There are quite a few challenges that come with being a nonprofit board member. In recent studies, nonprofits report several “high or moderate” challenges, including internal resource constraints, changing technology, loss or decline of major revenue streams, and more.
To prosper in their roles amid these challenges, your nonprofit’s board members must grasp a number of key skills. In this guide, we’ll go over fundamental skills to cover when training board members and the steps you can take to ensure new board members master them.
1. Understanding their role
It’s a pretty rare occurrence for nonprofit boards to receive new members who have extensive experience leading a nonprofit organization. Instead, you’ll often encounter seasoned for-profit leaders, novice philanthropists, or long-time supporters with no practical board experience.
This means your training program needs to thoroughly explain the fundamentals of each new board member’s specific role. These roles might involve preparing fundraising reports for the executive director, carefully documenting meeting minutes, or any number of other specialized tasks.
Additionally, newcomers should also be taught the responsibilities all of your nonprofit’s board members are expected to follow. Boardable’s guide to board member responsibilities highlights seven critical roles that everyone should understand and work towards:
- Advancing the core mission of your organization.
- Fulfilling the financial and legal responsibilities specific to your nonprofit, such as IRS tax reporting.
- Preparing for and attending board meetings.
- Hiring, overseeing, and evaluating the executive director.
- Recruiting exceptional and promising new board members.
- Using effective communication tools and technology.
- Diligently serving on a committee or committees.
Of course, between these overarching duties and the many technical and managerial responsibilities of their specific roles, new board members may feel overwhelmed if you just dump all of this information into their laps.
Instead, organize and facilitate these lessons by leveraging a learning management system (LMS). This platform allows you to create easy-to-follow, interactive courses about board member roles, tasks, and challenges.
2. Leveraging relevant technology
Just as your nonprofit relies on technology for many tasks, like supporter engagement and fundraising, your board needs the right tools to carry out their roles. Evaluate board members’ needs and identify platforms helpful for their roles. You can also research software trends to ensure you use the latest technology.
Software can streamline numerous board member responsibilities, including:
- Communicating with other board members: Innovative communication tools provide unique opportunities for board members to interact beyond simply messaging one another. Consider using a community management platform, which hosts member profiles and provides a social media-like interface where users can post, like, and comment on content. This allows board members to interact with your community’s members and create a private group to communicate solely with other board members.
- Scheduling meetings: Event management software helps board members find common availability, simplifying the meeting scheduling process. Plus, these solutions can even host virtual events to keep scheduling and meetings all in the same platform.
- Reviewing financial data: Nonprofit-specific accounting platforms spotlight financial data in customizable reports, making it easier for board members to understand your organization’s financial health.
Introduce key technologies as part of your new board member training program. Explain the role of each tool and offer hands-on demonstrations so board members can experience the tools in action.
Over the course of your board members’ terms, provide ongoing technical support, such as video tutorials. Regularly check in with board members to gather their feedback on the technology’s impact and ensure they feel comfortable using it.
3. Collaborating and communicating within a team
By joining your nonprofit board, new members become part of a team of leaders, doers, and innovators who must work together to push your organization toward success. As cliche as it sounds, teamwork and open communication are core values of every successful leadership team.
This not only ensures your nonprofit runs smoothly on an everyday basis, but it’s also critical when it comes to managing complex programs and initiatives, such as your capital campaigns.
To train new board members on the fundamentals of team collaboration, you should:
- Educate new board members on other board members’ roles and responsibilities.
- Organize best practices for creating open, concise, and direct communication between board members.
- Use recurring virtual and in-person meetings to create a space where your entire board can touch base.
- Schedule team-building activities and events.
Additionally, as your nonprofit grows and your board expands, circle back and re-evaluate the roles and responsibilities of different board members. Set clear expectations about who is doing what and how different members can engage with one another to help accomplish your goals. Then, adjust your training to match these changes.
4. Fundraising and securing resources
Fundraising is the fuel that keeps your nonprofit running. By securing funding for your nonprofit, you can maintain your team, field resources for new projects, and keep the lights on as you fight to accomplish your mission.
Your board members are important players in the fundraising process. They’re expected to go out onto the front lines and secure high-value prospects, such as solidifying corporate sponsorships or soliciting major donations.
That being said, many new board members are inexperienced and even uncomfortable with the idea of soliciting donations, which is what makes prepping nonprofit board members to fundraise an essential part of the training process.
To train your new board members to fundraise effectively, implement these strategies:
- Instruct new board members on best practices for soliciting resources from different kinds of prospects, sponsors, and partners.
- Bring in a fundraising consultant to assist new board members one-on-one with their fundraising knowledge and skills.
- Create plausible (or disaster) scenarios and challenge board members to consider their fundraising strategies based on these “what-if?” questions.
Furthermore, encourage new board members to start their search for prospects by leveraging their personal and professional networks. They don’t necessarily have to cold call a prospective sponsor or donor on day one. Instead, it’s more effective and easier for new board members to ask for support from people they know well.
5. Leading committees and groups
Whether a board member is a treasurer, secretary, or committee chair, everyone is expected to lead when joining your nonprofit board. In particular, serving on a committee is (or should be) a compulsory board member duty, and new board members need to be prepped with leadership skills to help guide their committees toward success.
Regardless of whether your new board members will lead membership, finance, or fundraising committees, every incoming member should be trained to:
- Have confidence in their opinion and openly speak their mind when they propose ideas, make suggestions, or require clarification.
- Facilitate open and constructive dialogue between the members of their committee and other groups they lead.
- De-escalate conflict and manage conflict resolution.
- Encourage, inspire, and reward those under their leadership to drive them to do their best.
Of course, the reality of managing a committee or any other group of professionals is a complex challenge that includes countless different scenarios. To make your leadership lessons as effective as possible, you might focus on microlearning, which are short lesson plans centered on a single learning outcome, like strategically diffusing a dispute between two committee members.
These mini-courses are easy to consume and focus on specific challenges, allowing you to leverage your board software to educate new board members on real-life scenarios they might encounter.
Successfully onboarding new board members into your organization can be a complicated, delicate process that requires a good deal of planning and management. However, the investment is well worth the reward. With the training strategies and tools we’ve shared, you have everything you need to begin turning eager new board members into capable leaders who drive your nonprofit forward.