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and here's a look at our agenda will cover board responsibilities and basics from there we'll dive into board and staff relationships from the eyes of an executive director then we'll cover the difference between active force versus governing boards versus advisory boards and then we'll dive into one person's perspective of working on various rural boards and will end with background I'm clients on the board and then we'll save all questions for the end during a Q&A session so good about our speakers Sharon thornberry has been a grassroots organizer trainer and advocate for community food systems rural communities in anti-hunger work in Oregon since 1986 sharon has served on 11 boards including the oregon hunger relief task force for 16 years at 10 rivers food web Philomath community services oregon farmers market association and bread for the world the some of her experiences have come together to make her a passionate and knowledgeable community food security and anti-hunger advocate she is the 2009 recipient of the Billy auto de garde public health genius award from the community health partnership of Oregon she has worked for Oregon food bank for the past 17 years focusing on rural food systems and as the creator of feast the nationally recognized community food systems organizing program she has been a resident of Philomath Oregon for 30 years she is an avid gardener and loves to share the cooking traditions learned in the farm kitchens four of her youth with family and funds our second speaker today is Danielle fasten a tee he serves as Oregon food banks regional Network developer for clackamas county before draining osb danny was the executive director of a nonprofit organization in the in Portland that managed a weekly food pantry danny has worked fighting food insecurity for over 11 years and has an MBA in nonprofit management from the university of portland Pamplin school of fitness and our third presenter today is Colleen Sanders colin is always looking at the world as an integrated set of systems she got her start studying wildlife ecology at the University of British Columbia where she fell in love with the idea of agri-food systems as stewards of environmental well-being not just for people but for water and soil conservation as well as wildlife preservation from there she got her master's degree at Washington State University in agricultural food systems where she studied the path of food from plant management and production through processing and distribution to end consumer use and how these industries affect the people and places that support them Colleen currently works for Oregon State Extension Service in Pendleton coordinating the Master Gardener program as well as working with small farmers and community food systems in both team Attila and mauro counties in northeast Oregon and and finally a reminder for everybody on the call please mute their mics so that we don't get any feedback right eye first up we have Sharon good morning so I'm going to talk about board responsibilities this morning and this presentation is taken to from the Oregon guide for nonprofit board members um there's something similar in every state in the nation I think and the responsibilities are pretty much the same so many many years ago the first time I took a professional board training the gentleman teaching it talked about a board member being an ideal board member being a loyal puppy dog and I've always used that theme so we're going to have a little bit of a cartoon presentation about what could be a very dry subject so bear with us here and I hope you'll enjoy so the first duty for board members as the duty of due care and that means they're going to act actively participate in the board this really affixed to the fact that you should not record recruit board members just for having them on the list everybody who because legally they have a responsibility if their names on the list and that's the other thing these these responsibilities are set in legislation they're not just niceties to know about so board members need to actually participate management they need to attend meetings they need to evaluate reports they need to read the minutes and they need to be involved in the review of key volunteers and if you have staff they'll be involved in the review of the executive director reasonable inquiry you have to ask questions too many people that I talk to on boards are like I don't know what we're doing or I'm afraid to ask that question it is your legal responsibility and you have the right to have sufficient information to carry out your duties so you have to question information it doesn't make this to you and you have to investigate anything you think is wrong doing do you oil tea we've talked about that so you have a duty to be loyal to an organization and to declare contracts so you have to do close cut disclose conflicts of interest or ad business transaction that involves yourself or your family and you must have make decisions that are fair and reasonable and the best interest of the organization I have actually experienced people over the years who joined boards because they fit like the organization they want to change it that's actually in conflict Oregon law loans in corporate opportunities I'll not borrow money from their organization which i have seen happen in my unit many years board service or it anyway divert a business opportunity for the organization to myself and if people want to ask questions about examples we can do that in a Q&A duty of obedience so you need to know what the mission of the organization is it goes back to don't just join a board because actually look at the mission find out what the procedures are for that organization look the bylaws find out how they and then operating procedures so you have to carry out your duties as a board member in accordance with that mission and you have to comply with the governing documents in the organization therefore you must have copies of them federal and state laws so I'll make sure you know you need to make sure that you're following federal and state laws that apply to your organization they vary food banks have a whole set and then we have food safety rules other organizations have other things that apply to them if you're an environmental organization you need to know what are the laws that apply to the work that you're doing and that's true of any nonprofit there's going to be some federal and state laws that apply to you some are just going to be about nonprofits in general others are going to be specific to your work and you have to make sure that all your reports get files there are state reports and federal of course that has to be filed yearly and the board needs to inquire to make sure that those reports are being filed so there are other duties documents and records I just talked about the reports but you need to make sure that your corporate documents you know where they are that they're reviewed annually that the viola is reviewed annually and that they reflect the current mission of the organization and operating procedures in the organization you have to have things documented in order for them to be legal and you need to make sure that your bylaws are generic enough specific enough to be a good guideline but generic and also not to track you into doing something incorrectly so financial records you it's your responsibility to oversee the financial affairs of the organization if you belong to an organization that has a full staff then you're going to be you're just need to know that there's someone appointed that your executive director has hired a confident person to oversee finances but you also need to know what the accounting system is and you need to know if he presented the annual budget and financial reports and audits I recently talked to a board chair who had no idea what they say banked with or what or had not seen a financial important years it was a rather alarming so those are the kinds of things that you need to see it doesn't matter what what type of boards you're on if you're a working bored or if your governments type bored you need to know what finances your organization are because you're legally responsible for them safeguarding asset so this goes into resources organization's resources and investments and there are surprisingly some rather small nonprofits that also have investments and you're responsible to make sure that those approved investments that are actually going to return have a return on them all resources need to be used wisely and not wasted and those are things you need to be careful of donor restrictions so we all have donors who give us money and say I want it used for this or I want to use for that you have to make sure that your organization has actually set in place procedures to observe those donor restrictions it's certainly easier to have non-restricted donor funds but you're always going to have some that are and you have to have a track know that your organization has a tracking system that's going to track those funds or the product in a way that's consistent with the donors desires responsible solicitations and fundraising so any time veteran organizations got to undertake fundraising activity the board really needs to discuss it and know what that is one that I can think of is it has to be consistent with what you're doing one that I had some organizations that pass get a lot of discussion over was sponsoring wrestling and they didn't feel that was consistent with the with the ethics of their organization there are all kinds of things the other thing is you have to be to make sure that you're not doing a fundraiser where the costs are unreasonable to the organization and you can get tied into a fundraiser because you've traditionally done it and then find out that you really aren't making any money off of it you might actually be losing money and so it's really important that you're reasonable you check those things out and and look at it from time to time not just get caught up in a tradition of doing certain fundraisers and finally this song is supposed to say good shepherd but it would not put the good on there no matter what I did but you need to be a good shepherd this is a good way to think about a board members responsibility you have to act in the best interest in the organization no matter what you're doing and it is a bit seriously the organization and in your mission and you need to be positive and be an active advocate for the organization so you need to be a spokesperson for the organization in the community and you need to be proud of what it is you're speaking up for so that means that you've managed the organization and participated in such a way that you have an organization you can be proud of and that you're willing to advocate for thank you alright and now we'll turn it over to Danny who will talk a bit about the staff and board relationships good morning everyone s Adrian said a minute ago I'm the regional Network developer for Clackamas County for the Oregon food make and before I came on with the Oregon food bank I worked as the executive director nonprofit organization here in Portland that ran a food distribution and in doing that job I had a lot of interactions with the board as I was the executive director more five years that organization and my presentation today is really based on that my my experience and my understanding of the board executive director relationship and some things that work for me well and worked for our organization at that time I have on here first sort of a jargony sentence that says you need to lead from a place of mission driven authenticity and what I mean by that is really some of the things that that Sharon was getting out a second ago is that having a sense of stewardship for the organization really understanding what the values and the mission of the organization are so that you can speak to it from a place of care and authenticity when asked about it in that in the community or ordering fundraising drives or or whatever it might be that you're doing at the time as an executive director I thought of the board as an opportunity to surround myself with people who had skills that I didn't to some people to help me get things done and people that I could learn from basically people that were smarter than I was so that I could learn from them so I thought about it is building a dream team and surrounding myself with the people that had the expertise necessary to achieve the goals of the organization every relationship that you have in the working environment is a little bit different and I think it comes down to the two people or the group of people in the executive director and the specific relationship that exists between them but some things that work well or to remember to have frequent and open to munication this could be almost daily and when it comes to a board chair when you're working through difficult situations or just frequently whatever works best for the people that are involved and then definitely trust trust from the board in the executive director to make the appropriate decisions when necessary and trust in the executive directors ability to lead the organization so they're not stepping in and micromanaging or trying to manage decisions that aren't necessarily their role getting to that rolls I think a lot of roles for the board blend together and depends on the type of organization but I think it's important to call them out into three areas I think we're sort of a good umbrella to talk about it as Sharon mentioned a minute ago fiduciary or financial responsibility making sure you understand where the organization is at financially that the organization has animal funding and a plan to get the amount of funding that they need to to move towards the goals that they have and to move through the strategic plan which brings me to the strategic role which is that the board really should be helping to set the strategy for the organization finding a way given the constraints and the opportunities that the organization has to move it towards achieving its mission and that includes setting goals and and restrictions on the executive director about the types of things that they should be doing in their job and the types of things that that are going to move the organization for it and I think the other one is a creative role which is probably the most fun where you're looking at what opportunities exist in the community how to make things better and how to maybe one example could be a creative way to put a new twist on an old fundraiser that works and maybe bouncing ideas around in the board a meeting for that sort of thing so on to the next thing these are very sort of over-the-top or overarching themes but i think they hold true through good effective board members from the perspective of an executive director as i mentioned before each board member really should be able to speak authentically to the mission of the organization so when they're out in the community or for example if the organization is writing a grant it's not uncommon for the granting organization to call board members to ask about the grant proposal and the people on the board board members should be able to speak to not only that specific project or specific grant but how that grant relates back to the mission of the organization and the overall strategy of the organization board of directors shouldn't just be on there to get their name on a board or for the Karen said for some other reason they should share a strong sense of purpose for why they're doing what they're doing and and hopefully that will well galvanize board towards achieving the mission of your organization again board and executive director agree upon their and understand their respective roles so that's understanding that really the board's role is one of organizational governance and of oversight and that the executive directors role is really to be the leader of the organization in many cases that means leading the board as well and I think an important one is that each board member brings specific skills or expertise to the organization that's valuable towards achieving the goals that the organization has an
we'll talk about that a little bit more on the next slide and that the board is structured to meet the needs of the organization which could mean term limits on committee structures that might be developed to help bring out some of the specific skills of the board members and then leadership in there as well this is a really basic representation of something that a board can do to make sure that it has the right group or mix of skills on their board of directors this isn't something that needs to be done but it's something that can be helpful when you're trying to recruit new board members and I think it's important to ask a couple of questions when you're looking at your board what do we need to accomplish so what's the mission but more specifically what are the strategic goals of the organization with any given time and who do we need on the board to help us accomplish our goals so it can really depend on what the actual tactic that you're using are but some I think very irregular skills our understanding of community needs real estate law or business management skills Finance and Accounting having someone who can really speak the language of Finance on the board is very very important and can be a huge help in explaining the financial position or opportunities that any one organization might have in front of them especially when you're talking about investments and things like that event planning can be a big one and oops i wrote business management twice alright now we're going to transition back to Sharon who will talk a bit about active boards so um Tracy asked me to talk about active boards and advise the reports so advisory boards that will talk about the advisory boards first if you for some reason your organization says they want and want an advisory board on a specific subject first and foremost I'm I say make sure you know why you want them that's the first thing I think these are informal board they have no legal responsibility need to be extremely clear with folks about that they need to have clear direction and purpose most from your perspective and their perspective so what is it they won't you want them to advise you on how awful they have to get together so on you know that kind of thing one of the challenges I find I work for community action for many years and by law they're required to have an advisor report but nobody know exactly what to do with them often and they were it was seeing more as a nuisance then as a help and so and that's not a good thing with volunteers in the community especially when with something like where where you're specifically required to have them in place and you have specific responsibilities they're supposed to carry out our way in on so these boards need to be advisory boards need to be staffed and you have to take them seriously because they are volunteers and they need to be traded with that respect working boards so when I'm talking about a working bored I'm working I'm really thinking about usually small organizations with little or no staff a group of folks have gotten together to carry out a mission something they think is really important or to start a new organization and they have to do the work of the organization as long as being as well as being the governance for the organization so they're doing both things they're doing governance and they're doing operational tasks they may or may not have other volunteers involved I've always found with these sorts of boards that it's better if you do have other volunteers logs that are carrying out the major major operational tasks and board members if they're doing and need to understand that it's distinctly two separate things that their governments on the organization is different and distinctly separate from the operational tasks they're carrying out the best work like i said is accomplished when non-board volunteers are responsible for the major task it's very difficult to evaluate another board member if their performance is not up to snuff and it becomes can become a very contentious issue within the board and can cause a lot of conflict it's important when you're doing that to remember that you're all volunteers but still in order to carry out your mission and your duty as a board member if they can aren't going right with another board member you have to deal with that the other thing I'd say is that sometimes these boards have a very difficult time transitioning to a paid staff organization they get big enough they get that first grant whatever it is they could hire somebody and then they don't or multiple people and they think that they're going to manage the entire staff and they have to remember that the only person that works for them is the executive director or there you know as you get larger it may be two people on the leadership team but on those reports just directly to the board but those are the only people so these boards cannot later on become involved in managing all of the staff which can be a problem so this could be a transition piece it can be you know it's not to say that all boards aren't working for us they are but this is a very different kind of model that you find the small nonprofits all right Thank You Sharon and now we're going to switch over to Colleen who's going to tell us a bit about the role board thank you so much and thank you Oregon food thanks for the chance to exit a nerf ever I'm glad during a little bit of a different perspective on this topic I want to draw attention to a little subtitle here on my flight this is just my experience here and have my case studies that I have looking out here so no need to comprehensive guide on rural force and I think a lot of what I'm going to talk about is possible not just two world wars that supports everywhere next slide um is one of my favorite collaborators always says we kind of things with a bias I wanted to give me a bit of background on my bias and the case today we're going to talk about I worked for Oregon State Extension for about a year and a half now coordinating the Master Gardener program unep Eric I also a recent finish my masters in unfortunately persons from Washington State and ignored a bit with small farmers in the area and rural Chinese I've had a number of experiences with voluntary born in district capacity as a member as a board chair as paid staff as well volunteer form and as a partner program currently I am a board member for the Palestine farmers market and it has been since november two thousand stitches this is a really well established for it it was just for over 14 years in its growing steadily last year we had 13 board members in this past month we accepted two more applications / for agreeing that we know religious if it means that we get a lot of reports from our board and digital volunteers in school I also chairs the Eastern Oregon climate change coalition we are a newly formed 501 C 3 that's aimed at promoting scientific information and research about quite a change in its effect once the industry the residents of work experience we are still very new we just filed our paperwork in January of this year so we're doing early stages of our organization working figure our relationships as a board how to evolve on non-board livers as well as a community format I've also been involved as an employees partners with a volunteer board orientation in my work that Master Gardener program and work with the nonprofit organization utility Master Gardener Association which is a separate was aided by ability three and so working with this board is a really interesting and navigating kind of legal and operational differences in details in terms of how they to partnerships work together and I have also worked as a day staff through the Umatilla basin watershed Council of doing their outreach and education and water quality monitoring program manager works as well as taking minutes board meetings so I feel like I have some good lessons that I learned from my attendance with this organization you can there by the time lines that I was saying that I haven't been doing work very long in utilitarian so I am still learning an adaptive in building higher which is this various boards I wanted to give a bit of background on the area that I'm going to be talking about instead of teams for those of you who are not familiar with northeast Oregon in the Columbia Plateau missoula county is in the top right corner of that oregon state map highlighted in red we're bordered to the west by Mora County which we have closed IRA cultural and trade ties it to the south by Grant County into the East clubbing in an allow accounting the Coles County has a population of about seventy six thousand seven hundred people and this great that to a density of 22 people per square mile but most people are located within centers around cities with large tract of land being sparsely populated into the county really breaks out into three very distinct areas we have the west side of the county of by the columbia river which can come to disco hermiston echo canceller a little area in the center we have that tells an area which grabs ahold of some of those smaller municipalities with pilot rock you like adams and ino essence and then to the north we have military lawyers which is eight miles outside of Washington quarter and Kofi associate with Walla Walla there and as a result of the geographical distances between places it can make 30 or 40 miles one direction each of these municipality they are all very culturally distinction which have kind of his own identity that can really translate to the people that live there and the way that boards don't show you two gether Nick Price's and have an ex-wife um the residence in all these towns are really strongly identified with where they come from or where they live and these are these identity really based on a lot of the agricultural land use practices good exists that set the stage for the culture hermiston in Pendleton are roughly the same size fountain is slightly smaller holds the county seat and as a result a lot of county state and federal agencies have their headquarters their land uses predominantly range for cattle and drama and country and thus has a bit of a cowboy culture associated with it not to mention the Pendleton round-up rodeo is held annually and just celebrated its 100th anniversary it's also important to note that the combination of the confederated tribes name is herion reservation also I'm very closely associated there with their western boundary east of channels and heading north towards out and that reservation I'm establishing 1855 in compasses roughly two hundred and seventy square miles and has a population of about 3,000 to deliver discovery of the tribe is really involved in a lot of the project and analysis County and we have the values are always really good at getting into the tribe revolving keeping them in a loop and the westin person is slightly larger and has really strong economic growth which is a large part of their idly their home to irrigated room crops like corn in Sophia's but also similarly high-value specialty crops which is the watermelons that really they have as a large predator easily they have a high Hispanic population the thirty-five percent of the population being Spanish speakers and they really leave the county in population growth as they're expected to the fifty four percent of the county's total groups before a year of 20 35 and finally we have military water to New York which is Amit smaller municipalities about 7,000 people but they house high-value orchards orchards with fruit and nut crops like apples cherries and grapes and containers when that population is forty-three percent Hispanic and functionally that town really identified strong as Walla Walla across the Washington boards to the north with prosperous wine industry I'm sure it would be detailed we're not very important to you but I think it's really important to kind of get to know the personality of a places when we talk about how the resident function of for direct oral cavity distance and identity are real elements here and they have an impact on how bored functioning together a lot of boards encompass large geographical areas that can be broken down by some physical features my case studies involved the watershed capitals which are broken out by rivers we have to why should help movements of the universe or anyone for the Walla Walla river and mountains and forests also really draw therapy readjust national sorts on we will Ranger District serves smaller specialized interests and swim boards really go for gold we terms of trying to target all of northeast Oregon or the inland to the growth West like Southeast Washington at meat tornado other board service areas are we initially central so they work with one town or city and these are like farmer's market in downtown association with chambers of Congress these tend to be smaller and a little bit more puffy support and then you have tax base camp area which base county line or on service districts that can encompass many towns or even crossed any lines with some cases those are your County Association service district sweet economic development district I work for the number of these examples and they all come to you and differently based on their geographical range of stakeholder groups disasters so how do all of these details inform actual functions these are some of the observations that I've had in my work with various boards over the years I think it's really important to encourage board members to have ownership of regional projects that speaks paratus it's a pretty no greater that people aren't very passionate about things that they're interested in it won't put their best foot forward in terms of working with projects my strongest example is working with the watershed Council the service area that was broken up between the rivers headwaters in east of the county as it flows through Pendleton out to hermiston out to the community and so really those board members broke up two distinct offer and lower Basin areas the core members that were centralized to the upper basin really were focused on restoration projects that serve wildlife interest and four numbers in lower between really interested in the irrigation efficiency projects and projects that had direct benefits for farmers and so really just allowing the two separate distinct for groups to focus on their own project helps the cohesion of the group so I'm with a Master Gardener Association we have head of three almost factions that form between the three different cities we have a central difference title place so then we have kind of satellite groups that question almost autonomous vehicle dynamics Inc in military motor areas and so did acute harmony within that board I really encourage groups to kind of have their own cohesion but also checking with them regularly to make sure that they feel that they're included with the larger group we put their needs are addressed more diverse can also be their interest to send her around knowledge Azure country with my climate change group a lot of my board members come from industries my vice chair is there a retired forest service worker and so he really is interested in projects integral National Forest or timber industry is not so interested in our project moving to climate change or a human health so really allowing him to push project forward that he's interested in has been a great part of getting our board to function normally asleep and encourage participation and in my work with the farmers market directors are usually applied two subcommittees you have a number of subcommittees that help the organization called shape like the development committee events in education and then fundraising and planning so allowing people to choose their own clue the DHS that really some of the groups that want to reach larger regions resources are rather limited out here and so to make sure we're not super skating services and making sure our resources so as far as possible partnership are a requirement really our EOC triggers was previously very Umatilla County eccentric and as we filed for nonprofit formation we communicate decisions to expand our focus to all of your
eet Oregon includes from Washington do I owe interest in that so we've needed to create partnerships with fruit between those areas to really build our network that goes for the farmers market as well a lot of the fresh feed that our vendors bring to the South America market eventually grown in the herps a little free water area of sleep so our ties with those smaller markets and vendors the really essential function of our group for groups that serve large geographical areas it's been really important to rotate meeting location to keep those the first member tactic with the watershed Council I thought had a religion model they held their monthly board meetings we alternate between the Pendleton internet scenarios in the wintertime our weather conditions gets kind of hairy and so people won't want to travel long distances to get to a board meeting as though it was a really good models have the new rotate around to get all the board members involved and this is the same for the unicorn extraordinary situation the annual classes held is rotated between the three cities this year it was any penalty black years in the local area and experiment Harrison and that's a conscious decision to try and increase membership and interest in all three of those cities so some of the other random things when I'm taking away from this are that really history lives on here family names have an influence in relationship and a lot of the people that I work with have past experiences that really helped those strong form a strong form strong opinions on their relationship with the entire agencies and they try out here there there is a little bit of a cultural gap that exists distress has been sown really on both sides and maintain tactically local years and so this means that there's a bit of a minefield in terms of working with people so navigating that means making sure to go into new partnerships by consulting all of your stakeholders and all of your board members in really just getting a feel for who you'll work well with others and really trying to encourage that harmony in your group another important consideration board member participation will offer fluctuate based on seasonal occurrences plenty of fishing season is a reality here you'll have four members really just drop off the map during elk hunting season in ordering the steelhead fishing season and so it's really important to get to know your board members and know when those predicted schedule conflicts will occur especially if you have people who are still actively in the industry agriculture has the seeding harvested wheat that really farmers will disappear for months at a time as well as forest management wildfire season religion is a lot of time and then calving season for a lot of those range managers you have a hard time reaching here for members who are involved in those where a typically the so again a lot of the things that I'm talking about I think are really visible to all kinds of words that deter over but they really come into sharp contrast emmys areas where there's less resources my main takeaways are trusted built very slowly with many repeated interactions in camp houses it's really important to come into your partnership with a realistic understanding of what you bring to it and to be sure to fulfill all of your commitments in a timely fashion to really build that trust trust building takes years it's important to have respect for your board members particularly with their interest again people are not going to put their best foot forward if they're involved in a project that they don't whole part of the agreement and it's also important to respect the experiences of your board members in the expertise favorite but also their pastor interaction and how these might influence their relationships with other board members and other organizations and it's important to respect the levels of communication for your board members particularly I wanted to know that not all board members have the same access to internet and telecommunications I regularly work mr. board members that don't have internet access or only check their email once a week or so and so getting to know your board members when knowing their level of communication is really important this is kind of out of left field but I thought it was really important no I'm cultivating a good relationship with the press is a really good way of keeping your report together and involved a lot of my stakeholders out here with many of my boards still read the local newspaper as their primary source of information and so I always try and get press releases out into the paper and really work with my local newspaper radio and television stations to keep them apprised of what we're doing as an organization and lastly it's really important to attend other organization event units are not partnership organizations this might come from kind of a small-town culture where you run into people very lonely at the grocery store but actually a lot of business gets done kind of at the local haunts and social functions and so it is important to kind of strengthen that network by investing any more time in other people's event so there are more likely to invest time and viewing attend your event people really just build that partnership so you have to kind of think outside of your not a little bit I will be around for questions I just wanted to put up some of the context of the organizations that I've talked about and I just wanted to know our pop3 website we have it up but we're still kind of tearing with it so it looks really good but some of the links are not quite up top so you came with it thank you so much for listening to me all right thank you Colleen for sharing your experiences working with boards before we open it up to the QA will turn it back to Danny and will speak a little bit about having clients on boards thanks Colleen else fascinating just to pivot back really quick and talk a little bit about having clients on your board of directors this is something that is depends really on the needs of your organization and of your board about whether or not you want to take a step to to have people who you've served or who have been served by your programs and to have them serve on your board of directors there are really a lot of benefits to doing this and it depends on your specific bylaws about how quickly you can do this or when you bring on new board members so those are all considerations to take into account as well I think maybe the most important reason is that you get a client viewpoint during your strategic planning phase you get client viewpoints on programs and how the programs will affect the clients that you're intending to serve and you get a different paradigm when you're looking into creative problem solving so it's not just assuming what's going to happen to the end user when you make any sort of business decision but actually having someone who's live that experience in the room it can be incredibly valuable I think another thing to call out is that it can depending on the context to provide cultural competency for your organization's is having a client on the board is by no means the only way to achieve this but if your organization is serving a large population of or any population of people and the Board of Directors does not reflect the culture of those people that's something to take into consideration are you capable of serving them in a way that's culturally competent without having someone with that viewpoint and with that lived experience in the decision-making process it was something that I found to be incredibly useful when serving different populations of different programs is to have people on our board of directors that reflects those from those cultures so again clients can bring specific skills and experience that that may be lacking and I think it's important to think of a client on your board the same way you would rent you bring on any other board member do they have something do they have some skill or some lived experience that that you might need to achieve your the mission of your organization and to look at it through that lens and can this person ultimately help further the mission of the organization I think it's really important not to bring someone on the board kind of like Sharon mentioned at the beginning just to have their name on the board of directors and just to say oh we wanted clients on our board so we're just going to check that box you need to think about this person as someone who can help bringing specific skills experience or and bring that to the Board of Directors in a way that's going to help you further the mission of your organization in very general terms thank you all right Thank You Danny so we have a slide right now that's a resource slide for for folks who want more information on any of these topics please check those out and we will share the power point out after the presentation so you will be able to easily access those those resources so now we have 20 minutes or so for a Q&A session as I mentioned earlier feel free to type your questions to us via the chat function and the first question we have this morning is somebody who would like to know more about the basic structure of a 501 C 3 so it depends on what your I would have so make your f that question because you're starting a 501 C 3 actually on the Oregon non-profit website which was just on on there on the resource sheet there's a how-to guide for starting a 501 C 3 so private nonprofits in Oregon whether it be c3's or 3c fixes generally have a governing board and then it depends on the organization and how they grow what the rest of the structure is but they start with a board you have to have three people to incorporate so you do the incorporation first and then generally after that you add and a registered agent so three people on the board and a registered agent to incorporate then you actually write your bylaws and register with the charitable trust division and you file your bylaws where they're completed with the charitable trust division so that's how you get started how you structure it after that is pretty much up to you as long as you're doing it within the lawn there are different ways to do that great and then a follow-up question to that is the how what are some general tips to help with the setup the quote-unquote right way to avoid future conflict with a board so the Oregon nonprofit handbook has suggested sets of bylaws the best of the first thing you start with just have really good set of bylaws and to know how you're going to operate and then to talk about how clear understanding about what your operating procedures are going to be if you have a clear understanding of your operating procedures and you document them and pass them on to every board member as they join the board then you should be in good shape I would just echo enough I laws are incredibly important to set the rules of your organization's you don't have people stepping into territory that they're not supposed to be I would also also say that having term limits on your board which not all boards do is incredibly important so that people don't get they don't spend too many years on the board of directors and that you're bringing new people into the organization that have no ideas and there's a constant sort of emphasis on refreshing the the ideas and perspectives on the board of directors great the next question is from somebody who wants to know how as a staff member what what can they do to more actively engage the board of their organization I think asking to be invited to board meetings is a very simple way to get that started and to understand what the decision-making processes of the board are so that you can speak intelligently to them when you're at those board meetings and then just to make yourself available as a resource to board members they have questions about how things are going be a good start I'd really echo that isn't a lot of those words that I've been involved with have publicly open toward readings or so anybody can attend and just if you're interested in being approved by the board just attend the court date is a lot of times last how this input is a really good place to kind of voice your opinions and make it known that you're more interested in having a more active role all support the other thing that I would say about that is you need to know it depends on the size of the organization air in how easily you can cultivate as a staff person cultivate a relationship with the board and you need to know what your CEO or executive directors policies are and what your board policies are about interaction between the staff and the board because it can easily trip yourself up if you're in an organization where there's where there's truly a hierarchy set up so you need to be Collins is that and impatient with it that's just part of the culture of different organizations it's really good another question we have coming in is I'll just read it I've heard about boards that finally hire staff and then have trouble stepping back but my experience has been boards hiring a few staff but they can't afford a full team and not an executive director and then the board stepping back too much when there is still more day-to-day work than the staff they've hired to handle how do you keep board members engaged at this intermediate level so the thing that I would say is you have to have realistic job descriptions but I have staff that you hire and that's one of the tricky places where the entire staff needs to be involved with their with the board because you're going to have the board doing part of the work of the staff doing part of the work but there also has to be clear delineation of roles who's going to be doing what why who do they answer to about that task and it can get messy I'll just give you that I mean it's just reality but that's the reason the job descriptions are important and also in understanding of how many hours a week you're asking those folks to work because one of the things I see happen is these the transitional boards will hire somebody and they pay them for 20 hours a week and then they want 30 or 40 hours worth of work so they have to understand that if they want 30 or 40 hours worth of work they're going to have to do some of it that's the reason job descriptions and and realistic communication about how long it takes to do what's required in a job description really important no just echoed that it's incredibly important that the staff people know who they're supposed to be answering to that you don't have two bosses for every one staff person that's where things really can get convoluted I would echo that the time requirements are also something that's really good to pay attention to and my experience has been we were a staff of two people at the watershed Council and so a lot of times we would follow where the board had their energy so if board members were interested in taking a lot of projects and doing a lot of the work there our organization would kind of follow up towards that focus and really work with what people wanted to engage their time in to make sure that there is enough involvement and participation to see those projects through all right thank you um so next question is about tips for effective fundraising and what I'm not a engage the board is that Sharon touched on that a little bit earlier about just making sure you're not doing a fundraiser for the sake of tradition of doing the fundraiser but what other tips do our speakers have for us on that so even though it's not in the board responsibilities for so too many organizations or for most organizations the most important thing a board could do is be involved fundraising and that's where it could be clear when you're writing a job description for your board members phase and um really covered that but job board members should have a job description and their role in fundraising should be made clear to them from the beginning and I find that it falls by the wayside in a lot of organizations even large ones that we're not requiring or working with our board members to maximize their contact and that's where fourth members can be incredibly importa
t with fundraising the kind I mean the kind of fundraising number one and I serve on the bread for the world board the first thing i do is i write a check every month to the organization's first commitment i make its the commitment i'm asked to make everybody that should be true of all board members that they should be asked to make a personal donation for that's comfortable for their for their income no matter I mean it can be a dollar but that everybody should be asked to make a financial commitment and then the second thing commitment I make is to make connections to other people who might write larger checks or when we want to do fundraisers of different types or connecting to churches or other organizations so fundraising is an incredible part of a board members responsibilities because they are bottom line responsible for making sure that that organization has enough money to carry out its mission I would just kind of keep on that same line by saying that while the board of directors needs to be able to approve the budget and understand how they the plan for getting from point A to point B at the end of the year the strategic goals financially the board also needs to be able to help facilitate the raising of those that money and if I would say up to in many cases the executive director to help inspire the board on how they can do that by providing clear job roles and by putting people on the board that have the skills that skills and connections that can achieve those types of goals so going back to the board matrix that I had up having people on the board that have specific skills in fundraising or specific skills in event management whatever it might be that you need to whatever skills you might need to to get the job done we've been really fortunate with talent and farmers market we have an annual fundraiser that basically Pacific party that we grow to invite and say thank you to all of our vendors and volunteers and community members and we have one board member who's been tacular Li gung ho at taking that project on and so she really has become the driving force behind that fundraiser and she really enjoys doing isn't organizing and so as other board members who lures that try and support her and she asked for us to go and make inquiry of local business leaders mean Andres coordination to that we happily complied that she really has been a powerhouse of doing that yeah I would say also that board members a lot of times need to be I mention this before but need to be inspired or kind of have their kind of be nurtured along in some cases to go out and do things do the extra thing to raise funds so if it's baking bread and sitting in the lobby of a company for an hour until you can go and talk to the CEO getting in there and talking to that person and making the case for why your organization needs funding we're doing those extra things that um that are somewhat difficult sometimes sometimes the having a good relationship between the the executive director and the board can can be something that can push those difficult things along thanks i have a question i'm not sure our panels will be able to answer this but we'll give it a try you have any information or thoughts about the difference between board member responsibilities of a c3 versus a c6 anyone speak to that you know okay so they're essentially the same the difference and I mean the board River responsibilities we talked about this morning apply whether you're on a for-profit board or a nonprofit boards they're more complex settle for profit board and they're more a little bit more complex on a c6 board but it's about the regulations that govern that organization so you just have to know what the regulations are around a c6 you don't write donation receipts because you're not a non-profit you're in association so you have to understand the rules that govern Association if you're on a c6 board and whatever sort of Association it is you could be a farmers market which is to see often se6 or you could be a cooperative kind of organization which has another set of rules but the responsibilities are essentially the same as just about knowing what governs the type of organization that you are all right and we'll have one more question and before I get to that question I just want to let everybody know that we'll be sending out an evaluation at the end of this webinar and we really appreciate your feedback if you could take a moment to let us know what you thought of this webinar so our last question this morning is what suggestions do our panelists have to reduce burn out of port numbers I would say just clear roles and responsibilities of the first thing making sure that people know what's expected of them and trying to make it as fun as possible I would echo those sentiments making a responsibility fun is a really important part of forward function being respectful of personal lives and the fact that you are volunteering their time for this organization is another part I mentioned again with seasonal considerations it really is important to talk with your board members and know when they are anticipated to be away from communication for a long time we can reschedule things to be done ahead of time for that they are not losing function on your boredom pestering people when they are with me having a personal time of their own I dekha know everything about calling and danna said two things I would say you need a succession plan boards need to have a succession plan you're not there forever and that should be true of both your board and especially if you have a lot of key volunteers you need to have a succession plan for those because in particularly in rural areas people could burn out but they won't leave job and because you've not talked about succession planning you have no way to deal with it and the other thing is is get your board members of training and give them information so find a way to get bored training there's a lot of great ones especially in Oregon there's a lot of those things that go on Ford Family Foundation has some great resources especially for rural communities and then the charitable trust division our charitable division of Department of Justice has a free a downloadable guide to board service and the link is there you can also order cot just call and they'll send you as many copies as we need at that free so I I strongly suggest everybody take advantage of that resource and Chan I think a follow-up question for you is do you have an example of a succession plan an example of a succession plan well I think that there should be a reasonable discussion about how people are going to move off of a board I mean term limits are one way and people can take time off from the board and come back but you need to know that you know you've got people moving towards retirement who's going to be that and the same person has been the board chair for five years how are you going to do that so have somebody who shares those responsibilities for a year or shadows or write something into your board in your bylaws that says the vice president will become the president after one or two years and that is a natural succession plan on the board the other thing is is bringing on new board members and mentoring them so that people and that gives people a sense of continuity and Lee and Trust in thinking that they can leave the board still leave it in good hands if they filtered someone else great all right well that's all the questions we have today I would like to thank our panelists Colleen Sharon and Danny for sharing their knowledge about boards with us today and thanks to everybody else for calling it and a reminder we'll send out that evaluation link and we really appreciate your feedback and then this webinar will be posted online if there if you know of anybody else who might be interested in this all right thank you
