Boards and Volunteers

I knew my new volunteer campaign leader “got it” when, at the first facility design meeting, she threw out the design and created one with the patients’ needs in mind.

When you are working with volunteers, be sure that you honor their time and your commitments. Explain clearly what you expect — and what they can expect. Be sure that you set volunteers up for success.

Great board meetings create a climate for engaged decision-making that allows you to keep and attract top-notch board members.

For the fourth consecutive year, Rice University MBA students are making a mark on Houston with their involvement in nonprofit boards as part of the Jones Graduate School of Business Board Fellows Program.

The program matches Rice MBA students with Houston community-based nonprofit organizations. Students serve as nonvoting board members for either 12- or 18-month appointments and attend board sessions and relevant committee meetings under the mentorship of a current board member.

The program is mutually beneficial for both students and the organizations involved, said Donna Platt, associate director of development for the Jones School and the program’s coordinator.

The Office of Government Ethics has taken the first step toward allowing federal employees to serve on the boards of nonprofit organizations, potentially ending a 15-year ban that advocacy groups say was misguided.

In a proposed rule, OGE aims to change a regulation that prohibits federal employees from serving in their official capacity on the board of a nonprofit without a waiver from their agency. Such waivers can be difficult to obtain, discouraging employees from accepting positions on everything from scientific panels to neighborhood boards.

An appointment to the board of a nonprofit organization is both an honor and a challenge for someone who has never served as a board member before. Even the best of intentions can turn out badly if the person doesn't understand the role of a director or trustee.

So Michael Batts, partner in an Orlando-based accounting firm that specializes in nonprofit groups, has thrown a lifeline to those serving on such boards with a small book titled "Board Member Orientation: The Concise and Complete Guide to Nonprofit Board Service."

Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley and her allies are stepping up their crackdown on nonprofit health insurers and other public charities that pay their boards of directors, with a fast-tracked budgetary amendment that could ban the controversial practice as soon as July 1.

Coakley already had filed a bill to bar nonprofit director pay, but Sen. Mark Montigny (D-New Bedford) now has attached Coakley’s no-pay measure to the state budget, which could dramatically speed up the process and make it harder to sideline the measure in committee.

Members of foundation boards are predominantly white, male and over age 50, and they do not receive compensation for their board work, a new survey says.

Eighty-five percent of board members at over 500 foundations responding to a survey by the Council on Foundations are white, 62 percent are male, and 74 percent are over age 50, with 19 percent age 40 to 49.

At family foundations, 16 percent of board members are under age 40, representing the largest share of board members that age among all foundations, says the survey.

BoardSource, the premier voice in nonprofit governance, released the Nonprofit Governance Index 2010 at the annual BoardSource Leadership Forum in San Francisco.

According to the Index, 71 percent of chief executives believe racial/ethnic diversity on their board has value to their organization's mission, and 55 percent consider it to be a priority of their organization.  However, just 28 percent of the chief executives surveyed reported being satisfied with the degree of racial/ethnic diversity on their board.

A recent survey is challenging a commonly held myth by many small to midsize Christian nonprofits. Many think that their boards are the key to their fundraising success, adopting a wishful "If only..." attitude, looking for wealthy individuals to sit on the board and only focus on fundraising. However, new information from a survey conducted by Mission Increase Foundation reveals that board members do not think fundraising is their most important role. And many of the nonprofit staff members agree.