The Connection Chasm

An experienced senior leader with strong credentials (he loves Jesus, MBA, etc.), asked me recently, “How does one get invited to serve on a nonprofit ministry board?”

I know a dozen nonprofits that would crowd in line to snag this mid-40s board prospect.  Yet here was an eager and willing future board member with no immediate connection to a nonprofit ministry—other than a desire to serve. Apparently, he’s not on the radar of any local or national ministry that would likely benefit from his expertise and his heart.

This “Connection Chasm” is unfortunate, but there are solutions.

“What’s your passion?” I asked him.  I encouraged him to become an active supporter, cheerleader and volunteer of a ministry that grabbed both his heart and his spouse’s heart.

I told him that the best boards are looking for people who meet the “6 Ds” criteria:
   • Discerning Decision-Maker
   • Demonstrated Passion
   • Documented Team Player
   • Diligent and Faithful Participant/Volunteer
   • Doer (“walks the talk”)
   • Donor

We talked about the importance of the first five Ds and then the generous giving imperative per Matthew 6:21, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Note that I said “generous,” not wealthy.)

To define “generous giver” I suggested, “Look at your personal annual giving—and note which three ministries/local church are in your Top-3 each year. It’s likely that one of those ministries might provide you with a board service opportunity.”

In the ECFA Governance Toolbox Series No. 1: Recruiting Board Members, the short DVD and view-and-engage guides (one for each board member) discuss four steps: Cultivation, Recruitment, Orientation and Engagement. In the Cultivation section, there are seven self-assessment statements, including:
   • “We have a written ‘pathway to the board’ checklist that we follow which includes significant reference checks and due diligence.”

Disciplined attention to your Pathway to the Board Checklist will help bridge the “Connection Chasm” between your board’s needs and willing and available board prospects.

QUESTION: Does your board have a Pathway to the Board Checklist? How are you communicating board service opportunities to younger board members?

Never Say Someone’s No for Them

I remember asking a CEO once, “Who are you thinking about for your next board chair?”

The God-honoring CEO told me that the Lord had been nudging him recently about asking a certain board member, Jeremy (not his real name), to take the helm.

“But after thinking about it,” the CEO shared, “there’s no way Jeremy would say yes. He would be perfect, but he’s too busy. He’d say no. So there’s no point in even asking him.”

That encounter (and dozens like it every year) prompted me to share Bill Hybels’ wisdom with the CEO. In his wonderful book, Axiom: Powerful Leadership Proverbs, Hybels writes:

“NEVER SAY SOMEONE’S
NO FOR THEM.”

“It’s an odd tendency I see in even the most discerning and faithful leaders: when they’re trying to add a great board member or an elder or a small group leader or other key leader, they ask God who would be the very best person on planet Earth to fill the position.”

He adds, “Upon receiving the answer, they proceed to pursue everyone but that individual. In almost every case, the ‘very best one’ is a fantastic leader who is already busy doing extraordinary work somewhere else. ‘That’ person might have to agree to a pay cut to join our team. ‘That’ person might have to relocate from some balmy utopia to the Midwest…and surely they won’t do all that just to come serve alongside us.”

Hybels concludes his two-page axiom (one of 76 axioms in the book), “…nothing is ever lost by leaving room for the surprising and supernatural emergence of a yes.”

QUESTION: Who is on your board prospect wish list that you have not yet asked for fear of a no?

Invitation for Improvement

What word or phrase pops into your mind when someone mentions “annual audit?”

If we were at a board retreat together—and each board member shared a response—the around-the-room drill might sound like this:
   • Necessary evil
   • Boring
   • Important, but not strategic
   • Often late, but well done!
   • Three cheers for our CFO!
   • PTL! We’re still solvent.
   • Going concern = prayer concern

I’m not a finance person, so I tend to be in the camp that says “Let’s do the due diligence, of course, but quickly move to the next agenda item.”

So I must confess this about audits: I was severely reprimanded recently!

Let me explain. I currently serve as board chair for a credit union and a new federal requirement mandates that every board member complete six financial literacy courses—with passing grades! I invested 25 hours online and, somehow, squeaked into the “pass” column.

In the final course (finally!)—the reprimand jumped off my computer screen: “However, the audit is more than a tool for overseeing financial reporting.  It is an invitation for improvement. The information in the report helps identify your [organization’s] strengths and potential weaknesses in a systematic way. It provides the [finance committee], board of directors, and management with a rubric for measuring organizational performance from year to year.”

The audit—an invitation for improvement! When I read those words, suddenly this secular training tool became God’s words to me: “John, I want you to see all of your board work—including the audit—as My invitation for improvement.”

Drudgery turned to joy (almost!).  I was on the last leg of this arduous financial literacy marathon, but—oh my—the path became holy ground.  I will never look at an audit the same way again.

One of John Baillie’s poignant prayers reads, “O Thou who hast so graciously called me to be Thy servant, I would hold myself in readiness today for Thy least word of command. Give me the spirit, I pray Thee, to keep myself in continual training for the punctual fulfillment of Thy most holy will.”

QUESTION: With an eye on eternity, how will you inspire your board members to be looking for more “invitations for improvement?”

Enabling Dysfunctional Boards

The well-worn axiom, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” might be an appropriate poster to hang in your boardroom.

When a board member—or an entire board—tilts toward dysfunction, it is the rare board that will address the issue promptly and appropriately.  In most cases (in my experience), boards tend to overlook, ignore, or hope-and-pray that the dysfunction disappears.

   • “His term is up in a year. Maybe he’ll miss a few meetings and then we won’t re-elect him to another term.”
   • “Don’t say anything. She’s a major donor.”
   • “I know everyone is talking in the hallways, but let’s not ruffle any feathers.”

And so it goes.
 
David Curry, CEO of The Rescue Mission (an ECFA-accredited organization) says that behind every addict is an enabler. (Read the review of his recent book, First Aid for Enablers.) Curry defines it this way: “Enabling is any behavior that removes or softens the consequences of addiction, thereby making it easier for the addict to continue to use drugs.”

In thinking about Christ-centered governance, maybe we could define it this way: “Enabling is any behavior by another board member, or the full board, that removes or softens the consequences of board dysfunction.”

Confronting dysfunction takes wisdom, grace and guts.  For many boards, bad behavior could be addressed with a simple end-of-meeting evaluation checklist. (Examples: Did I conduct myself with God-honoring character and comments? Did all other board members? Did we micro-manage?)

Good boards conduct an annual self-evaluation (often in January) to assess both individual and full board performance on agreed-upon-in-advance standards, protocol and goals.  The best boards then take it a step further—a frank in-the-room conversation with all board members. How can we improve? Are all of us having maximum impact?
 
Here’s another question to ask. In the chapter, “How Can Our Board Self-Evaluation Improve Our Function and Our Output?” (Owning Up: The 14 Questions Every Board Needs to Ask, by Ram Charan), the author asks, “What would you say are the one or two things your board did that really made a difference for the [organization]?”

Dysfunctional boards, or board members, torpedo any opportunity for governance to be Christ-centered—and for the ministry to be effective with Kingdom opportunities.

QUESTIONS: When will you discuss your next board member self-evaluation process? What are three or four key questions that all Christ-centered board members should ask themselves in the annual self-evaluation?

Board Service: “Easy when…”

 

I am what some call a “raving fan” of a small nonprofit ministry. So when—out of the blue—a board member called me, I was all ears. What’s up?

We had never met until her phone call this week. She lives in Minnesota and shovels snow. I live in California and don’t. Not much in common except our passion for this life-changing ministry.

“I’m just calling to say thanks to you and Joanne for your faithful support of our ministry,” she smiled. (I know. It was a phone call. I couldn’t see her smile, but I could feel it.) Her warmth was genuine. She was spiritually dialed into this ministry. And she had done her homework on me.  She also connected me to a humorous photo I had emailed to the CEO. We both laughed.

After the short, but deeply appreciated conversation, I simply said, “Thank you. And thank you for being an active and engaged board member.”

“Oh…it’s easy being a board member!” she bubbled. “It’s easy…when you believe in the cause!”

In the ECFA 2012 Governance Survey, CEOs were asked, “What is your board’s single greatest need?” Twenty-five percent (the largest single response) of the 255 CEOs of ECFA-accredited ministries who answered the question mentioned the challenge of inspiring board members to give and/or help with fundraising.

What’s the problem? “It’s easy when you believe in the cause!”

QUESTION: Before you invite prospects to join your board, what process do you use to spiritually discern if they have passion for your cause?

Cajoled Onto the Board

 

“The Shortest Board Term in the History of the World” is the humorous, but poignant, in-the-trenches board story in the new ECFA Governance Toolbox Series No. 1: Recruiting Board Members.

The true story (names have been changed to protect the guilty) describes how a ministry fast-tracked a highly qualified person onto the board—but after one board meeting, the disillusioned board member quit.

The point: “dating a board prospect” takes time.  To find God’s person for our board, we must pray diligently, seek counsel, check references, and meet several times—always providing adequate time for Q&A (both ways).

Both the board prospect and the nominating committee must spiritually discern God’s direction. Will this person fit our culture? Will she add value? Is his family supportive of the high commitment to time, talent and treasure? Is she on too many boards already?

I was thinking about this recently when a highly qualified and experienced board member told me he had just turned down a board opportunity. He discerned—after much prayer and reflection—that he did not have sufficient passion for the ministry to assume the spiritual, stewardship and fiduciary responsibilities as an effective board member.

At first, I was disappointed to learn of his decision. From my perspective, he would have been an outstanding board member. Yet, he knew—deep in his heart—that someone with much greater passion for the ministry should accept this board position.

Ruth Haley Barton’s amazing book, Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership, quotes Danny Morris and Charles Olsen, who write, “God’s will is the best thing that could happen to us under any circumstances.”

Amen. So (gulp) it’s OK to rejoice when God-honoring board prospects say no.  It could be worse—they could be cajoled onto your board only to become another nominee for the “Shortest Board Term in the History of the World.”

QUESTION: How does your nominating committee measure a board prospect’s passion for your ministry?

A Prayer for Competence

In my nonprofit ministry CEO years, I had the privilege of serving almost 20 board chairs. I discovered that when board members prayed and discerned God’s direction, the board chair they selected was frequently the right person at the right time—for the unique season of ministry that confronted the organization.

Recently, one of those board chairs (a stellar and God-honoring leader) emailed me with a very unique prayer request.  He recently re-joined an association board (not faith-based)—and the stakes are high.

His email ended with, “Need prayer to be competent and a witness.”

Wow! I cannot recall ever praying for competency. I’ve never asked anyone to pray that I be competent. Until last week, no one had ever asked me to pray that they be competent.

What would happen in our boardrooms if we stopped micro-managing the silly stuff—and got on our knees for the strategic stuff?

“Lord, we want to be competent as stewards of your work.”

Richard Kriegbaum’s wonderful little book, Leadership Prayers, includes a prayer for wisdom. He prays (in part): “If I were brilliant, if I had the knowledge and strengths that I admire in so many other people, if I were a spiritual giant, I would simply ask you to help me do my best. But my best is not good enough. I do not know enough, and I cannot see clearly enough. I am your child, and I want to learn, but unless your Spirit teaches me, I have little to offer. I need your wisdom.”

QUESTION: As a board member, what is your prayer?