Board members often want to help their non-profit in any way they can. Contributing to its effectiveness around the board table is essential but one’s role here can seem remote from the direct work of the organization. Indeed, governance work for board members can seem intangible in terms of how exactly it adds value. Perhaps one should volunteer in the non-profit’s programs or services. Surely it would also be a support to staff.
Despite such good intentions, when board members focus their attention on, or even step into operational matters, roles can easily be confused and frequently are.
Here, I want to take a look at board members getting involved in their organizations in other roles, the challenges that this often poses and what to do about it. It is an issue for boards as a group, board members themselves, executive directors/CEOs and staff. And it is especially prevalent in smaller non-profits.
I will also touch on the often frequent and sometimes awkward situations of board members offering operational advice, whether it is formally offered around the board table, or informally communicated between meetings. When is this a problem and how might one, that one usually being the executive director/CEO, respond?
From volunteer run to staff run
Most non-profit groups start out as entirely volunteer organizations. This is the territory of what is referred to as “working boards”. Here board members not only lead but are the hands and legs for everything that gets done. [1]There is no widely used term for this type of non-profit in Canada. In the U.S.A. “all volunteer” seems common. For a good overview of the role of boards in all volunteer groups see Jan … Continue reading Local amateur sports teams, animal rescue groups, historical societies, rural community halls and volunteer fire departments often fall ino this category. These groups may hire people but they do not pay people to manage.
It would be mistaken to suggest that every volunteer group should aim to ‘graduate’ out of this stage. However, with growing success and access to funding, the transition to a staff-managed, and substantially staff-led, organization is a common path.
The model most readers would recognize is one where there is a volunteer board, an executive director/CEO, and then a body of program-focused front line and administrative employees. Volunteers who are not board members are often relied on in program delivery or fundraising event roles.
The wrinkle of board expertise
Most staffed non-profits strive for boards composed of directors who are diverse in wisdom and expertise. New organizations typically recruit board members with organizational or management knowledge. These are areas not normally the strength of the founders or program staff but are require attention so that some key foundations can be put in place .
With the hiring of a chief executive there is, theoretically, a need make a switch in the work of the board. The board might be expected to evolve it role as delegates the responsibility to paid staff for management and operations. A board might then strive to refocus its attention on organizational impacts and sustainability and, as their comfort with the model of operational accountability increases, on stewardship. Such an evolution can be hard to see.
It is not easy for board members, who have been recruited for, and want to contribute their management expertise, to remove themselves from day-to-day matters. Operational issues are luring in their character. The change requires at least a small turn towards less concrete, and in many ways, more intuitive leadership matters. The change is made harder given common conceptions of what should get attention in the board room. The reader might find my June 2018 piece, Yin & Yang and Boards useful in understanding this distinction. The evolution of boards themselves, and their place in governance, is a subject of is own.
When board members offer operational advice
Some would be familiar with the notion that boards ought to be “nose in and fingers out”. Writing about university governance, London Ontario-based Karen Fryday-Field, Govern for Impact CEO, suggest not only is this a limited view of governance, it suggests that it is OK for boards to sniff around to see what bad stuff they might uncover.[2]See Karen Fryday-Field’s piece Nose In Fingers Out Is Not Enough She is not a fan of this conception of things. Me either.
More often than not operational advice offered by individual directors in board meetings is not a issue. It occurs even when boards and executive directors are practiced in staying out of each other’s territory. And sometimes, a practical tip is truly helpful. But when the governance team is unaware of the complementary roles of board and staff, or it is not practiced, it can be a problem especially when the board gives such advice and expects action by the executive director.
Christie Sass is a consultant based in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. She writes that while executive directors want to be diplomatic when a board member offers operational advice, handling it firmly and appropriately it is a skill most find difficult to develop. Christie suggests that most of the time such advice needs to be channeled back to the adequacy of operational policies and the board’s familiarity with them.[3]See Christie Sass’s October 16, 2023 post When Board Members Make Operational Suggestions...here Good operational policies together with effective executive director/CEO evaluation can help stem a flood management advice. Readers may be familiar with my two posts about governance policies De-cloaking Policies and Fathoming Policies.
Recurring confusion
There will always be circumstances where there is not a clear line between what belongs to whom. Indeed, when there is a change in leadership, or the organization is venturing into new mission- related territory, the boundaries between what is “governance” and operations needs to be a more porous.
And, the “whom” is not always a simply a balancing act between the board and the executive director/CEO. Mission-related and strategic conversations need to involve both and sometimes other players.
The tendency of governing boards to wade into operational and programmatic territory can be due to the following:[4]I am indebted to Graeme Nahkia of Board Pro in Australia for the first three points. His January 19, 2022 bog post Why Board Meeting are Prone to Become Too Operational? is here
- Meeting agendas that are drafted entirely by the executive director
- Executive director/CEO reports that are heavily operational in their focus
- Multi-item agendas that force board member eyes on small and immediate topics
- The existence of operationally-focused board committees
- The lack of a governance work plan or calendar that highlights the board’s own work
- Meeting agendas that do not keep strategic matters in front of the board most of the time
I have written about some of these topics. See for instance Repurposed Meetings, Old Business – New Business and Committees Checked Out. I would add to this, the failure of many executive directors/CEOs to point out to their board that they are straying into operational territory. So the problem often persists.
But what about more formal board member involvement in operations, the case of board members contributing beyond their board role?
Deeper in the gears
I will turn my attention then to board members being formally involved in operational areas as volunteers. There are probably four main categories of non-profit operational work, separate from governance, that board members might have an interest in.
- Programs
- Fundraising and events
- Office
- Internal advisory committees
Program volunteers, to use my term, are those who work alongside staff, often in a support role, in delivering services to clients or to the community. Consider, for example, the work of supporting the creation of a community garden and maybe even rolling up one’s sleeves and picking up a shovel
Fundraising, or event volunteers, typically are those who sell tickets, show up for a shift on the door, bake items for sale, or dish out food. Fundraising volunteers can also find themselves calling members or donors for renewals. In larger organizations where it is an operational function assigned to a development team, volunteering is not likely to be very attractive to board member volunteers, maybe though in a data entry capacity.
Office volunteers are those who, for example, serve at the front desk as greeters, answer the phone inquiries, and, this comment will “date me” probably, stuff envelopes for a mail out.
Then, there is the category of volunteers, who, often because they have expertise, are interested in serving on an internal advisory committee, study group or implementation team. Such committees might deal with HR matters (e.g. interviewing employee candidates), marketing or website development, or, if a non-profit owns a building, maintenance.
Most would regard the involvement of board members and staff together in developing a strategic plan as essential.
I also know of case where a board member was interested in learning about an area of their non-profit’s program work, wanted to help and was well aware of the need to keep their board role separate. Helping can be as “non invasive” as taking meeting notes for a staff team.
Accountability for all operational matters must firmly rest with the executive director/CEO. But is seldom is it so simple when board members gets involved.
The pitfalls and how to avoid them
The main challenge of board members in serving as volunteers is the confusion about their role. That confusion can be in the mind of the board member, fellow board members, the executive director and, almost certainly, among staff.
In an operational role a board member must take off their board hat or, to use another analogy, stick their board spectacles in its case. So here are some tips for non-profits that already make use of board members in operational roles, or are thinking of doing so:
- The board should not assign one of their members to serve in a non-governance role nor should a board member ask for board endorsed operational assignment
- There should be no expectation of a report to the board from the board members involved
- Board member volunteers should avoid any inclination to secretly “gather intelligence” on the organization to assist the board
- Board members involved should take their direction from the ED or better still, another supervising staff person
- Staff should treat the board member volunteer like any volunteer.
On the first point one can imagine special situations where an new ED needs help, maybe some handholding, or another set of eyes, and where a capable board member, not necessarily the chair, is willing to provide it. So, some temporary management support, outside the board room, with the agreement of the ED, can be good idea sometimes.
What needs to happen?
The easiest way to keep the board out of operations is:
First admit, out loud, that it is a challenge that many governing groups struggle with. It is OK!
Second, the board-executive director/CEO team will want to encourage the practice of regularly wondering if a discussion might be veering in this direction. An operationally-focused discussion pulled back from is more beneficial as a learning experience than having never venturing into the territory at all.
Third, remember that the distinctions are seldom clear cut. Different situations may call for different ways of bringing out the best in your leadership group.
Fourth, it will happen a lot of time, more often when new players are in the mix.
Fifth, remember to deputize everyone around the board table. Don’t put it all on the chair and executive director/CEO.
If your organization’s recipe for effectiveness is utilizing board members in other, more operational roles, you might want to have a policy to cover such situations. Do I have a sample? Of course I do.[5]Thanks to fellow Canadian consultant Jane Garthson – Garthson Leadership, for her help crafting my sample policy You can find it, Board Member Volunteer Involvement, here.
Thanks for reading.
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Good description of the issue. I especially like the list of how to avoid pitfalls, dead on.
I see a positive trend in chairs and sometimes other board members stepping in when a director steers a discussion into operations, or tries to impose themselves as operational volunteers rather than just offering (and not being offended if the offer isn’t accepted),