Are you starting or growing a non-profit organization and trying to figure out how you're
going to recruit new board of directors members? In this video I'm going to talk about eight ways
that you can recruit new non-profit board members who are going to have the skills and expertise
that you need to take your organization to the next level! Welcome or welcome back! My
name is Amber Melanie Smith. If we haven't met before, I am a non-profit founder and executive
director of the nonprofit that I started, and I make these videos here on YouTube all about
starting a nonprofit, fundraising, creating a social impact, and more. I hope that you find
this video helpful. Don't forget to give it a like and subscribe to my channel for more content
like this, ring the bell for alerts, and all that good stuff. And if you're looking for some
training and resources on starting a non-profit and developing a sustainable fundraising plan,
check out my website FounderToFullTime.com. With all that out of the way, let's get into the topic
today. This is a question I get from you all, my audience and people I know all the time:
Where can I find new board members for my non-profit organization? The truth is there's no
one perfect answer there's no board members Target that you can just go to and shop for
your board member. Every non-profit is unique and different tackling a different mission in a unique
community with unique stakeholders so you really have to take a little bit more of a tailored
approach depending on your organization's cause. Now i've done a couple of other videos in the past
all about managing a board of directors and the whole recruitment and board application process
so be sure to check some of those out i've got a video covering the roles and responsibilities of
board members a video covering tips to effectively manage a board of directors and then another
video about why board members might quit your organization and what you can do about that so
like i said i've covered some related topics in past videos but in this video i'm going to go
a bit more in depth about the actual ways you can recruit new board members before i cover the eight
ways that you can recruit new board members i want to talk a little bit about some of the
things you need to have in place as a non-profit organization to be able to effectively do this the
first thing you're going to have to do before you can effectively recruit new board members is take
a look at your organization's goals for the next one to three years and think about what skills you
need to have on your leadership team in order to best accomplish those goals for example let's say
you have a goal of growing your audience by three times what it is now then maybe you want
to consider finding someone with marketing skills to join your board if your goals for the future
couple of years include purchasing some real estate for a center for you to operate out
of maybe you need someone on your board who is well-versed in navigating commercial real estate
and the list goes on once you have done this work of assessing what types of skill sets
you're going to need to be effective as an organization for the next couple of years
you want to do the second thing which is develop a very clear written description for the board of
directors role and this is going to include all of the skills that you're looking for and then
what the duties and expectations are of new board members the estimated time commitment per month um
you know things that they can do things that they shouldn't do etc. and of course as part of that
you want to develop your actual application for board of directors members so that you can have a
fair and under easy to understand application process for people who are interested in
applying to be on your board next as part of that application process you're going to need to have
some kind of fair and consistent and strong way of scoring your board of directors applicants
perhaps include an interview as one step of the application process the goal here is to of course
vet your candidates a little bit more before you choose who's going to serve on your board
of directors to see who's going to be a good fit finally it's a really smart idea to have
your training and onboarding process figured out before you even start recruiting board members at
all one thing i've heard from organizations who have really struggled to retain board members
is that board members who resigned early or left their position felt like they didn't really
have a good sense of what they were supposed to be doing in the organization when they joined
so having a strong onboarding and training process just ready to go when new board members join will
really help mitigate that concern all right so once you have those foundational elements in
place you can start recruiting board members and i'm gonna get into those eight ways that you can
recruit board members now the first place is the online social platform LinkedIn. This is a great
mechanism for recruiting board members because you can see their skill sets right there on their
profile and LinkedIn has a feature where a lot of people can choose to indicate if they're actually
interested in serving on a non-profit board so you can see right there on their profiles not
just what their skills are but if they even have an interest in serving on a board at that point
you can reach out to them to spark a conversation the second way to recruit board members and do
some outreach for your board positions is through your local volunteer center volunteer network
or volunteer matching website around the world there are organizations whose mission it is to
help other causes recruit volunteers to do some great work and these organizations will promote
your board of directors volunteer positions for your non-profit and get the word out to possibly
possible volunteers who could be interested in might have the skill sets that you're looking for
so i always recommend finding your local volunteer center or volunteer hub organization reaching out
to them and forming a partnership and seeing if they'll promote your board of directors
open positions the third way to recruit board of directors members is through local businesses
and corporations a lot of businesses actually really like when their employees
serve on non-profit boards because it's like built-in leadership development and training that
they don't have to pay for so it's a win-win plus it just looks really good on your resume which
you know boosts your credibility as a business if you have a lot of employees serving on boards
you've got people out there in the community who really have their fingers on the pulse of
what's going on in their region so it's just it's just something that a lot of businesses promote
to their employees is go look for non-profits to serve on the board of how you might do this
is you might think about what businesses in your area are within industries that are likely to have
the types of skill sets that you need for your organization like for example accounting firms
might have some good potential financial people for your organization uh marketing firms obviously
might have some people with marketing skills and PR skills etc so identify those businesses and
then you're probably going to want to look for a human resources or community relations manager
within those businesses try to get their contact information and reach out to them to just let them
know that you're a non-profit who is looking for potential interested board candidates for your
organization and you'd love to see if they'd be willing to share your board of directors
description and application with their employees this has another effect too which is pretty cool
oftentimes businesses are used to being solicited for monetary donations so if you can form a new
relationship with a business not by asking for a financial donation but by just asking them to
share your board application you might get in the door a little bit faster and easier than
other non-profits who just go straight for the monetary donation so it's a really interesting and
helpful way to cultivate a relationship with a new business who you never know might become a future
donor down the line too and i know businesses also like to give financially to the organizations
that they know their employees are serving on so helpful connection there the fourth way you can
recruit board members is through what's called a board matching program there are several around
the country and around the world i will leave the links to a couple of them in the description below
if you want to check them out but essentially what these services are are it's like match.com for
people who want to serve on boards and non-profit boards so you might input your
skills as a candidate and the types of causes that you're interested in and then the website will
recommend non-profits who are looking for board members with those skill sets or flip the other
way around you are a non-profit you post your mission you post the skill sets you're looking for
and it will recommend candidates in your area who are looking for an organization like yours
the fifth way to recruit board members is through networking events nothing beats just cultivating
new relationships through events like this you might look for your local chamber of commerce or
professional organization just places with lots of professionals usually skilled professionals
who are interested in growing their networks and just going in there meeting people and just
cultivating those relationships before you ask them to apply for your board of course
um is a great way to identify some prospective candidates for now or even in the future the sixth
way to recruit non-profit board members is through other non-profits this of course might depend a
bit on your mission as an organization but many non-profits find it helpful to have either staff
or board members or other types of representatives who are serving with one non-profit to also
serve on the board of another non-profit and the reason for this is mostly because they can bring
a lot of expertise in the particular issue area that your non-profit plans to tackle they can
also bring ideas and resources for collaboration with that other non-profit so depending on what
your mission is it might be helpful to have a non-profit board member from another nonprofit
the seventh way to recruit non-profit board members is by targeting members of civic groups or
interest groups in your area the idea here is to identify groups in your community that have been
formed around a particular issue of interest that either complements or aligns with your nonprofit's
mission for example let's say your nonprofit is centered around building community gardens
well perhaps there's a local gardening club nearby and all of those people in there are
surely already interested in gardening so you know you have like a perfect target group for
looking for board candidates there they're already passionate about what you're going to do
and perhaps they have some other skill sets you can learn about too and the eighth
and possibly one of the most effective ways you can use to recruit board members is by looking
to your own existing pool of volunteers looking to your own existing volunteers makes a lot of sense
because these are people who've already proven themselves to be passionate about your mission
you could start by simply sending an email to your volunteer base letting them know that
you're seeking board applicant applicants and letting them know what kinds of skill
sets you're looking for and who knows one of them might surprise you and let them let you know that
they have those skills you can even formalize this process a little bit more and create a pipeline of
potential future board members by doing something like creating an advisory board an advisory board
is a group of volunteers who are there to advise your non-profit and provide additional support
outside of the board of directors but what it can do is sort of train people and orient people to
the deeper aspects of your organization's inner workings so that when you have
a board opening in the future you'll have a whole pool of candidates that you know are interested
skilled and willing to apply for your next board position okay so for those of you who are just
starting a non-profit i want to hear what did you think of these eight resources eight ways that you
could recruit board members did this get your wheels turning what are some of the challenges
that you're facing recruiting board members and for those of you who've been at this a while what
are some of the mechanisms that i didn't list here what are some of the creative ways that you've
found and recruited board members i'd love to hear as always leave in the comments below um you know
the folks who are newer will get your amazing wisdom and i like to hear what you are thinking
too of course always as i mentioned before if you are starting a non-profit or trying to figure out
how you're going to bring in money sustainably for a non-profit i got some trainings on my website
FounderToFullTime.com check those out i also have a newsletter I send out about
monthly with resources articles sometimes funding opportunities i will leave the link
to opt-in to that if you are interested below as well and finally i have a group on Facebook called
Change the World or Bust - we have a couple thousand folks in there all interested making
an impact from around the world i invite you to come check that out and join us and have some
great conversation with us there so i hope to see you thank you so much again for watching.
Once again I'm Amber Melanie Smith and i can't wait to see you next time bye!