations is that there's there's learning um and uh adjusting that needs to happen in real time. That sort of emergent um process as your environment is changing. the pace of change just keeps going and going and going and so people don't have that opportunity to kind of just pause and find the space to think and plan um and learn in their roles and then on the board side I think boards are struggling with that increased complexity as well because you know um what we're what we're expecting from boards is um a higher level of knowledge about the sector um about the complex issues that organizations are dealing with. Um boards are having to deal with more emergent issues. So having to be in more of a reactive mode often than I think that they would like. Um and this is happening in a context where uh many many boards are struggling with uneven engagement. Um they don't have the infrastructure that they need uh to fulfill their roles effectively. they're often not um you know we don't always do a great job supporting board directors so they they don't always have access to the training um or um or the expertise that they would like. I I often have individual board directors just reaching out to me um by email or LinkedIn asking for you know me to point them in the right direction because they they just haven't received any kind of um orientation. And u and so I think when when you're stepping in as a volunteer to do this really complex really important work um it's a big ask and uh we see burnout on the board side as well which I I think we don't talk about as much um but I see all the time in my work. >> I think you are calling out several really critical things. Certainly there is this driving need for nonprofits in leaders in staff to engage and and learn to meet this moment. It's requiring a wider tool set. But you've also knocked it out of the park. There is so little time now. There are so many plates that need to be kept spinning to address this moment. We need to have that ability to hit the pause button to get to the level, but it's just not happening right now. It it is a stressful place to be. So especially with my interest in those like smaller and more medium-sized organizations like what is that comparison like like when we are talking about all of these stressors and all of these needs that need to be met you know how is that showing up differently for a smaller organization as opposed to a larger one that has that much more structure funding that has that much larger staff to help address these. What's that difference you're saying? >> Yeah, I think it's such an important question. Um, what we're what I what I see in the sector is, you know, that sort of K-shaped um trend, right? Where larger um more wellestablished organizations are better uh better structured to meet the moment as you say, right? um and and smaller organizations are struggling and we saw this, you know, about 10 years ago, they started showing up in Canada in um in donation data because we saw at that point that large organizations um were getting a bigger and bigger piece of the donation pie, right? So even though donor trends weren't necessarily going down, the um amount of donations available to smaller organizations was shrinking. And so, you know, it's it's easy to see it on that sort of fund development side of things. Um, but I think it's happening in other places too, right? It happens um in terms of um learning opportunities, right? In terms of, you know, having a budget for administrative support or to send your staff for um for additional training. Um you know, smaller organizations tend to struggle more with turnover. when you have a team of five losing one person that's 20% of your team right and so you can see how it just sort of like compounds and we're at the point now where you know in Canada small organizations are the bulk of our nonprofit sector um they are incredibly important to our communities like and they are I think heavy hitters when it comes to impact like I I would I would do an analysis any day of looking at ROI um in terms of impact I think small organizations punch above their weight, but I am very concerned um about the future of small organizations right now just because it's um it's an uphill battle. >> Yeah, it's again it's tough and especially with that fundraising piece that you mentioned. Now, now fundraising has been in a place where I don't think we're seeing a decline. It's it's been pretty flat. But yeah, when you're one of those larger organizations, you have that ability to raise awareness, to attract attention, to trumpet all of your wins across the community. And that absolutely does impact these, you know, small mom and pop nonprofits that are just serving, you know, uh, one little town and doing a huge amount of good there. But how much can you get that word out as opposed to hey we are an organization that has an entire marketing team and a PR team at play. It's it is really difficult. So is there a specific story that sticks with you? One that kind of captures that real world impact that these pressures are having? >> Yeah. I um I worked with a an organization this past year um and they are a community-based social services provider. So not the smallest um kind of organization, but they're locally focused. Um and they're working in a space in social services. I think this is probably true for everyone working in that space, but um demand for their services is growing quite quickly. And it's also uh an example of a um you know the way that the sector is changing where the the type of service that their clients need is becoming more and more complex. Um this is an organization who gets it's core funding from government which is usually a um a pretty stabilizing place to be. Um but their funding envelope hasn't changed in 10 years. Um and so they've certainly grown and um you know costs and demand have gone up significantly but that core funding hasn't. And so what happens is leadership is spending so much of their time trying to find like creative ways to close that gap um because they have to. And um and then you know they they have some legacy governance structures right that haven't been serving the organization well because they've been too busy focused on other things and they haven't had the resources to invest in that kind of work. Um that's led to board turnover right which leaves gaps in leadership. Um you know they're working hard to support staff but their staff are burned out. Um, and so this is like it it's it's what I often call a capacity trap, right? Where you you just need a little bit something to just give a bit of a push and you can and you can kind of break out of that. Um, but you know, you just end up in this space where where you're constantly dealing with crisis. Um, and and you know, if it's not internal, it's external. And so it's a really challenging place to be. Um, but that is literally just a day in the life of this organization. That's just their normal operating reality. Um, and then in in the midst of all this, they're still trying to build their fundraising capacity. They're trying to um create um, you know, a strategic plan. They're trying to build really innovative partnerships to better meet the needs of their community. So, it's it's um, I think there's a lot of resilience. There's a lot of brilliance and excellence. Uh but it's it's a really it's a challenging slog. >> It's an unfortunate thing and it is one of the most admirable things I find with nonprofits is that ability to endure. It's that ability to almost develop a sense of um you know emotional callous because it is chaos abounding in a lot of places and seeing how boards and and organizations can struggle because there is that turnover maybe we can find new people that's a huge chunk of time over a number of weeks or months to get that new person up to speed there is struggle finding funding I think you mentioned or maybe hinting It's something that that I've found a lot with executive directors, which is almost mission drift. Hey, we're going to get creative because now we're going to serve in some different ways to try and attract funding. Now we're trying to cover so much more than this original intention that we started with and trying to stabilize resources across all this stuff. Um, overall it is tough, but as you said, it is absolutely amazing to see how these leaders have been able to persevere in March 4th. And we're going to start to talk about and identify a couple more of these strains in best practices. But first, let's take a quick poll. So, believe we have a poll that should be coming up for everybody. just what is the biggest pressure your organization is feeling right now? Nick has identified a lot of them. Not just from a funding capacity. I think a cost of living capacity is also certainly impacting organizations. If you're getting $100,000 every year, but it is consistently bringing back less, what is that doing for the organization? Is it burnout with staff? Is it burnout with board leaders? Is it mission drift? What are the things that you guys are feeling? Looking forward to see seeing what these results are going to pop up to be. Yeah. So with [sighs] 70% in resource scarcity and funding uncertainty not shocking. This is what we are all feeling across the space when we are losing access to government funds. When those funds are coming up and achieving less each year, when it is harder to fund raise, this is exactly where we find ourselves at. So, we have this pressure, but what does it actually do to how a board functions? That's where I want to go next. So as resources get tighter, the mechanics of governance itself, pulling together information, getting everything out in front of those people in minds who we need the knowledge of to help us achieve our strategic goals to give us the thoughts to create the plan that are going to lead to success. It gets harder. It gets more time consuming. It doesn't get easier. as an executive director has to turn their 12-hour day into a 15-hour day to meet the moment. How can they get this information to the right people that are making up that executive team to help find this success? As that burden grows, directors end up less supported than they should be. And then less supported directors, they sometimes disengage. and a lot less engaged board means that it's spending time managing logistics instead of actually deliberating and enacting strategy. So that's where the mission itself starts to get lost in the shuffle. Nick, I'd love your take on that. Does that match what you're seeing and what you're hearing, or is there a piece I'm missing? Yeah, I think um it's a bit of a double-edged sword here because >> um I think the reality is that um a lot of board work is administrative in nature, right? And that admin stuff is not always, you know, the most exciting or glamorous. Um but it is incredibly important to the organization. And when we um when we get, you know, if we kind of like pair down the board role to what are those min specs, those legal requirements, um a board is a is an administrative body required by law, right? And so um so that that admin piece, those mechanics are um kind of the core of it. Um so it's really important that that admin stuff, those mechanics, it's really important that they happen. Um, but when they start to take up too much time and effort, some of that other stuff, like you mentioned, that generative strategic piece, um, it tends to get pushed off, right? And that stuff is important, too. Um, and so I I think I think this can happen often because systems aren't there. They're not in place. Um, and uh, as I mentioned earlier, I I don't think we're doing a very good job or I think there's a lot of room for improvement in how we set up board directors for success, right? We don't always give people um, the kind of training and support that they need to understand their role and to fulfill it effectively. Um, and then by the time people figure it out, their board terms are over. Um, there's new people coming in and the cycle just starts all over again where someone else is trying to figure it out from scratch, right? I think that's a piece where we can definitely do better. Um, having said all of that, I think the flip side is that despite how important those um, administrative pieces are, um, we can also focus too much on them. We can spend too much time on it. And, um, I think that's often because governance can feel really abstract. Because when we're not supporting people to understand their role on a board, um people start to try and figure out like what am I supposed to be doing? Oh, here's a checklist. Let me focus on this. um or when you're facing, you know, really complex um work and decisions, you know, in front of you as a board director that maybe you didn't know you were stepping into. Um it's it's easier to kind of focus in on those administrative or mechanical pieces because those mechanical pieces can sort of look and feel like we're doing governance. Um when maybe we're not, you know, maybe we're meeting those requirements, but we're not actually advancing uh the organization the way that we want to be. So either way, I think you want to you want to I see a lot of boards kind of ending up in a place where they're spending too much time and energy on the administrative stuff. Um and then other substantive parts of governance, the sense making, the trust building, those deep conversations, all that stuff that um enables that complex decision-m that boards need to be doing um especially in this moment can get lost. You called out something right in the middle there that that really speaks to so many conversations I've had, which is it taking a board member their full term just to really figure out what is going on. There are so many leaders I speak to where that's, you know, effectively that time to ramp is that whole term. They talk about, oh, board members don't actually start to really show up and contribute until term number two once they've figured it out. And you just have to think there needs to be a way we can get people up to speed quicker that we can just slot them into the structure, vest them with the knowledge so that we can start to see that impact in benefits in year one and hopefully not in term number two. And overall, I think what's standing out to me is that this administrative work, it it doesn't disappear just because the capacity is light. If the systems themselves are weak, the boards either spend too much time on the mechanics or they avoid them until something gets missed. So either way, strategy is what loses time. So when everything feels urgent, how can a board support the executive director without slipping into like running the organization? >> Yeah, I mean [laughter] supporting the ED um I think that's a really important question. We often talk about accountability, right? in terms of how can the um how can the board hold the ED accountable? But I really like flipping it to look at that support piece because that's really what you want the board to be doing. Accountability matters, right? >> Um but that support is really really important. Um and so what I often um you know there's a lot to be said around role clarity and um you know board conduct and that sort of thing. Um, but what I often end up talking to boards about is shifting away from an individual focus and if and moving toward a focus of building infrastructure, right? So, um, if you if you're a board director, rather than doing the work directly, you want to think about how can I build infrastructure to to make sure the work can happen in a way that outlives my participation as an individual. um because we just if we're always relying on individuals to figure it out and do it then we're always in that cycle where we're sort of starting from scratch. Um but if we can step back and focus on building infrastructure that actually contributes to uh increasing capacity for the organization over time and I think it's um sometimes a bit of a a more reasonable ask for board directors who are you know volunteers who have busy lives. Um, so really focusing on um, you know, don't bake the cake, just make sure the organization has the recipe, has the ingredients, um, and then take a step back. >> Yeah, I I really like that. Just that idea of spending some time to focus on building the right infrastructure so that no matter who's at the helm, no matter who is steering the ship, we have the right vehicle, the right structure in place to survive waves, no matter how treacherous they are. that they can steer through anything. I I really like that. So that's the the resource side of it. But then there is a a second force at work here too. The people who are actually in the room and how they are handling a lot of this. So when a board gets stretched thin, what actually happens to how power and and an engagement play inside the room? >> Yeah. what I often see um it's what I call uneven engagement and I hear about this all the time um from almost every board that I've worked with um from folks that I talk to in the sector. I get um I get stories about it all the time in my newsletter and um what what it is and I think that this is I'll describe it but I think people will will recognize it. um you end up with a small sort of core group of people uh who are you know a group of board directors who are basically driving the bus right and everyone else is sort of along for the ride um and you know it's in a in a board especially on a larger board and I think a lot of organizations um I think the average board size is around eight um but I've seen you know much much larger boards pretty pretty frequently um you know you can expect that board directors who are volunteers are going to show up with different capacities at different times and so that level of engagement that each individual can bring to that role will vary and that's normal and okay. Um but it becomes a problem when it starts to affect quality or effectiveness or sustainability of governance and specifically you know you asked about um the power dynamics. What happens is that you end up with this sort of um mini board that's in charge. And you know the board um the way a board is is designed um it's it can only function as a whole. It's a unit. Um and so if you um if you end up with a couple of people who are kind of doing everything right because it's easy or make not it's not easy it's functional gets things done. Um it can lead the board to a dysfunctional place right be where power and information is getting concentrated in a couple of individuals often the chair um sometimes it's the executive sometimes it's a specific committee a governance committee or something like that. Um what we want to see is like everyone on the board needs to be fully tuned into what's happening fully read in even if they're not you know fully engaging at the same level. Um and you don't want anyone any individuals or any kind of um groups acting unilaterally unilaterally without you know without the board explicitly um delegating that. So it can be a risky space um for directors in terms of their own liability um which is why you know it's a problem. It can be a problem from a sustainability perspective. So many boards I meet no one wants to be the chair. they have massive problems with chair succession because the chair role has just become so big. Um, no one will take it on and chairs are burnt out and and they don't necessarily want um to be in that situation either. Um, but at the end of the day, what really the biggest problem I think is that you don't have a you're not taking advantage of um the full complement of board directors that you need to meet that moment, right? To to drive those complex conversations and decisions. um and and that it's really hard to come back from once power gets concentrated like that. It's really hard to pull it back. Um but it's really really important I think for effective governance today. >> And so that sounds a lot like a cycle that starts with good intentions. You know, we have a a highly engaged chair that steps in because something needs to get done and then other directors begin relying on them. And then the more the chair carries the less that everyone else sees their you know needs of their own role. So you know Nick in your mind like where is the line between strong leadership and becoming a bottleneck. [clears throat] >> Um I I think it goes back to what I mentioned earlier about that over reliance on individuals. Right. So if um if if an organization gets to that point where like oh boy I don't know what will happen you know when Sarah steps down um that's that's a signal right that there's a problem um probably for Sarah and for everyone else um but I think you really want to focus on that element of everyone on the board having equal power and equal responsibility right and thinking about governance you know there's there always going to be informal aspects of governance and formal aspects of governance. But when power starts to operate in that informal um space where you know a couple of people are sort of having those side conversations um they're driving the outcomes of decisions. They're they're deciding what kind of information is getting shared or not shared with the board. um when the full board doesn't have access to information that some board members might um which we often see in the um you know when when the chair has a um significant role managing the ED that's that's a problem that's a red flag that um that there's a bottleneck there that needs to be addressed. >> Yeah. And um you're kind of lining this up well because we are talking about a chair that is intern managing the executive director and you know something that I've read in your newsletters before and something that I've sometimes heard from nonprofits themselves. Sometimes the executive directors don't quit the jobs, they quit the boards. Could you maybe expand on that a bit? Yeah, I mean it is there is nothing about being a nonprofit ed that is not challenging. Um and I can say that um having you know worked in the SEC sector and in in organizations for many many many years. Um as well as working with so many awesome EDs now as a consultant um it's a hard job and it can be a lonely job. Um, you know, people don't always get what you do. You when you're in leadership, you know, you're sort of like lonely at the top, as they say. Um, but working for a board is a unique challenge. Working for a nonprofit board is a unique challenge because you're working you're you're you're a professional. um you're leading an organization um and then you are reporting to 8 10 12 volunteers who may or may not understand the organization. They may or may not understand the nonprofit sector. Um they probably have good intentions. I would say 99.9% of board directors I've met do. Um and then there's the every now and then there's that ego-driven director who who pops in. Um, but you know, when you're when you're an ED working for a board that doesn't fully understand its role, um, maybe doesn't have the systems and infrastructure it needs to to to do what it needs to do. Uh, you can be dealing with things like, you know, a lot of inconsistency in expectations. Um, there's a lot of interpersonal dynamics to manage. It can it can get challenging. And then if you end up in a situation where um what the practice that we see so often is um the board chair has this one-on-one relationship with the ED. Um and you know if that board chair is an ethical person, if they have good communication skills, if their personalities mesh with the ED, that could be fine, could be a good working relationship. Um but just as often it's not and you can end up in situations where that person may not be using their power ethically. Um there can be um you know um a lot of stress and tension in that relationship. The board chair is essentially the boss, right? And so um the that power dynamic is there. And then there I mean we get into situations where we're even looking at things that cross over into um like harassment and discrimination, right? So I've seen [sighs] too many um EDs leave their roles because they tried and tried um and just could not um could not build uh an enabling working relationship with their board. Um, and I think that it's one of the big risks that boards need to be looking out for. Um, because ED turnover is no joke. It's very, um, it's very disruptive. It's very costly. Has an impact on your organization and and your community. And once it happens once, like so often I see organizations um where one ED left and then they've cycled through two or three more in the next five years, right? Um, so th there's obviously some internal issues. Um, but I think that they're structural and I think that people do have good intentions, but again going back to that sort of training, support, infrastructure, um, if we're expecting people to just kind of figure it out, they're going to make mistakes and, um, and those mistakes can unfortunately be quite costly. that relationship that you just defined between the executive director and the chair, the executive director and the board itself. It's um it's it's an axom I I think we don't often talk about enough, but as I've heard from so many folks I've worked with, you know, um they talk to you about how to be an executive director. There is training for how to run a nonprofit. Well, there seems to be less training and resources people can pull on for how to be an executive director working with the board. it it often feels [clears throat] like a truly secondary job that unless you have served an organization prior. It is a brand new set of skills that you need to be able to hit the ground running on very quickly to do it well, which often involves, as you were mentioning, interpersonal skills to a degree. Some just HR skills, ability to communicate well, to be flexible well, and also to just sometimes keep your head above a lot of that chaos that is going on. It's it's a lot to keep in your head at once. Um, so is there one thing that a board could do to to keep in mind like to to be mindful of partially about this sort of bottlenecking with the chair but also just towards ensuring that there is that good working relationship with the executive director, you know, just to make sure this is all working well in the first place. Yeah, I have found um you know this is a it's a question that I have asked myself many many times. Um I'll go into organizations and we're talking about um strap planning or policy development or something else but the real issue underneath it all is that board executive relationship. Um and so what I recommend now for organizations is to implement a formal performance uh management process inside an organization and um I've actually developed um a process tailored to small organizations because this is a piece that's missing. What we often tell boards is you should do a yearly um evaluation of your ED and most boards aren't even doing that. [laughter] Um but the yearly evaluation isn't cutting it. Um so we really need a structured process for setting clear expectations, right? Um for the executive director with um a strong sense of what success looks like, right? So there's too many um you know when you're doing complex work there's so many variables um too many assumptions can get made and boards have a reputation um you know for shifting goalposts because there's turnover on boards. People come and people go that's normal that's natural um but it can be difficult when you're doing complex long term work right to um to to stay committed to a certain path of action. So really um building some um some formal processes around goal setting um and uh and then at minimum quarterly check-ins around those goals. Boards should also be thinking about um monitoring for policy compliance and organizational stewardship as part of performance management. they should be asking that question that you asked earlier about how do we support the ED right through professional development through how we work and and in other ways um and uh really thinking about yeah what do what do we need to do to ensure that we have this strong constructive collaborative relationship with the ED because I think we often we see that put on the EDS right where they need to figure it out new board new board chair um new relationship um it's a and boards need to take responsibility for that as well, particularly because they're in that position of power. Um, and because, you know, you can't fulfill your role as a board without supporting your executive director, right? Um, there's just no way to do it. And so, it's it's a it's a really really important piece. >> Yeah. I'm I'm just hearing effective relationship building, effective governance. It's sounding like there needs to be the definition of what we are doing first and then holding to that. And so often the process as it is these days is we are working towards action and trying to define it based upon what we do which can lead to some tension and can lead to things airing a little bit and I want to pivot off that point a little bit about what is happening on this work towards the executive director's end and really also look at how boards renew themselves. You know you've written extensively about recruitment as well. what are you seeing there? >> Yeah, recruitment is um is important. It's an ongoing challenge for boards simply because it requires a fair amount of capacity. Um and you know when we look at the trends here in Canada, um we know that boards tend to be older, right? Um board directors tend to be older. Uh we know that volunteerism is declining um quite dramatically. And when we look at time survey results, we can see that like younger and middle-aged adults have less free time um than their predecessors. So, I'm always thinking, you know, what are what are boards going to look like in 10 years? And um and how can we start thinking about succession from that lens? Now, um I think that most boards have too many directors, right? The minimum in most jurisdictions um is three and and as I said the average I think is around eight but most boards and smaller organizations I would say skew on the upper end of that. Maybe eight is closer to a median than an average. Um and so I think that you know when boards are thinking about succession thinking about moving towards smaller boards is an important part of that. Um taking that sort of minimum viable approach to your board um would be helpful. The thing that I that I um I think this is kind of an unpopular opinion, but I share with boards all the time. You know, I I see people um putting up board postings. I work with boards around this stuff. Um I get people reaching out to me to share board postings a lot. And what organizations are struggling with, what boards are struggling with around recruitment is finding credentialed professionals. So, we've gotten to this point because nonprofits have become more complex um where it seems like every organization is has an expectation that they will have a lawyer and an accountant and um a fundraising professional on their board and that creates you know um a bit of a a recruitment challenge for sure. Um and again, I don't think it's necessary. Um, I think that if we are creating boards, if we're building infrastructure that allows anyone to step into that role, have the training, have the systems and processes that they need to be successful, um, and and having opportunities to access expertise when they need it, then that's that's sufficient, right? That's that's going to give you a level of governance that gets you where you need to go. Not everyone needs to have a lawyer. Um, I've had organizations where they have, you know, they have a real estate lawyer on their board and then they're expecting them to advise them on on complex um, issues related to, you know, uh, criminal law or something and it's, you know, there's a disconnect there. Um, yeah. So, I think that moving away from that expectation I think is really, really important. The other thing I saw some interesting data recently from um the charity insights project at Carlton uh university and it was about succession planning for boards. Um and they asked they asked um in their survey uh you know what are what are the things that you're looking for when you're recruiting? And it was really interesting because around half of boards said that um they're recruiting for diverse backgrounds and perspectives. um they're recruiting for community connections, they're recruiting for lived experience. And I was really excited to see that because even in my time in the sector, that has not always been the case. And I think that's a really promising trend that has come out of a lot of advocacy over the last 10 or more years. Um but in that same data pool only a third of of um charities are recruiting for interpersonal and soft skills which I think is a big missed opportunity. So, I want to see boards recruiting for values alignment, right? You can teach governance skills. You can show someone um how to run an a performance management um process, but you can't fake values alignment. And values are so critical to um to strong governance. And so, so looking at that as sort of the the foundation for recruitment, I think, is really important, especially for highly valuesdriven organizations. um but also skills like conflict management and problem solving, communication, these things matter so much and most of the governance I don't know problems crises that that I'm brought in to deal with um all started from um just conflict aversion. [laughter] So, um, we think that they're complex policydriven issues, but they're they're um they're coming out of interpersonal like a lack of interpersonal comfort with dealing um or dealing with complex issues or or conflicts. Um, and so I think that having those skills on your board um if you want to have uh a functional effective board is really really uh really important. Yeah, I think this mapping and this realization of the need of of soft skills, of value alignment, I mean, this is critical. I I think it's too often we hear from nonprofits, how they had the board member with the right skills, but they were still not the right person for the job. The zeal wasn't there. Maybe the alignment wasn't as as perfect as it seemed at first glance. And that leads to not necessarily rocky relationships, but it does lead to having people that are not able to go in 100% like the board members with that right alignments. You know, again, I think this goes back a bit to a bit of defining things as we talked about a few minutes ago. If we could find the time in between the 29 and a half hours a day that an executive director is working to really scope out here are all of the various skills that make our nonprofit board the best version possible, the one to accomplish this mission best. [clears throat] and then start to really analyze not just your board but potential incoming members who is going to overall make it to the board because sometimes it does not need to be another board member who is very effective at reading financial documents if we have three or four of those folks on the board I think we are best served as we need to expand the mission out as we need to tend to other critical pieces maybe sometimes it is not about chasing credentials it's filling in those gaps So overall, like healthier recruitment isn't about filling seeds. It's not about chasing credentials. It's about building a leadership team that can work through difficult decisions together and then give those people the training and the infrastructure to contribute and hopefully to contribute quickly and not have that first term sitting learning absorbing just to be effective two or three years later. So, out of curiosity, Nick, what does healthier board recruitment like? What does it look like in in practice other than mathing this out? Like, like what are some takeaways that an executive director in a team could bring when they are interviewing new people for an open seat? H I think the first um and possibly most important part aside from that values piece that that we've um talked about is role clarity. So um really like on a internally the the board and the ED should have a strong sense of what is the role of this board right because it can vary from organization to organization um and what are our expectations for directors I see a lot of recruitment that is kind of broad and general um you know it's like oh four to six hours a month and um you So, all you need to do is show up to a meeting and then in a committee meeting and then um and then I have I have board uh board chairs or EDS saying like, "Oh, my board isn't engaged. They're not coming to my events. They're not doing this, they're not doing that." And um sometimes sometimes there's an an issue with engagement on on the director side, but sometimes it's an issue of um clarity around expectations. So, if you want your board members to come to events, then you need to be clear that that's an expectation that you have. If you want your um board directors to be doing committee work outside of specific meetings, then you need to be clear about that. Um, so I think that role clarity piece really really matters. Um, and then I think I think we're always looking for like this is the way, this is the perfect board. um these are the competencies you need, these are the skills you need. Um but when it comes to governance, you know, governance is dynamic. It's it's like a complex system in your organization. And so as your organization changes, as your environment changes, you can expect that the kinds of people you need on your board will change, too. And so you really want to be thinking about what does our what does our board need right now to fulfill its role effectively? what kind of skills, what kind of experiences, and there are so many different axes that you can look at. Um, you know, and I think we've touched on a lot of them in terms of skills, um, you know, identities, experiences, soft skills, that sort of thing. Um, and then the other thing that I I think is really important uh, when you're going through that recruitment process is transparency. I've talked to too many board directors, too. um were recruited through sort of rose tinted glasses and then when they joined the board found out, oh crap, there's some stuff going on here that is actually, you know, going to be um quite stressful to deal with. It's going to take up a lot of my time. It's not what I was expecting. Um and I think that that's really unfair for volunteers, and I think that it doesn't really set your board up for success either. So there's always there's always confidentiality that we need to be thinking about, but as transparent as we can be um in terms of where where our organization is at, where is our board at, what is our infrastructure like, you know, um what kind of support are we actually offering to this director and um and how can we make this a great experience for them? I think um I think that I think that matters too looking at it from that end. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And I want to highlight again and underline and put in bold and make it size 28 font if possible. Like that conversation around expectations with board members at the very front of the relationship is one of the most critical things because so often it feels like the executive director has in their mind this idea of how things are supposed to work. But when that's not communicated, when the board member signs on, you can't fault them for operating in a different way because there was no underlying conversation around, hey, you are going to be working on these committee meetings outside of the main board. Once a quarter, we are having fundraising drives that you are going to attend and you are going to use your poll within the community to bring people into. Communication is key and I cannot emphasize that enough. So, thank you very much for calling that out, Nick. So very quickly since I know we are kind of getting towards the end of this um I did want to take a quick beat to overall add one final piece. Um so we have talked about mechanics of governance about pulling things together about taking uh you know minutes about keeping everyone briefed about good relationship structure about how to find the right folks about how to increase that ramp time for new board members. Um, I do want to say for a lot of the boards that I work with who are running governance through emails, who are running things through personal drives or whatever premium level software that they have. That is one of the major things that styy governance with the board that make communication difficult that create that imbalance of a relationship that can create that bottleneck with a board chair. And this is what a lot of what onboard was built to solve where it gives not just everything a home to be found. It increases and expands those avenues of communication. It allows people to quickly access those bylaws, those policies. Have those understandings. So since we are here with Tech Soup, it is worth mentioning if you are feeling the strain not just of the current ground that we are on but especially with managing the board with communicating with hitting those strategic goals with ensuring you have a team that moves with you and not in half a dozen different directions. Onboard can help. We have that relationship with Tech Soup. We have a very discounted rate to ensure that nonprofits are able to take on tools that build that infrastructure that helps slot people in quicker without this being a massive financial burden. So, it is not a replacement for structural fixes. Nick just walked through that, but it is another lever and it is one that has certainly helped thousands of nonprofits across the United States and in Canada. So, do not hesitate to reach out there. But in the meantime, we have some Q&A that I have very poorly been tending to. So, starting from the very top with everybody. Oh my goodness. And I apologize for not checking this midway through whatsoever. Um, one of the questions I actually saw that Debbie asked was just wanting a better definition of infrastructure. So, Nick, that is something you and I have have spoken of. potentially my definition might differ than yours, but when you're talking about infrastructure, could you um expand on that a little bit? >> Yeah, for sure. Um yeah, it's kind of a jargony term, but it's one that I like to use. Um so when I'm talking about infrastructure, I'm talking about the policies, the processes, the systems, right? So um some people might call it yeah like admin um or workflows or whatever but it's it's basically those um those governance structures that live outside of individuals that allow you to um to to have that sort of systemic approach to things so there's more continuity in what you do. So I, you know, when I'm looking at governance, I'm thinking about um what I call the three piece, people, power, process, and the process piece is the infrastructure. It's like all the things that you build that um that live in the organization itself rather than within organi or within individuals. >> Yeah, Nick, I couldn't agree more. And and I think infrastructure can have a broad term. It it can mean many things. Is infrastructure a a place where we hold information? Potentially. Is infrastructure just a recurrent activity of having a review process with the executive director? Is infrastructure having a process of thinking about the different skills we're looking for within board members? What we need are replicable activities that live with everybody instead of things that are just being stored away by one person who is the font of knowledge on everything. because infrastructure is something that anybody can approach no matter if it is day one on the board or you know year five as opposed to something that potentially fades away when that one particular board member with that knowledge turns out is gone and we've lost that forever. So, we have another question uh from John asking, "What are the best ways to get new board members up to speed to allow them to feel confident about making significant or important contributions?" Now, in my mind, everything that I have heard from executive directors at nonprofits, they describe this as a hesitancy due to lack of knowledge. There is that inability to quickly get people information like minutes over the past 5 years, all of the policies, all of the bylaws, strategic uh initiatives and how those have been fairing over the last 3 years. I think it is a bottlenecking of information that prevents newer board members from feeling like they have an actual good sense of not just what is going on today but what has been going on in the past that is informing today. So being able to provide that information and set goals with that board member that hey by the end of month number one or number two expectation is that you have studied up on what these minutes have looked like over the last two or three years. So you're now informed about things that you have a review of all of these decisions how we have arrived at them by month number two or three. access of information, goal setting, an active check-in from an executive director, not to scold anybody for not doing anything, but to form that relationship and ensure that this person is checking off their marks and getting up to speed. That's what comes to mind for me. Nick, would you have any other ideas on this? >> Yeah, I would agree. Uh, Bradford, I I do want to say, you know, when a new director comes in um and there's some hesitancy around big complex decisions, I actually see that as a positive sign um because yeah, like if if if if you're if you're taking that role seriously, if you're using your power um ethically and effectively and you're brand new, um I think hesitancy demonstrates competence and humility, which in my mind are are, you know positive attributes for a board director. Um so you know there are aspects of stepping into a leadership role that do take time to learn and that's okay. But there are so many parts of nonprofit board leadership that shouldn't really be that complex or difficult if we just documented them and shared them effectively. And I think you've spoken to that pretty well. So I won't I won't belabor that. that, you know, there's there's a difference between not understanding what to do or where to find the info or who to ask, right? Those are all, you know, onboarding problems you can fix, orientation problems you can fix. That's different from I'm still stepping into my leadership role and I'm doing that with some humility, which I think is a normal positive um part of any kind of uh leadership. Thank you very much for that. Um, okay. I didn't just hit the mute button on myself. All right. Um, last question that I am seeing in the chat is coming from Debbie. Um, giving a lot of context around some issues towards being able to obtain funding um, about overall being able to meet needs four years in a row, which sounds like a very, very tough place to be in. So Debbie, I would say if there has been trouble towards getting fundraising from state grants, local grants, if there have been issues towards partnership, there are sometimes uh questions that I have about the story that's being told. I am sure you guys are doing a lot of good but I think one thing I have noticed quite a bit within the grants piece is that we are no longer able to get by as institutions talking about the broad number of people that we helped that was something that I think everybody in this room you know 1990 through 2020 had no problem being able to tell within this community we have helped a thousand people out isn't that fantastic and unfortunately I think this trend that has really reared its head over over the last number of years is wanting more specifics to better inform those stories and those decisions of who gets funds or not. Talking instead of a quantitative impact has been replaced by the need for many institutions to seek a qualitative impact of people. So, if there is a a funding issue, I know it is not an easy one for me to provide a full answer for on this call, but one thing that has changed the funding situation for so many nonprofits I worked with is now not saying we've helped a thousand people, but it's we've helped a thousand people out and on average we took them from a here in whatever we were trending towards helping to a here because at the end of the day, we are all telling stories and giving stories about why we are deserving of these things. So, at at first glance, that is one that I know has changed things for a lot of nonprofits is talking about that qualitative impact within people. Um, Nick, I'm not sure if you had a chance to see Debbie's comment. Do you have other thoughts on your end from all of your experience working with nonprofits? >> Uh, I haven't seen uh the comment, Debbie. Apologies. But what I will add is that um philanthropy is like an an entire industry um with a lot of insider dynamics and it can be hard to make sense of um and break into. And so if this is an area where your organization is, you know, repeatedly struggling with um and if you have any resources to, you know, get a bit of expertise from um a professional fundraiser um or a grant writer to sort of look at what you've been doing and and kind of point you in the right direction. There's a lot of great fractional folks out there. there's people who will do um you know an assessment or advisory session in an hour or so that I think that can be really really helpful because it is um it is not an easy industry to understand or break into thank you so much for that so I'm double checking here I I think we have hit all of the questions that I am seeing but I am happy to stay on the line if there are other questions people want to ask. Um, I'm happy to be here for a couple more minutes. So, I'll be checking the chat if there is uh anything else anyone wants to ask that I can speak to. Nick, I also know that we are five minutes past due, so I don't necessarily want to um hold you past this. I'm sure you have a very busy day ahead. Okay, I'm checking not seeing anything else in the chat. So, also say unless something pops up in the next couple seconds, we can call this a wrap for right now. So, for everybody, um I hope there were some good insights supplied to this. I know that Artha is going to be sending this recording to everybody to review later. Um, as always, it is fantastic getting to work with Tech Soup. It is fantastic getting to interact with all the nonprofits that are attending. If you ever want to have another conversation and not even make it about tech, my name is Bradford Peters. I work at Onboard. Do not hesitate to reach out. I will be here to hop on, help, share whatever wisdom I have morning and noon and night, six days a week. Let me have Sunday off. That's all I ask. thoughts. Otherwise, everybody have a fantastic Thursday. Have a great rest of week and have a wonderful weekend.