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the broadcast is now starting all attendees are in listen-only mode good evening and welcome to the first webinar of our January board development month webinar series nonprofit boards 101 an overview of board member responsibilities for those of you that are new to grow and lead which I know there are a lot of you that haven't been on a webinar yet with us welcome a little bit about us we are a capacity-building center that serves Michigan's Upper Peninsula we are also a non-profit and we help communities throughout the UPV a great place for kids to grow up by working to have an effective nonprofit sector which in turn provides all of the services that youth need to thrive so how we do that is through things like tonight's webinar which falls into our training bucket consulting we have a membership program and we provide facilitation so if you'd like to learn more about our services feel free to reach out afterwards we do have three more webinars coming up this month next Wednesday we'll cover board structuring committees which will kind of dovetail off of tonight's discussion the week after that we'll talk a little bit about the board and staff relationship how the board and staff can work together to move mission forward and finally we'll wrap up with strategic planning and we'll look at different types of plans that your board can create to help move you to meet your goals in one three and five years all right with that I'm excited to introduce Chad tonight's presenter welcome Chad thank you very much Victoria so good evening everyone I'm really glad you're taking time out of your evening to to listen in and hopefully learn something so we'll be talking about the basic roles and responsibilities of nonprofit boards and so our objective this evening is to learn about really the legal do excuse me the legal duties of board members and also understand the various roles and responsibilities of board members often we have found in our work here at growing lead that people are want to serve on a board they want to contribute they want to make a difference but unfortunately you're not often properly a equipped or informed about what you need to do and be ready to do to serve effectively on a non-profit board so hopefully this little beginners kind of some of the basics will help you have a more of an understanding about what you're supposed to be doing help you ask the right question within your organization if you're serving on a board so that you can help propel the mission forward so so the very first thing I want to say for those who are serving that you're on this webinar and you are actually serving on a non-profit board you are to be commended and we only want to say a really a sincere heartfelt thank you for the work you do in your nonprofit agencies you are the heart and soul you are the wheels that keep things going and when it comes to to nonprofit organizations everyone thinks staff because they're the ones visible we're the ones providing the service but the board is really the the foundation of nonprofit work so it really as my slide says you are the single most important part of any nonprofit and I really want to emphasize something here when it talks about when I mentions the most important body of a non-profit because the board is an entity that acts as one when you're making those legal and social responsible decisions in other words outside of the boardroom you're individuals yes you're serving on a board but you're the real power of a Board of Directors and how it can really help the nonprofit succeed in their mission is when you come together in the board board room you use the power of your vote and you act as one you make a votes and you make decisions as a unit and that's that's very important so your legal responsibilities you are the stewards of the mission of your organization you um you take care of the resources whether its financial or human but really you're the biggest thing you're safeguarding is the mission that is as your amory goal to make sure you define what the organization's mission is and you provide the leadership needed to set the strategic direction for the organization so the organization knows where it's going where it's headed and you're directing that as their board so you actively set policies that will help ensure the organization has both adequate resources to carry all this mission and that it has the parameters it needs to not overstep or get themselves into trouble because that can happen so so the board also provides direct oversight and direction to whatever you call your the top employee organization an executive director or a CEO it could be coordinator or whatever it might be but the board also sees the person they usually typically hire that person and then they evaluate their performance so these are all these kind of higher level functions that a board does and again the nonprofit boards have a responsibility kind of to police themselves evaluate your own effectiveness as a governing body because the next point is your highest purpose is to act for the good of others to act in the public's interest so ultimately it you're not just serving the or excuse me the organization that you're serving on the board of you're actually serving the community because the community has buy-in and has a belief that knowing what your mission is in the help you're providing to the community they're trusting you to guide that organization to actually fulfill that mission so when they give whether it's of their time in volunteering or if they give them their finances they're trusting of the board of that organization is making sure that that organization is is actually doing what their mission says it's going to do and they're not going too far or strain away from that so you play a vital very important piece and in this whole thing of making organizations that serve the public and step in and and help our communities and so we thank you again as a board member so now we'll kind of start helping you a little bit understand more of your role and the first way we're gonna do this far to talk about legal duties and so if there's actually three of them here we want to really highlight and describe on the first is called the duty of care and this what the duty of care really is describes the level of competence that it's expected out every board member so it's like think of what a prudent person would do in a certain situation and how would they act so it has to it's about being competent it's being understand it's exercising reasonable care when making a decision in the organization and on behalf the organization's so what this could mean is you you are faithful in attendance to board meetings again the power of a board is in your vote so if you're not at meetings it's difficult for you exercise your ability to vote and act as a unit so showing up to meetings is important paying attention while you're there I'm Martha called a names but I was at our board meeting recently and I'm watching someone across the room on their phone for about half of the meeting I'm going hmm that's I don't know how you're actually understanding what's going on and decisions being made when you're looking at your phone so be attentive when you're actually in a board meeting being prepared and running reading the materials ahead of time if you get aboard packets or an agenda ahead of time making sure that you come to the meeting prepared not what I've also seen far often is people reading the stuff for the first time when they sit down when the board meeting is supposed to start being engaged in other words make your voice be heard in the board meeting and asking questions if you're unsure of something that's a pretty important duty of a board member is to not let things just slide not things go well I really shouldn't say something but really being able to have the confidence in yourself and in your understanding of what's going on to say understand what's going on here because that's an important role that you play to make sure things are going the way they're supposed to so key real key things about this duty of care be active be informed and make independent decisions that seem to be in the best interest of course for the organization and the public you're serving the second duty is the duty of loyalty so obviously this is your your allegiance your faithfulness to the organization a board member really needs to give that undivided allegiance to the organization we're making decisions affecting in that organization you're not ever supposed to use any information for your personal gain everything should be in the app and the interests of the organization before your own this is really helpful to have confidentiality policies and also conflict of interest policies come into play almost everyone that I know has a contract conflict of interest policy and that's just a state out front if there's any chance there there could be something that conflicts or have a process in place where someone if there is a conflict of interest that arises how the board should deal with that situation because sometimes it does happen when business is being done if you have a business person that sits on your board and they have a legitimate reason to bid on a project or offer a service to that to your organization all they need to do is recuse themselves from that discussion and they can remain loyal to the organization and not be champion for their own cause to get that business so but you got to be careful with that one just to make sure holding information in confidence again a lot of organizations the minutes are public record or cassette or etc depending on your organization types we're not to talk about that but it's just um things that don't need to be discussed out in public if they're still things are being worked on hold those things in confidence until it's the right time to bring them to light so again it's everything again it's it's putting the organization before self so yeah and then the other thing to remember too is as you your secretary or whoever takes notes in your organization if a conflict of interest does arise it's very important that the minutes reflect how a decision was made especially if someone removes himself from the decision because they fear a potential conflict of interests whether it's could be a relative that you're discussing or works at the agency whatever it might be but it just makes sense to good business sense to make sure that stuff and those decisions are in writing so let's some can go back and and see how the process happened and make sure things were stayed above board so to speak so excuse me the third one is a duty of obedience and this is a going back again to being faithful to your mission this is again a high high priority of an or of a board members to make sure that the organization is acting consistently with the central goals and the mission of the organization the public trusts you to manage those donated funds or grant dollars to fulfill the mission so whether it's your Articles of Incorporation your bylaws policies and procedures other laws and regulations that might apply to your specific work it could be state or federal or even local the board is the one who really needs to make sure these issues are being followed and adhered to so you don't have to be law experts but you should have at least some awareness of the difference the different things that the Euro ization has to adhere to so yeah so this makes sure you you kind of know if there especially if there are standards some working with children some with other RIF certain reporting requirements again just be aware as a board member of what your organization might have to be following so that you can make sure the staff is doing they need to do and making the reports and as a board that you're making sure the 990 is is filed if or other tax exemption filings or whatever so make sure again that you're keeping within the law you're staying legal so to speak one thing that came up which was interesting more interesting recently and we decided to add as a little kind of footnote to this point about lawful acts is that increasing with technology and increasing with using electronic sources we had a lot of questions about electronic voting for board members and so I just want to touch on that really quickly I dug into the state of Michigan's Department of Licensing and regulatory affairs and on their website you can find a little definition and what the state of Michigan believes is the proper way to go about allowing for electronic voting so the long and short of it is if if you the first thing you need to do is make an amendment to your bylaws stating that electronic messaging is permitted for voting purposes of your board so if that's not currently there and you've been using it as a voting it's really highly suggest you talk to your board chair about getting that amended and put it into your bylaws because that's what it kind of protects you to make it those votes than a legal vote also you have to make sure there's some kind of a due diligence done making all diligence possible to make sure that the board member is the actual person submitting the vote and not someone else using their email address or their device so it's a little tough but we want to try to be again as aboveboard as possible so one of the things that they're the kind of the article on the state of Michigan site said is that when it comes to electronic voting there's only two messages that can be sent either a yes or a No if there's anything else included in the message it is triggering that there's need there's needs to be discussion on the article and then it should be saved for an in-person meeting in other words electronic message is not the place to have a discussion about something you're voting on so keep it to jest yes or no so so you don't have to have any discussion if anyone who types in ur saying some explanation or follow-up you want to table that topic until you can meet in person and actually discuss it before having a formal vote so just so you know it's out there if you need to find it it's just something that's new with the modern era so if you want to keep lawful and make sure you guys are staying above board with your voting and making sure those votes count and our capture the right way by the way to all this board secretaries remember you should capture those electronic voting - and make sure they go into the minutes of the next meeting so that they're recorded so now we'll switch to the work of the board you have a lot of stuff that you have to do as a board member and sure I'm not telling any unless you're brand brand new to a board you're probably all going oh yeah we've got plenty to do so a national organization that we look to mentions these five things as as kind of like focal points or the big main things that the work of the board is responsible for so they're not in any order but we're gonna take each one and I'm gonna go into him a little bit a little bit more in depth and as I do talk about each one think about the organization that you serve on the board you serve on and think about what are some areas of strength in your board and then also think about okay what's an area we need to improve so look at both of those because it's good to say yes we're doing good in this area but also to be mindful of the ones were like well we're not doing so good in that area so all right here we go at least five different areas of responsibility of your work we'll start off with board operations this is where you recruit and you orientate and you you assess your performance so the composition the makeup of your board includes multiple things it's your officers who's serving in the officers role typically you have a chair per person a treasurer and a set secretary many boards like to have a vice-chair set that can be there to step in and also some organizations even use the vice chair as kind of grooming someone to become the chairperson in in future years so that's part of your composition the other part of your composition of your board is is a different talents and skills and diversity that make up the board again the more diverse board you have the the more ideas and viewpoints and perspectives you're going to get to inform decisions so it's it's very healthy to have as diverse board as a diverse of a board as you possibly can one of the things that shock some people serving on boards it's actually the Board of Directors responsibility or a committee of the board to do the recruiting of new board members in other words if you're if the staff of your organization is making recommendations or going out and actively recruiting the board members for your organization that's not how it's supposed to go in other words boards are supposed to replicate themselves you are trying if you're serving on a board you are trying to replace yourself by the time that you term off or your service time ends it shouldn't be left the staff defined the board and it's it's just not best practice either and you the people you you're tapped into are probably far different than who your staff is and so it's actually they're part of your responsibility to make sure that all the seats are filled on your board also this is another big one too we see staff sometimes doing excuse me is training or giving orientation to the board again this should be a function of one of your boards or committees to stay tuned next week if you want to hear a little bit more about committees but yeah it's actually it's actually the board's role whether that's a one of the executive mayor the officers of the board or someone else assigned to give someone to get them on board train them up so they're ready to go the board also should be doing a regular self-assessment whether it's on an annual basis but they also can use outside sources like consultants to to give and assess the board's operations or to help kind of shore up any weak areas again the structure of the board has to do with your officer structure your meetings times and structures how often do you meet when do you meet swear and so again the board that's one of your main important things is is governing yourself replacing yourself and then making sure your fellow board members when they're new are up to speed and ready to serve and have all the tools they need to to serve to their best level strategic planning this is um this is determining your organization's missions its purpose its goals it's the thinking and planning for the future see everyone here's to tribute planned they think all a strategic planning retreat but that's not strategic planning should be a a normal regular function of board operations and board meetings you're always thinking and planning for the future you're not just evaluating anis and overseeing what's been done in the past and the organization like oh good yeah the executive director staying on task and meeting goals and stuff that's wonderful that's not just the only job even the oversight is a job you're also supposed to be pointing the organization to the future and thinking and being the ones planning for that future staying true to the mission you should be partnering with your executive driver executive director excuse me to drive the the mission forward but really it shouldn't be the executive director telling the board what direction the organization should go you as a board member are that century that's guard that guards the mission so the board really needs to work closely with your leader your paid staff leader to come up with the direction of the of the organization and not simply just say oh ow our our CEO our our executive director we'll figure that out and we'll just you know rubber-stamp it that's not your role your role is really to help define and and kind of work out that oh it's so that you're actually in some ways again thinking about it an employer employee the employer gives instructions to the employee carry out their duties the board is no different you are the Edie's boss and so you're responsible for again for the organization's mission and purpose and goals so you kind of give marching orders the executive director or CEO or president or whatever you call it person in your organization so you really play a big hand in that do you want that your leader to come up with ideas and share ideas absolutely that's why they should be attending your board meetings but you cannot just simply rely on them and just kind of fly by whatever they say you really need to take an active part in planning for the future resource development this is the one where board members usually start disliking Chad that's okay all the ultimate responsibility for the organization's resources and the development of them falls on the board now does that mean you're doing all these things no you have a human resource for a reason if you have staff your pain staff to do work to do certain things but ultimately the responsibility falls to the board mmm so I've pointed out human so human is the they they hired an executive that's that's their one kind of human but they are now they're watching their executive director you're being this is your office part of your oversight piece you're watching and making sure that any other employees that the executive director hires are being treated fairly honestly with integrity etc etc so you are really again responsible for making sure the human resource is valued in your organization and being taken care of that also includes not overburdening or burning out your poor executive director far if you're in the U P which is our main area of service for growing lead a lot of executive directors do not get paid to the level of their counterparts and other places in the country yet the expectations are just as high if not higher when there's even less staff so be careful board my encouragement to you is really value if you have a good executive director you have a good director that you've hired make sure you're taking care of them and that doesn't mean you can go and pay them what they're worth you probably maybe maybe you can't if you can you should be but if you can't there are other ways to make sure they're not burning themselves out and you find yourself scrambling to find someone else to lead so make sure you're taking care of and watching that human resource just so valuable moving along the financial resources yes when a when a board sits and sets a budget for the year and approves a budget for the year they're telling the community they're telling the staff the organization we're gonna have this this is the monies this is the budget we're gonna make this happen so ultimately yes staff does fundraising I'm sure many of them do executives and directors are responsible for you know searching for grants whatever but it's very much also the board's responsibility to ensure the organization has the needed resources to meet their mission so yes board if you thought I'm not gonna get involved in fundraising yes you should now remember just really quickly for those who just Winston instantly didn't like me fundraising looks very different in fact I like to use the term fund development better than fundraising because fundraising everyone thinks about events they think about those nitpicky little things that just it takes much time I got a Celt okay it's whatever it is no fun development means there's multiple different ways to raise funds for your nonprofit organization and again the board should be some helping research use networking for those individual donors but that's some of your role is to make sure the finances and the financial resources are there for the organization to do the work or help in the process of finding those and making sure there's enough so really again this goes back to it's a partnership again with you with your director whoever your director is your executive director you partner with them in the resource development to make sure the finances are there there's also the physical resources that could include if you have any buildings equipments maybe vehicles or whatever again the boards making sure that that stuff is being maintained that the staff is taking care of that stuff so that does not fall into disrepair and there's no longer value to the organization so again resource development an ongoing process well I mentioned this a couple times already but again work your board is your oversight so a big one is is providing financial oversight if you're responsible for helping find the money and get the money then you're also a big party responsibilities making sure that it's being used correctly so you want to make sure that every legal and ethical integrity and accountability are happening when it comes to your finances most boards have a separate Finance Committee whose sole job is to make sure the finances are being tracked and accounted for correctly so so that's that's that's obviously an important piece to make sure that nothing's wonky is going on if I could use that term so the other one is your programs remember this is oversight in other words you're not micromanaging let the director the executive director CEO whatever it is in your organization let them actually fulfill and carry out the programming with their staff we don't we're not talking about micromanaging but we are talking about monitoring and and making suggestions to strengthen programming and services so they can help you can help the staff and help your leadership your paid leadership be the best they can and provide the best services and and do the best work so you're definitely kind of like that airplane you know 10,000 feet view kind of looking over things and making suggestions but not micromanaging all right so remember a basic organization chart in in in a non-profit it's the board's at the top you guys are the leaders you hire your executive director and the executive director then hires a staff and and and collect and gets recruits volunteers and manages those people so you're responsible for the executive director the executive director is responsible for their staff and volunteers and you support the director and then us assess their performance so that's kind of how you help impact programming so when they come and tell you what's going on in programming again you're there to kind of monitor and determine if they're on the right track and if performance is matching expectations again legal oversight keep yourselves legal keep yourselves legal do whatever you can if you can get a lawyer on your board who's willing to you know help guide you wonderful but make sure you know the areas that you need to stay the requirements whatever the requirements might be for your organization to keep you legal because there's just too easy to slip up so that's part of your oversight to keep your organization legal don't pass the buck that's your job make sure your organization is legal the last ones being ambassadors and this is pretty huge you're the whole idea of of the ambassador is that you're an advocate you're out there in the community with your friends and family with your co-workers whatever and when the opportunity arises you're talking about your work with the organization you serve on your you're talking them up you're showing why it's important that that organization exists talking about the impact of what the organization is making on the community you're trying to enhance the public standing awareness of what that organization is doing hopefully you're serving on this board because you have a heart and passion for its mission and whatever population you're serving so let people know if you have a chance to present at an event or stand in front of a group to kind of talk about your cause take it do it run with it that's that's being a good ambassador sometimes the executive director needs opportunities and doors opened in the community or to have a sit-down with a certain person or whatever and if that's in your sphere of influence use it open that door let them to be better again enhancing their ability to do their job and fulfill the mission so that's what I'm being an ambassador really means you're kind of you're being a spokesperson your goal in fronts encouraging people to understand why they are is important why it's worth supporting and then you're also opening doors for your executive director to help them do their job even better so the great thing about a mastership it doesn't have to end after you leave the board in fact a great way to keep in touch with and keep connected with former former board members is to ask them to continue to be ambassadors and maybe even setting up some sort of a way they can get tools or news or whatever and continue to speak on behalf the organization again if they enjoyed their their time serving on the board then many times would be more than happy to keep up the talk and keep talking up that organization so use those former board members they don't have to disappear and be something of the distant past they can still work even if they're not serving on the board but work to help enhance the organization okay so good board members kind of this kind of sums up everything we were just talking about but I wanted to make sure we gather it all one place and summarize it so to be a good board member means you attend you're actively participating in meetings you show up to special events yes you even even if you didn't have to run it the staff is doing it you show up to fundraisers I know grimace it doesn't have to be that bad but you show up your face being there is important I served on a board not too long ago and one of the things that was really encouraging to the public was they'd come to an event and we have almost a hundred percent board attendance at special events it's just unheard of we had like the poor whole board would show up and support or something if your board can break that that's a really cool thing because it sends a loud message to the community that this is so important that look at their whole board showed up not just one or two but a bunch of them so really being actively participating not just in the board room but outside with what's going on in the organization really sends a strong strong message so again we talked about becoming prepared for those board meetings in other words do your homework yep if yes you have to look at it look at as homework read your agenda read the items that are going to be discussed make sure you're ready to have really good conversations rather than spend time at the meeting reading about it and trying to be caught up instead you come ready to talk right away and to discuss and to make decisions it will greatly shorten your board meetings if you do that believe me so thinking strategically and generatively you're asking about you're asking questions about so what attributed to the success a successful outcome for this program or events so you're looking at the big picture how can it be replicated or what can we do to improve it later you're not looking for the small details well why wasn't this set up on time no yeah that's micromanaging let the director talk to their staff about such things but you're looking for the big picture like and then a thinking long term like wow that was that was good but we could do even better and here's ideas thinking in the future one or two years we could build this to this or we could expand to this that's the kind of things the board are looking at they're linking at a high level view and trying to generate ideas and discussions all right again in those board meetings if you have any concerns I think I've told the story every time I've done board what I want him to tell it anyway i sat on the board brand new second meeting my issue came up and we were discussing it at length and I sat there going I don't I don't not comfortable with this I'm not comfortable with this but no one was saying anything and so towards the end where they were getting close to making decisions and I raised my hand and said I missed I don't think we understand what this is extra work decision to take and and I think we're kind of a hedging on a line here something we don't want to get ourselves into sure enough the accountant and the lawyer and the board jumped up and said I agree with him that's absolute like why'd you guys you guys have been serving the board for a long time why'd you wait so don't ever don't ever be hesitant to speak up there truly what teacher said there is no dumb question if you don't understand something if something feels off or doesn't seem make sense say something I think they'd rather put up with you asking a lot questions then letting things go and not ask the tough questions and running into issues like many of us have heard of some organizations get into problems when people didn't dig deep enough into decisions or know what was going on so yeah speak up make your voice heard okay serve as ambassadors be out there definitely make people aware of what's going on in your organization and why it's important I highly suggest that you have whether it's a policy or not I'd even say make it one of your board policies is to make a financial contribution at least once a year why that matters that matters because if you don't believe enough in your organization to give to it why do you expect anyone else to give to it some grants and other ways of getting money will actually ask if your board how much percentage your board financially contributes your organization so that's another good reason if you're ever write any grants notice here there's no dollar amount I don't think you should put one of your policy unless you have a long lengthy discussion and you all agree inanimate on that unanimously about it it's the idea that to give to give and say everyone has given it's not about how much because everyone has different means and and different ability levels of giving so the fact is giving is the important part not the amount necessarily so and again you're supposed to help your executive director identify and solicit new donors or if you have a member organization again opening those doors introducing those connection points so don't be afraid I don't think if you've hired a good executive director and you trust that person they're not going to abuse that relationship or make you look silly or whatever other fears are we have when it comes to introducing our connections to our directors believe me if they had out any training experience they will treat that relationship with like gold because that's exactly what they are so other things we hear about that I hear about in boards that I want to kind of kind of really give heads up about we hear things like there's too much absenteeism and our boards we don't they don't want to fundraise or they been on the board for 20 years these are all symptoms we hear about boards that are struggling they're not the problems themselves all these things can be solved with simple little policies in education absenteeism you have an attendance policy where someone simply can't meet the meetings at a certain time maybe they're not ready to serve on the board or their time has come not wanting to fundraise again sometimes the biggest thing in board members lacking is information so we can give them information being on a board for 20 years if that is not working for your organization you can come up with term limits so um in other words boards don't sit around and complain to each other about the problems find solutions good board members are looking and strategically to solve problems and get out in front of them and not wait back consider go that's changing be the change alright enough on that three hats of role clarity you play three different roles as a board member your organization so the the one that's the most powerful one is your governance role it's your formal role it's when you call that board meeting to order when your quorum is present by the way your bylaws will say exactly what constitutes a quorum for your organization so once that quorums met and you say formally start the meeting boom now you're the ultimate legal and moral authority for your ization but you act as a unit no inter individual interests should be in that board room no individuals you become almost one you're acting as a unit because your power is on whatever the vote decides that's your formal hat implementation hat that you wear is when you get delegated certain Authority or power and the board gives that that authorization most common way of implementation committees or task forces so in other words a task force where committee has a certain set of structures or parameters that they're allowed to operate in and that's it so the Finance Committee is going to have little more detailed oversight over the finances of the organization but that Finance Committee is not going to go and talk about and tell tell the outreach or marketing committee how to discuss you know getting more people to an event that's just that's that's outside their parameters or parameters or look at the financials make sure we know where the money is how it's coming in where it's going et cetera so that's the kind of so that the implementation part is a limited authority limited power granted by the board that gives a specific authorization or parameters or power to do a certain task or tasks so you wear that one sometimes as your committees meet and the work is needed so and the last one the one you probably wear more often than not you probably don't even know if it's something you think about it but you wear it most often is you volunteer whether it's your time and the work you're doing outside of the boardroom maybe it's not even a committee task it's something that you the director said I need help with this or this you go oh yeah I can help with that I know how to do that and you're volunteering you're at an event and you're helping move chairs or you're inviting people to an event to fill a table or sponsor something or whatever so when you're in this volunteer mode it's very important to remember you don't have any individual Authority your authority is mainly in the board room with your governance hat you have limited authority in your implementation when you're doing your committees or specific tasks designated by the board but most often you're volunteering I will share my one famous story of the fundraising event where the a board member approaches a staff person and starts chewing them out about something that's not how they thought it was supposed to go and the poor staff person is horrified because this is a board member who is chewing them out about something but the staff person had been following the directions of his executive director and so caught in between these two not knowing what to do runs and finds the executive director to get confirmation they were supposed to do it which was correct the executive director pull aside the board member remind them that they got this it's okay the training here is board members when you're at an event like that that's being run by the executive director staff and/or volunteers even if you're volunteering there you're not a board member wait you have the title you're serving the board you do not have the power of a board member the power in that situation is the executive director you're paying to lead your organization you are merely a volunteer you can only throw around your way as a board member again in the board room when a quorum is present and you're formally meeting that's when you have power but outside of that again you're giving your time as a volunteer to help serve the organization so let the e run the from the joke but it's time and you have the power in the boardroom to to help big direction big decisions going forward so all right you just want to make sure you understood that one I love this slide this is talks about the division responsibilities between a board and its executive who are rehire so it kind of hopefully kind of shows the definitions of how the differences that CEO and Edie's looking for the day-to-day the operations how things are supposed to happen the means the how the won the where the strategies and procedures to get assignments done and how to document them and and that IDI then makes recommendations to the board the boards respond about end results the what the why how much how well are we doing with this one they're looking for mission and goals and then their power is in the vote the final say they actually have the final say-so but my favorite part of this slide favorite part of this slide is the bottom of it you see if in your organization if the if the foundation is not trust between your executive director and your board you're in a lot of trouble and you're really need to do some soul-searching because without that foundation of trust you're never really going to get anywhere because neither of them can trust the other and you have to have both the board provides the vision and your director your executive director implements that vision that's the way it's supposed to go and I also want to point out to re-emphasize what I said at the end of that last slide notice that the left-hand column says board it's not a separate board member it's an entity not an individual your collective you're together so hopefully that helps you look a little bit if you're confused about who's supposed to do what in the organization look this slide because all of you will be receiving this slide probably if I know Victoria probably tomorrow so you'll get these slides so you can look it over more okay so tips that we've found that really help when you're talking about having an effect and functioning board is you have effective orientations in other words again boards if you're a new board member or you've been on your board for a long time make sure there is effective orientation happening for new board members January's a time why we do this series this time is because so many new people are coming onto boards if you haven't gone through an orientation ask for one if you're people at your at your your chairperson on your board says I don't know executive director do we have an orientation if they don't have one have them call us we can help them set up seriously it's one of the things we can help with in your organization is how to how to develop an effective orientation so that again once you hit the ground you can still go running help make decisions be informed know what you're doing not just sitting back and waiting I had one lady tell me that after a board one-on-one presentation that she'd been serving on boards for over 20-some years and until that evening where I shared the simple roles and responsibilities she had no idea what she was actually supposed to be doing as a board member for 20 years plus yeah that's someone who never went through an orientation on to any board she ever served on that's it's just a travesty and a waste of time both for the organization and that individual board member so train your people have them prepared have them know what they're walking into we encourage you to take permission on the top of every agenda if it's staring you in the face on a monthly or a quarterly basis whatever how often your board meets it's staring right there it's easy then to look down during any meeting and make any decision and make sure that's it's as hearing to that mission so that's why we encourage that because I guarantee you none of you or very few you have your mission memorized for the organization you're serving on so have it right in front of you have it right in front of you so you can't forget why you're there what you're doing wire is a ssin is important the mission moment is a chance for any board member to share something that's happened since last meeting that shows the organization in action it's it's an example of something good that's happening it's meant to be the encouraging story that says see this is why we're doing this and hopefully you're involved enough in the organization in some fast shape or form that you can actually have mission the moments to share so look for opportunities to share those those things will encourage each other greatly encourage each other and spur each other forward when you can see the impact of what your organization is doing so share those and then once you start sharing them in your board meeting it's a great way to collect those and share them then out in the public when you're looking for opportunities to speak or whatever evaluate your meetings you can always do better sometimes it's switching your format sometimes it's it's making sure things are much more effective as far as time goes we have we spend a lot of time and a lot of organizations on too much conversation discussion what am I saying I'm not saying you don't discuss things and but we have these ongoing conversations that really either should be tabled should be set to a committee or whatever but we spend all this time going over and over and over things that shouldn't be done in a boardroom and everyone wonders why - our board meetings happen and they're frustrated and I want to serve on that board so if you conduct evaluations of how you do your meetings you can self kind of assess what areas can be shored up and I was just at a board meeting last night with an organization that we're working with and they cheered when the person around the order is it running the median said hey we did it an hour so yeah strive for that always good you should bill get all your work done in an hour discuss this training and others that you may see whether it's in our series or our YouTube pages a bunch of recordings from past but take the time in your board meetings to do trainings to help yourselves improve whether it's help yourself govern better or understand how to run your committees better how to recruit better whatever the issue might be in your but look to train yourselves and not just say ok we're just going to plow forward and make it up as we go along but really seek out and growing leads great and that's not saying just cuz I work here but it's great at providing those resources whether it's like a webinar formats or if it's one-on-one if you want more that some in-person consultation but we're here to help you be the best you can and we're a huge believer as I hopefully you've heard for me with about board members you're just you're so important these organizations and we've seen the devastating results of poorly trained or batt poorly informed board members don't let yourself get there get seek out the right answers and the right training to make sure you're the best possible board you can be because there is help available speaking of which here are some here's just a small this is just a small sample of the things we can provide here at at growing lead so if any of these strike you guys oh yeah we need help with that or came up in that discussion as I talked tonight there's a lot of these different things that we can help you with and many many more so if your issue or topics not listed give us a call drop us an email whatever it might be and we can see if we can help you out so so there it is that's essentially the the board one on one in a nutshell I know it was some a lot there but it was kind of basic for those of you may been serving for a long time so I knew that stuff but it's good to have a refresher and I'm glad you tuned in tonight if for all you veteran board members all your new ones hopefully you learned a lot and know now what questions to ask how to go to your board chair and say okay wait are we doing this and if we're not like what do we do about this so don't be afraid to ask questions make sure you understand your role and responsibilities if you need additional help reach out my contact information emails on there come to our Facebook page go to our web page there's our phone number on the all of those places whatever your need but we're here to help you succeed and we're here to serve the nonprofit's primarily across the the Upper Peninsula Michigan so thanks again for tuning in we're grateful that you were on and hopefully we'll see you in the upcoming weeks with the rest of our series goodnight