Building the Best Giving & Getting Board

By Karen Osborne

My article title is a bit of bait and switch but I wanted to get your attention. Really, this article is about board orientation. WAIT! Don’t go. This is critically important for successful board development and for getting the best giving and getting board possible.

Who knows how the recruitment went? Maybe the person who brought the new member on board did a great job, making expectations clear, involving the new member in the mission, vision, and work of your organization. Maybe this new person has been on lots of boards and knows exactly how to help, give, open doors, tell your story.

Orientation is your opportunity to solidify and deepen those messages or, in many cases, deliver them for the first time. Following are the components of an outstanding board orientation program. How does your stack up?

  1. Start with “thank you”. Just as the acknowledgement of gift should come within 24 to 72 hours of receiving that gift, warm, personal welcome and thank you letters should go out as quickly. One should come from the person who recruited the new member, one from your CEO, one from the chair of the board.
  1. Send a Welcome Package. In keeping with good donor practices, follow your thank you with a well thought-out welcome package. It might include:
  • A welcome letter from the chair of the committee on board development or CEO
  • The name and contact number of the new member’s Board mentor indicating that this person will be in touch within a few days
  • A list of current board members with their contact information
  • Dates and locations of upcoming board meetings
  • Some new material about the organization that you’ve not given him or her (a video or latest issue of the newsletter, for example)
  • An invitation to something on-site that is coming up
  • Perhaps a questionnaire seeking additional information about personal preferences and family facts
  1. Conduct a Board Mentor briefing. Often with the CEO or another high-level administrator, a first briefing meeting with the new member’s mentor is a good next step. It is an opportunity to answer questions, to re-state expectations including attendance, giving, committee assignments, and to prepare the new trustee for upcoming issues and votes. Provide the new director with another key contact person. Reiterate the invitation to the on-site activity. Let the new board member know that several members, including the mentor will be attending as well. If this date does not work, identify another date.
  1. Conduct an on-site orientation briefing. Introduce the new board member to each member of the senior staff in 50-minute meetings. Have each member provide a briefing package and short presentation (10 to 15 minutes). Engage the new board member in a dialogue, asking and answering questions the rest of the time. Fund development should be on the agenda along with finance, program, and other key components of the administration.
  1. Host the new board member at a mission-based event onsite. In order to help the new board member better understand your mission, vision and work, host them at programs that will engage and educate. Make sure a few other board members are there as well to welcome the new board member.
  1. Attend the first board meeting. Welcome and introduce the new board member at his or her first meeting. Seat the new member with her mentor.
  1. Hold a committee assignment meeting. Once the board member has been through his or her first board meeting, meet with the chair of the committee on board development and the CEO to discuss temporary committee assignments. This should be a “give and take”, based on the expertise and intellectual gifts the board member possesses.
  1. Conduct a six-month check-in. With the CEO, chair of the board (or chair of the committee on board development), check-in with the new member. Answer questions, ask about committee assignments, and discuss any concerns.
  1. Implement an Annual Fund solicitation in-person visit. Make this first solicitation as a board member special and effective, even if the board member is a long-standing donor. Thank her again for her service, ask questions, listen, and solicit the gift.
  1. Provide stewardship and end-of-the-year check-in. End the first year with an in-person visit to thank the board member again for her contributions of work, wealth, and wisdom, discuss how the year went, next year’s committee assignments, seek and give feedback, to ensure the highest level of participation satisfaction and effectiveness.

© 2006 The Osborne Group, Inc.

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White Plains, NY 10604