by Valyrie Laedlein
Have I got a job for you?
Role:To lead a group of under-available, over-committed volunteers responsible
for establishing, monitoring, and evaluating success in achieving an ambitious mission; assuring availability of sufficient resources; and guaranteeing accountability for the proper use of those resources.
Responsibilities: Manage a group of volunteers whom you need to guide and inspire, organize and remind, who have limited time, are often unpredictable, and who often lack training for their job. Hire, oversee and evaluate a paid employee in a relationship that is governed more by influence than supervision, who knows far more about the job than you, and who will struggle to find time to interact with you.
Work schedule: As much time as you can afford to give.
Compensation: None, but you will be asked to contribute financially.
Skills/qualities sought: Vision; inspiration; strong management skills; passion for the issue; strategic thinking; strong group facilitation skills, diplomacy; networks of talent and resources you’re willing to share; emotional intelligence. Endless availability preferred.
Have I enticed you?
Serving as Board Chair requires a high degree of confidence and courage – to jump into a complex and challenging role that, for most, has to be figured out “on the job,” implemented within a limited availability of hours, and is of enormous importance. For those of you brave enough to take it on, KUDOS to you, and thank you!
CRE just completed its first Leadership Caucus for Board Chairs, a multi-session program that combines topical training, peer learning, and leadership development in a program intended to strengthen Board performance by equipping Board Chairs with the know-how, tools and confidence to lead.
A group of 16 enthusiastic and committed Board Chairs participated. As is common in CRE’s “resource exchange” approach, CRE’s facilitators learned as much from the participants as they did from us. Key take-aways and confirmations for CRE:
• Board Chairs struggle in isolation to figure out their role and how to fulfill it. Caucus participants valued the opportunity to exchange ideas and techniques with one another most of all. Sharing of techniques that had and hadn’t worked was enormously valuable.
• Introducing the big-picture – generative and strategic thinking – has the biggest payoff in terms of making change within Boards. Board meetings are too often consumed by financial reports and work details that can suck the life out of passion and commitment. Educating Board members sufficiently to understand the mission, program & environment, and structuring Board meetings to provide time to discuss big-picture issues, shifts the paradigm for Board members AND the executive staff, and places business management into much needed context.
• The Board-Executive relationship and the communications to support it are critical. While this is not news to CRE, Caucus participants achieved break-throughs when they became more intentional about making time to interact regularly and comfortably with their Executive Directors in order to think and plan together for how to leverage the Board’s talents and resources.
• Boards “get” the importance of their fundraising; they often struggle to figure out how to do it effectively. Especially in this environment, the Chairs were painfully aware of the financial implications of the economic downturn and recognized the importance of making a full-court press to generate revenues. That intention, however, does not always translate to knowing how to do so. To the extent that Boards and Executives began to think together about resource development and learned new approaches to involving and equipping Board members in fundraising, Boards became more willing to step up to the plate and more successful at it.
If you’re a Board Chair – or you know a Board Chair – who might benefit from CRE’s Board Leadership Caucus, contact us at: mrodriguez@crenyc.org. We’ll be forming new Caucuses in the coming months, and it may be just the kick-start your Board has been waiting for.
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