Troubled by lack of board engagement, some nonprofits need to reassess recruitment strategies
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There’s a governance crisis brewing among midsize nonprofit boards. Plagued by insufficient board member engagement in their key stewardship responsibilities, many boards—regardless of whether agency leaders or the board would like to admit it—are fragile.
Even more dangerous, most midsize nonprofit organizations and their boards don’t even know how to begin changing that reality.
Those who study the nonprofit community are realizing this problem, reporting about the needs of such organizations, and suggesting future initiatives. Immediate strategies call for a two-pronged approach. First, nonprofit organizations must reassess the criteria they use in recruiting new board members; and second, they must turn to populations under-represented in their current board composition.
These two suggestions for strengthening nonprofit boards were developed by the Urban Institute’s Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropy in a May 2008 report, Boards of Midsize Nonprofits: Their Needs and Challenges. The basis for the report and its suggestions came from the Urban Institute’s National Survey of Nonprofit Governance, which it describes as the first national representative survey of nonprofit governance in the United States.
According to Francie Ostrower, the author of the report, the publication examines governance practices within midsize nonprofit organizations for the purpose of “identifying certain problem areas and suggesting strategies that trustees, managers, and others engaged with midsize nonprofits may find helpful in strengthening their boards.”
Unlike past research, which has primarily focused on large boards, Ostrower’s report concentrates on midsize nonprofits, defined as those having annual expenses between $500,000 and $5 million.
Assessing Recruitment Criteria
Comparing midsize nonprofits with their larger counterparts, Ostrower finds that a significant number of midsize boards are “less engaged in many basic stewardship responsibilities.”
She says getting members more engaged in organizational stewardship may require agencies to “carefully assess the recruitment criteria being emphasized when selecting new members and revise these criteria as needed.”
In other words, are the qualities midsize nonprofits look for in potential new board members ones that are shown to be characteristic of highly engaged members?
Take the criteria of “willingness to give time” for example. Ostrower says the percentage of boards “very active in fundraising rises from under 10 percent among those that say willingness to give time is not an important criterion for recruiting new members to 22 percent among those who say it is very important.”
Stated another way, organizations that emphasize “willingness to give time” as a criterion for board membership are more likely to have boards that are engaged in their fundraising responsibilities than organizations that don’t emphasize this same criterion.
Another example is “knowledge of the organization’s mission area,” Ostrower writes. “The importance placed on this as a criterion in recruitment is positively associated with board engagement in monitoring organizational programs and in monitoring the board’s own performance.”
She says boards that place greater importance on this criterion are also more likely to regularly evaluate—at least every two years—whether the organization is achieving its mission.
“The case of fundraising ability as a criterion is even more dramatic: it is positively associated with board engagement in fundraising (and making personal donations) as well as the externally oriented activities of community relations and educating the public,” Ostrower says.
A Balancing Act
Here’s the catch: according to the study, though organizations that emphasize fundraising abilities in their board members benefit from a more active board in the area of resource development, fundraising ability “is negatively related to board engagement in program monitoring and setting policy.”
Simply stated, boards need balance.
“Boards should be careful not to overemphasize one criterion at the expense of others,” Ostrower says.
If a nonprofit is indeed overemphasizing one attribute, it’s time for that organization to reassess its recruitment criteria. Doing so will help the organization identify what qualities, characteristics, and skills are currently absent from or under-represented on the board. By focusing on fulfilling the missing criteria when recruiting new members, the agency expands its pool of potential board members.
There’s another benefit to taking the time to reassess board recruitment criteria, Ostrower points out. In addition to providing insight into how to expand the pool of potential board members, constant assessment of recruitment criteria promotes board engagement in itself.
“Boards that emphasize a willingness to give time to recruitment criterion were more likely to be active in every board role,” Ostrower finds.
Recruiting Boards are Engaged Boards
Another reason why some of the boards of midsize nonprofit organizations are less engaged in their stewardship responsibilities than their larger counterparts is because they “have greater difficulty attracting new members,” Ostrower says. The result of troubles in recruiting new members is striking.
For example, “The percentage of boards very actively engaged in fundraising drops from 24 percent among boards that do not have difficulty recruiting members to 12 percent among boards that have great difficulty.”
In fact, according to Ostrower, “Difficulty in recruitment was negatively related to the board’s activity in every role,” not just fundraising responsibilities.
As another example, “The percentage of boards very actively engaged in setting policy drops from 65 percent among those that do not find it hard to recruit members to 42 percent among those that find it very difficult,” Ostrower finds.
These two data-backed findings underscore the importance of identifying strategies to assist nonprofit boards in finding new members. The report suggests immediately revving up recruitment by asking, “Who makes up the current board?” and, conversely, “Who doesn’t make up the current board?”
It’s the answer to the second question that will prove most insightful; these are the under-represented populations of a board.
“We find that, even as nonprofits report problems finding board members,” Ostrower writes, “segments of the population—notably ethnic and racial minorities over age 65, and those under age 35—are not widely represented on boards.”
Racial and ethnic discrepancies are particularly pronounced. On average 83 percent of board members are Caucasian, while only 9 percent are African American, and 4 percent are Hispanic.
“It is critical for future research to examine the barriers (to recruitment) … and identify successful strategies to overcome them,” Ostrower writes. “Particularly in light of demographic shifts in the United States, the very legitimacy of the nonprofit sector is connected to such efforts.”
Recruiting new board members and promoting a more engaged board are significant challenges for nonprofit organizations to overcome. But they’re also challenges that, if left unmet, will compromise the ability of boards of directors to successfully perform their stewardship duties, and the agency’s ability to achieve mission.
The full report of survey findings, Nonprofit Governance in the United States, is available on the Urban Institute’s website.
