More Huckster Than Holy?

 

The executive summary of the ECFA 2012 Governance Survey, completed by almost 1,600 CEOs, board chairs and board members of ECFA Accredited organizations will be released in the next few weeks.  The differences between the three groups are very, very interesting.

Cameron Doolittle, president and CEO of Jill’s House, Vienna, Va., has collaborated with ECFA on the survey analysis.  He titled one finding, “Get money. Then what? Chairs, board members, and CEOs disagree.”

The survey question: “Of the organizational areas listed below, what are the Top-5 areas that need the greatest improvement in your ministry?”  There were 10 options, including: Fundraising, Finance & Accounting, Human Resources, Governance, Programs, Products & Services, Team Building, Meeting “Customer Needs,” Marketing & Public Relations, Strategic Planning, and Achieving Mission Results.

No surprise—all three groups ranked “Fundraising” as their greatest need. But then what? Here are the second highest ranked needs:
   --355 CEOs said: Marketing & Public Relations
   --255 Board Chairs voted for: Achieving Mission Results
   --971 Board Members checked: Strategic Planning

We’ll talk about this in future blogs, but let’s go back to the greatest need—fundraising. Why might that be? Here’s my list of possibilities:

1. Fundraising is everyone’s greatest need because with more money we can reach and serve more people for Christ.

2. But maybe, fundraising was rated Number One Need because we’re driven to do too much—way, way beyond God’s direction. He’s intentionally not blessing our work because it’s OUR work.

3. Or, we’re abusing our givers, or treating givers and non-givers alike, or maybe our appeals are more huckster than holy.

4. Perhaps the fundraising revenue is right-sized, but our expenses are super-sized.

5. It’s possible that we don’t have the right development team in place. Too old school. Too hip. Maybe we’ve inappropriately replaced shoe leather with social media. Or we have twice as many planning meetings as we have prayer meetings.

6. How about this gut check? Board members—that group that should have the highest passion and commitment for the ministry—are not 100 percent all in as generous givers (and I don’t mean “wealthy” givers). And so their circle of influence is weak or non-existent.

I could go on and I’m sure you can add to this list. It would be a good topic for your board meeting or prayer meeting. Ask your board members to rate all 10 areas.

QUESTION: Is fundraising the greatest need in your organization? If so, what might you learn by digging deeper into this subject?

3-Point Talk: Right, Wrong or Inappropriate

 

Ram Charan’s helpful book for corporate boards, Owning Up: The 14 Questions Every Board Member Needs to Ask (read my review), is packed with wisdom and caution for nonprofit ministry boards too.  He writes:

“With the right composition, a board can create value; with the wrong or inappropriate composition, it can easily destroy value.”

The decision to invite a new member onto the board will likely be one of the Top-5 (or certainly one of the Top-10) decisions you’ll make in any one year. We should be sobered by Charan’s statement. So how do you spiritually discern God’s voice about new board members?

Use his comments as a three-point outline for a spiritual insight segment at your next board meeting.

#1. With the RIGHT composition, a board can create value. It’s not just having individual board members who are stellar—it’s having the right composition of board members. We don’t want clones, we want chemistry. We want the grandeur of the Body of Christ in all of its richness and gifts (Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12, Ephesians 4, etc.) to be at play on our boards. Highly competent look-alikes need not apply.

#2. With the WRONG composition, a board can easily destroy value. I consulted with an organization whose board members were almost entirely from one industry. Ditto many of their donors. They were God-honoring and highly committed to the cause. When that industry’s segment fell on hard times, the organization was forced to merge with another ministry.

#3. With an INAPPROPRIATE composition, a board can easily destroy value. This is more subtle. It might be spiritual or theological (too narrow, too liberal, or too denominational). It might be age or gender-focused (too white, too old, or even too young or too hip). It might be a governance-savvy issue (too many board novices, too fixed on one board model, too “Policy Governance®-oriented,” or not enough experience with the policy function of boards).

Whew! This board stuff is hard work!  Certainly, none of us want to serve on a board where, under our stewardship, we destroyed value and Kingdom impact was diminished. So remember 1 Corinthians 4:2, “Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful.”

For more help, order the ECFA Governance Toolbox Series No. 1: Recruiting Board Members.

QUESTION: What are we doing year-round to ensure that we are recruiting the “right composition” of men and women onto our board?

The Cousin Eddie Syndrome

Have you ever been on a board when a well-meaning, but inexperienced board member pipes up, “My neighbor knows a guy who knows a guy who has a Cousin Eddie. Eddie would be perfect for our board!”

You blink—and presto! Cousin Eddie is on your board. He’s not the right fit. He’s out of sync with your board’s culture. He’s not a generous giver. His Christian character has serious flaws. At best, he’s a warm body.

Now there’s help for the Cousin Eddie Syndrome! The ECFA Governance Toolbox Series No. 1: Recruiting Board Members is now available. Order here from ECFA.
The Recruiting Board Members toolbox includes:
   --1 DVD (13 minutes—perfect for a board meeting)
   --12 Board Member Read-and-Engage Viewing Guides (20 pages)
   --1 Facilitator Guide (4 pages)

The helpful Facilitator Guide offers three discussion options (short, medium or for a board retreat) and points you to additional resources online.

More topics are coming. ECFA’s goal is to have a robust series of strategic toolkits on the shelf so board chairs and CEOs can readily address board issues with a short video and a focused discussion.

Many boards have a governance life-long learning segment at each meeting. At each meeting of the board I serve on, we include a “Ten Minutes for Governance” hot topic or governance book review. It’s stimulating. None of us is as smart as all of us. We are constantly reminded of our kingdom priorities as stewards of God’s work.

You might wonder: Do Christ-centered boards recruit their members differently than secular boards? They should!  The toolkit addresses the critical role of spiritual discernment and prayer in the board recruitment process. 

 QUESTION: How does your board avoid the Cousin Eddie Syndrome—and when is the last time you’ve reviewed board recruitment best practices?

Mission Statement Pop Quiz

 

Picture this!

I was coaching the board of a nonprofit Christian theatre company this week—and I asked everyone to stand.

“If you can recite your ministry’s mission statement by memory, please remain standing.”

I blinked—and just two people were still standing (with plenty of chuckles echoing around the room).  The CEO and the board chair (still on their feet) were ready to duke it out for the prize—until the CEO had a memory lapse.

So…it was Last Man Standing for the winner’s circle.

“OK. Turn your back to the PowerPoint,” I instructed the board chair, “and then I’ll put your mission statement on the screen—while you recite it by memory, word for word.”

He tried. Heroically! But half-way through, he sat down too.

“What just happened?” I asked the highly committed board members in the room.

The discussion was dynamic. Homework was assigned and—my guess—they will repeat the “Last Person Standing” drill at their next board meeting. Successfully.

By the way, their current mission statement is outstanding (in my opinion). “[We exist] to create theatre that explores the beauty and questions of life while providing hope to our search for meaning.”

Yet…they are in the process of revising the mission statement—to make it zing even more! Good for them.

And even better—their “value statements” are limited to just three (not 10). “We value faith. We respect people. We celebrate theatre.”

All the literature, all the books, and all the resources hammer us on the importance of aligning everything we do with our mission. When we ask for God’s blessing on our ministry work—maybe we should be crystal clear about our mission, so we are not fuzzy in our prayers.

Step 1: Memorize the mission statement!

QUESTION: If you offered a Starbucks card to every board member who can pass the Mission Statement Pop Quiz, how many cards would you need?

Do You Need a Consultant—or a Pastor?

 

The nonprofit ministry CEO in the back row of my workshop asked a question about term limits for board members.

He had two board members whose effectiveness, in his opinion, had dried up years ago. Yet the board continued to re-elect these two individuals to successive three-year terms—and there were no term limits.

The CEO felt safe enough in this workshop of his peers to whine extensively (on and on and on, actually) about these dead wood board members who had dug in deep—and “no way,” he said, would they exit from the board.

“Could a consultant help me?” the CEO asked.

The workshop was ending, so my nine-word response was direct: “You don’t need a consultant, you need a pastor.”

In R. Scott Rodin’s powerful book, The Steward Leader: Transforming People, Organizations and Communities (read my review), he writes:

“If I could put one Bible verse on the desk of every pastor and every Christian leader in the world, it would be this: ‘If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us’ (1 John 1:8).”

If you want a healthy board, recruit healthy and spiritually mature people.  If you want a dysfunctional board, recruit people who tilt toward being “owner-leaders,” not “steward-leaders” (Rodin’s poignant labels).

Board members who have hands open—eagerly seeking to hear and obey God’s voice—will not prolong their board service one day beyond His direction.  At a minimum, authentic Christ-followers will invite frank feedback on their effectiveness.

This should be one more profound and vital distinctive of Christ-centered governance: we hold our board roles loosely, to the glory of God. And when we serve on boards that do not have term limits, we are especially thoughtful and prayerful about our tenure.

QUESTION: According to BoardSource’s hot-off-the-press 2012 Nonprofit Governance Index, 27 percent of boards surveyed do not have term limits. Whether you have term limits or not, does your board have an annual self-assessment process that helps you address the dead wood syndrome?

Good Thing Pilots Are Life-long Learners!

 

If you’re on your fair share of airplanes every year, you probably don’t worry much about pilot competencies. To fly, pilots must be life-long learners. They study. They train. They’re tested. They’re certified. As stewards of passenger safety, they get it.

At your next board meeting, bring a Starbucks card (or some other incentive) and ask everyone to stand. Then go through this list—until your last man or last woman is standing.

Life-long Learner Pop Quiz:
#1. Remain standing if you are grateful that pilots are life-long learners.
#2. Remain standing if you think your pharmacist, dentist and doctor should be life-long learners.
#3. Remain standing if you think board members (stewards of God’s work) should be life-long learners.
#4. Remain standing if, as a board member, you have invested a minimum of 10 hours this year in governance life-long learning (books, articles, audio resources, workshops, conferences, etc.).

If anyone is still standing…keep going:
#5. Remain standing if you have invested 20 or more hours this year in governance life-long learning.

I facilitated this drill earlier this year at the ECFA Governance Forum and while 95 percent of the room sat down after Question #4, there were some sterling stewards still standing.  The last man standing had invested more than 50 hours (and it was only March!) in becoming more effective at his governance role.

1 Corinthians 4:2 reminds us that to be a steward it is required that one be found trustworthy.

In his quick-reading book, Axiom: Powerful Leadership Proverbs, Bill Hybels, the board chair of Willow Creek Association and senior pastor of Willow Creek Community Church (both are ECFA accredited), has pointed counsel for CEOs, senior pastors and board chairs. Chapter 29 is titled “Speed of the Leader, Speed of the Team.” (Read my review of Axiom.)

So, by example, inspire your board members to be trustworthy stewards as they hear from God and pilot the direction of your ministry.

QUESTION: How much time have you invested this year in being your best in the governance of your Christ-centered organization?

2 Big Differences: Decision-making and Conflict Resolution

In my last blog I asked, “Is there a difference between how a ‘secular’ board governs and how a ‘Christ-centered’ board governs?”

In my opinion: absolutely! Here are just two thoughts on this:

#1. Governance Decision-making. Secular governance literature has numerous ideas for effective decision-making—most of them excellent. But for the Christ-follower, decision-making without a spiritual discernment component is empty and often misguided. For more on this, read my review of Ruth Haley Barton’s latest book, Pursuing God’s Will Together.

#2. Conflict Resolution. When two or more people serve together, it’s not if you’ll have conflict, but when. Secular models of conflict resolution are helpful, yet for the Christ-follower, Matthew 18 is the gold standard. Check out the Christ-centered resources at Peacemaker Ministries (an ECFA accredited organization), including “The Slippery Slope of Conflict.”

According to Peacemaker Ministries, “The key to changing the way we deal with conflict is the gospel—the good news that God made peace with us and between us by sending his Son to die for our sins and give us new life through his resurrection (Col. 1:19-20; Eph. 2:14-16).”

QUESTION: What are other factors that clearly indicate the difference between how a “secular” board governs and how a “Christ-centered” board governs?