The Board of Directors plays a crucial role in the success of any nonprofit organization. A board with diverse skill sets, a productive committee structure, and adherence to term limits will best serve the organization in the long run. Two key factors that help maintain a healthy board are: assessing the board’s needs to identify potential prospects and creating a pipeline for board candidates.
Although this is easy to say, we understand it can be quite challenging in practice! Here are some tips for recruiting the right board members:
1. Assess Board Strengths and Needs: Before identifying potential candidates, determine your current board’s strengths and identify areas that need to be filled. Conducting an asset mapping exercise can help you identify missing skill sets, networks, or demographics on the board. After completing this exercise, highlight the gaps and create a profile. For example, you may find a need for a female member aged 35-50 with a background in real estate.
2. Build a Prospect List: Compile a prospect list that can include individuals from your current donor base, volunteers, community members who are not yet engaged with the organization, individuals served by your organization, alumni, etc.
3. Map the Prospect List: Use the profile you created to evaluate your prospect list. This task can be assigned to the Governance/Nominating Committee or the full board if the committee is not yet established.
4. Gather Insights from Current Board Members: Current board and committee members can provide valuable insights on prospects from the list to determine if they fit the established profile or suggest others in their networks who meet the criteria.
Recruiting new board members in this manner is much more beneficial to the organization than simply adding bodies to the board because you need them. Stay intentional about your recruitment efforts, even when you feel pressured to fill seats. As the needs of your organization evolve, so too will the composition and requirements of your board. Conducting the asset mapping exercise annually or every couple of years will help ensure that your board continues to meet the organization’s needs.
Kennari regularly uses tools and recommendations from BoardSource, a recognized leader in nonprofit board research, leadership, and support. For help with board development, feel free to reach out to the team at Kennari, or visit BoardSource.org for information and resources.