The Leadership Promise of Junior Boards: Part II of II

In Part I of our article we gave you some tools to assess your involvement on a junior board. If you’ve made the decision to serve, here are some best practices to help you make the most of your experience:

• Remember who you are serving. The junior board exists to complement and support a nonprofit organization that is addressing some issue or injustice. Keep in mind that you are part of a bigger effort to help society in some way.  This is an honor!

As such, the junior board should find ways to align its programming with the organization’s programs and services.  If a junior board is interested in working with young people and the sponsoring organization has a youth program, it would make sense for junior board members to serve as mentors, teach seminars, or host one-time events such as back-to-school drives.  Also, the junior board’s communications and marketing messages should be consistent with the marketing and public relations of the larger entity.

• Avoid activities that would reflect poorly on the nonprofit organization.  Although the junior board might be distinctly separate from the full board of the organization, it is fully accountable for representing the nonprofit with integrity and respect.  The junior board draws upon the brand equity and public image of the sponsoring organization.  Care should be taken to eliminate the possibility of damaging the organization’s reputation and relationships in the community.    

• Maintain a high quality relationship with the organization.  A junior board can find itself in a challenging situation when it fails to communicate its activities to the sponsoring organization.  If there is no staff liaison, consider regular email communication with the executive director or board chair or both.  We also suggest formal reporting of current and future activities each quarter.

  Communication is especially critical around fundraising activities. Enthusiastic and well-intentioned junior board members can actually hurt an organization by not coordinating with the development department.  For example, a $5,000 request to a bank to sponsor a junior board gala may hinder an organization’s effort to secure a $100,000 community development grant from the same bank if the bank has a policy of not granting more than one gift to an organization each year.

• Connect with the organization’s board of directors.  A close, working relationship with the full board will help you learn the intricacies of governance and leadership, and it can facilitate the possibility of serving the organization in other capacities, including becoming a member of the full board.  Nearly all nonprofit boards have standing committees with seats for non-board members. This allows an organization to take advantage of particular skills or add more human power to their work.  Nicole Sebastian, Manager, Governance, at the Robin Hood Foundation suggests that, “being engaged in a standing committee serves as a great way to cultivate future board members and to determine if the individual is a good fit intellectually and culturally with the board.” See FLiP's Meet-A-FLiP on Nicole Sebastian  here

• Establish partnerships with similar organizations.  Working in conjunction with other young professionals or junior boards can help leverage resources and improve the effectiveness of both groups.  The terms of the partnership should be documented in writing and assessed regularly to determine if the parties are satisfied with the relationship or if changes need to be made to improve performance or terminate the partnership.

  In 2006, the Urban Network, a coalition of the ten largest and most-respected African-American professional organizations in the New York tri-state area, hosted the fifth annual No Limits Career Day. No Limits 2006 introduced nearly 300 students to the importance of higher education and the diversity of career opportunities in a one-day event filled with workshops, information sessions and interactive games.  The event is produced by a steering committee of volunteers who represent the groups in the Urban Network, including junior board members.  William Rolack, President of the NYC Chapter of the National Association of African Americans in Human Resources noted that the partnership works because “by working together we are able to achieve a common objective for all of our organizations—giving back!  We want to encourage the young people, ages 14-18, to work harder and provide them with a realistic vision for how to excel into higher education and then pursue gainful employment or entrepreneurship ideas, whichever they decide.”

Most importantly, have fun! Junior boards have an important role to play for nonprofit organizations, but it is equally important that you enjoy your free time in a meaningful way.

Resources

United Way of New York City offers the Linkage Program through the Nonprofit Leadership Development Institute.  The Linkage Program is a 14-hour training course which provides individuals interested in serving on boards with an understanding of governance roles and responsibilities including legal and fiduciary oversight and how to identify organizations that interest them within the United Way focus areas. As a graduate, participants are introduced to organizations that are recruiting new directors and are eligible to participate in the alumni network for ongoing development and networking. The United Way reported, that since 1985, approximately 1,100 candidates have been through Management Assistance Program's Linkages board training program, resulting in hundreds of board members successfully placed in dozens of neighborhood agencies throughout the city. (United Way of New York Press Release, New Study Says Nearly Half the Leaders of NYC’s Nonprofit Agencies to Retire in Five Years, October 23, 2003).

Boardnet USA is an online connection resource dedicated to matching nonprofit organizations with new board leadership.  The parent company, Volunteer Consulting Group, envisions the site serving as a vehicle to strengthen the management capacity of nonprofit boards.  Organizations and individuals can register free online and use the service to locate governance opportunities in their community.

Interviewers/Contributors
– Brooke Mahoney, President/ED – not interviewed
– Nicole Sebastian, Manager-Governance, Robin Hood Foundation
– Michael Davidson, Consultant to United Way of New York City’s Linkage Program
– Emily Rukin, junior board member, Bowery Residents Committee and City Harvest
– Tracy L. Welsh, Esq., Executive Director, HIV Law Project
– William Rolack, President, National Association of African Americans in Human Resources – New York