If you are starting or growing a non-profit organization you truly know how vital it is
to have an amazing board of directors. You need strong board leaders who can get out there and
fundraise, and do outreach, and govern, and create strong policies for the organization,
and so much more. In this video I'm going to talk through six questions
that you all had about the board of directors and see what you think!
Welcome or welcome back! I'm Amber Melanie Smith. I'm a non-profit founder and executive director.
I make these videos here on YouTube to help people who want to create an impact like you as always I
hope that you find this useful don't forget to give it a like And subscribe to my channel for
more content like this I also have a website, FounderToFulltime.com where I have trainings
and resources for people starting a non-profit or developing that ever important strategic and
sustainable fundraising plan so go check that out there. I wanted to do this topic because
non-profits are pretty different from a for-profit business structure and the non-profit board of
directors can be one of the most confusing elements of the whole thing. I get lots of
questions about how boards work all the time. Now the questions that I chose to focus on for this
video center around two themes that are generally the same two themes I see in questions I didn't
address too, and that is: one, how do you recruit excuse me how do you recruit board members,
and secondly what powers and privileges do they have? This is part three of the little series
I've been doing answering your questions and I hope that you've been enjoying these. Let's
get into it. Question number one is from Zhao gel says how many board members should be in a
non-profit organization well this answer is going to widely vary depending on where you're located
so if you are in the United States then the rules for the minimum number of board members you need
to have could very even by state by state so you're really going to want to look in the
rules of the state that you're incorporating your non-profit in to identify but as a rule of thumb
many or possibly even Most states are going to ask you to have at least three board members
and these board members need to be unrelated according to the IRS rules unrelated means
uh they're not your family they're not related to you by marriage or through business contracts or
connections now you could have some board members who are related to you by marriage or family
Etc as long as combined you all don't make up the majority of the board and the reason for that is
the IRS wants to make sure that a non-profit is formed to be led by representatives from
the community at large and so it doesn't want to see a controlling interest in a non-profit
it wants to be for the public by the public Etc a second question I have here is from Donna M.
Donna asks I have a question Miss Amber who pays the board of directors uh now this is something
I have addressed in some other videos but as a general rule of thumb board of directors members
are unpaid volunteers I've talked previously about some of the differences between the
non-profit structure and the for-profit business structure but this is one of the major ways that
they are different board members in a non-profit are unpaid volunteers Community Representatives
Etc and the organization is not supposed to be diving out profits to shareholders or
board members like you might see in a for-profit business so that is the answer to that question
board members are are generally unpaid volunteers however there are some small ways they might be
able to be reimbursed for example if they spend money on some approved expenditure for the
organization and you know it's the expense itself has been approved they can be reimbursed for that
they might be able to receive mileage for travel to some situations based on your organization's
policy around mileage reimbursements and in some cases they might also be able to be hired
to provide a specific service not related to their board service so let's say they also
happen to be a professional photographer and your organization has done its due diligence to vet a
handful of photographers and your board member who is the photographer happens to be offering
the the best price you all could reasonably choose to hire that person for that service
instead of others but the idea with non-profits is you're not supposed to have conflicts of interest
where board members would be uh personally or inappropriately benefiting financially from
the non-profit all revenue for the nonprofit needs to go right back into its Mission and
not distributed to shareholders Etc all right question number three is from Leah M Leah asks
when someone's bored term limit is up can they be re-selected for the same position again or does
it have to be a completely different person for instance can they be elected again to fill the
role if everyone is happy with that current board member or is that illegal or frowned upon good
news Leah you can absolutely do this um it's all about what rules you all have put in your bylaws
and what the board votes on wanting to do so you could in theory um say board members can have up
to three terms like maybe a term is two years and they can be re-elected three times you could have
that in your bylaws you could have unlimited terms you could have one term the number of terms and
what length the term is going to be is up to you all to decide and to write in your bylaws
um now I will say sometimes if you have unlimited board terms and it's just the same people over and
over again that might look a little um unhealthy to funders or donors because the idea with the
non-profit as I've been saying is you really want uh to be representative of the community
that you're serving so if you always have the same people in there all the time then you're not
getting any fresh ideas in there and you're not seeing a lot of community representation possibly
um yeah and the second part is about voting so as long as everyone's happy with that board member
they have to run again and then they have to be voted in again for their second term
and if everyone votes or your majority votes to bring them on depending on what your bylaws say
counts as a majority then there's no problem with them serving again question number four is from
moyad asks hi Amber who has the power to fire or remove unwilling board members
this kind of relates to the question I just answered uh and that is the board the board is the
answer to the question the board has to fire or vote out in other terms board members who are not
working out so if your bylaws say that in order to bring on or remove a board member you need to have
a two-thirds vote of your board vote Yes for that then that's what you need to do this is going to
be dictated by your organization's bylaws question number five is from Lighthouse audio Ministries
I'm not sure if you have a video for this how to find the right board members for
your cause I do definitely check out my uh board of directors playlist I
have videos all about recruiting and having good board meetings and all sorts of things
um what are your tips for convening with them and inviting them to be a part of the board how
do you persuade them what works and what doesn't so there are a couple of things that are going
to go into successfully recruiting a board member the first is you've got to know what kind of board
member you need before you start recruiting any board members at all so what are the different
skill sets your organization is really going to need to carry it towards its goals for that next
year or two year period or three year period maybe it's you really need more people with fundraising
skills or you really need a good public speaker or you need an accountant or someone with financial
background you've got to know the type of person you need first then you gotta have a clear board
job description because it is very unlikely that someone is going to sign up to make a long-term
commitment as board commitments typically are without knowing exactly what is required of them
I wouldn't I wouldn't sign up for something where I didn't know what my responsibilities
were because I want to do a good job and I want to meet expectations so making sure that those
uh expectations the responsibilities are very clearly laid out in a description before you start
recruiting is going to help you you also want to have your process for recruiting figured out so
um are you screening them in some way is there an interview process what does it look like and
being clear about what it looks like to your potential candidates at this point you have all
these tools ready and you're ready to go out and start doing some Outreach and recruiting let's say
you've decided that the particular skill set you need is marketing well you want to go where you
might find people who have that skill set so think of marketing networking groups or companies who
um specialize in marketing or public relations maybe some of their employees or leadership wants
to serve on your board so that would be the path I would take and then it's just a matter
of reaching out to them having some one-on-one conversations maybe even having like a uh an open
house question and answer session where people can ask you questions before they apply to be on the
board all of these things will help clarify what is expected of board members so that people will
feel more comfortable applying Sixth and final question for today is from Dawn. Dawn says I'm in
the beginning stages of starting a non-profit as far as putting a board together do they go through
an interview process and do you have a video about board member descriptions I do have such
a video if you go to my playlist uh for board of directors topics then you can see some stuff about
putting together those board job descriptions that I also just mentioned for the other question too
um and the interview process is something I also mentioned in the other in the other response too
and uh I recommend it I think that you definitely don't want someone serving on your board that
you haven't gotten to know at least a little bit that you haven't had some human interaction with
um so I do highly recommend an interview process are you required to have one no that's up to you
um but I think if you're talking about someone whose vote is going to possibly change the
trajectory of your organization's work over the next couple of years you definitely want to know
a little bit about their values and who they are as a person before you bring them in okay what did
you think did the questions you had about board members get answered if not what other questions
do you have definitely share those in the comments below as always I love to read what you all have
on your minds and answer when I can as I mentioned before I have my website FounderToFulltime.com
with those online trainings and resources for people starting a non-profit or developing that
sustainable fundraising plan I also have a newsletter that I send out to change makers
and non-profit leaders you can find the link to opt into that in the description below this video
but I'll send out things like news and Trends and funding opportunities and stuff like that
finally I have a group on Facebook called change the world or bust and it's got thousands
of people in there from all around the world talking about how they're making an impact and
asking questions so I hope that you can join us there once again I'm Amber Melanie Smith!
I hope that you found this interesting and helpful and I hope to see you next time. Bye!