This Week:
Build Your Best Better Board
Gene Takagi returns! He’s got strategies to help you build the diverse, effective, thoughtful, appropriately-sized, well-trained board you deserve. He’s our legal contributor and managing attorney of NEO, the Nonprofit and Exempt Organizations law group.
There’s more at tonymartignetti.com
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This week:DEI & Governance
Diversity, equity and inclusion run deeper than having folks of color on your board. Are you managing treatment, access and opportunity for non-white males? Gene Takagi and I talk through the issues, goals and methods. He’s our legal contributor and principal at NEO, the Nonprofit & Exempt Organizations law group.
There’s more at tonymartignetti.com
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Tony’s guests this week:
Allison Chernow is director of external affairs at Bronx Museum
Terry Billie is director of corporate and foundation relations at Goodwill Industries of NY & NJ
Holly Bellows is chief development officer for Helen Keller National Center
Gene Takagi, principal of the Nonprofit & Exempt Organizations Law Group
Read and watch more on Tony’s blog: http://tonymartignetti.com
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Hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio, where we’re talking about big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. I’m your aptly named host. Oh, i hope you were with me last week. You would cause me to go into cardiogenic shock if i learned that you had missed fermentation sandorkraut cats is a fermenter. We talked about the history, benefits and methods of fermenting foods and volunteermatch making scott koegler, our technology contributor and the editor of non-profit technology news, shared ideas about tech that matches willing volunteers with seeking charities this week, all aboard. First, get the best out of your board our panel shares wisdom on identifying, recruiting, training, engaging and transitioning board members. I talked to allison char now, terry, billy and holly bellows at fund-raising day in june and back to board basics, do you, jane takagi are legal contributor returns to contribute to continue our discussion on soundboard practices? This time, we’ll talk about term limits, how often you’re bored should meet having automatic removal provisions and very young trustees that’s young in age, not in how they’re acting, and jean is principal of the non-profit exempt organizations law group between the guests on tony’s take to my beth cantor interview is on video, and i feel i let you down last week, and i’m going to explain that right now. We have the interview from fund-raising day this past june, where we’re talking about getting the best out of your board, and here is that welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of fund-raising day two thousand thirteen where at the marriott marquis hotel in times square, midtown new york city and we’re talking now about board relations. My guests are it’s needed most closest closest to meet holly bellows, chief development officer of helen keller’s services for the blind. Next to her is terry billy, director of corporate and foundation relations for goodwill industries of new york and new jersey. And we also have allison for now director of external affairs for the bronx museum of the arts ladies welcome. Thank you. Thank you. It’s. A pleasure to have you. Your seminar topic is bored. Relations getting the best out of your trustees. No, let’s start far away. Allison, can we start with recruitment? What? What? What’s? Some advice around identifying and recruiting the right boardmember well for museum. We have a lot of opportunities for cultivation of perspective, trustees. We looked to people who come to many of our events. We sort of noticed repeat attendees way start plucking them out. We invite them to special private events. We find that people are very attracted to sort of exclusive private events, not generally open to the public. So we invite them to dinners or preview openings of exhibitions and that’s how we generate interests, and we see if they respond to that we just keep cultivating more and generally that’s, that’s way, tio sort of notice and pounce on perspective prospects. We also use other trustees to help us, and they bring along people whom they think would be a fit for the museum to two events as well. Okay, i mean, i sort of go down the line on different topics. Teri, you have anything you’d like to add about identifying the right people? Well, we’re different kind of agency were a social service ages. We don’t really have events or exhibitions or things like that that people would come to so instead we have to really go the traditional route, which is working with our trustees to see if they have friends or colleagues or others that might come be interested in working with our organization or we go toe on organizations such as bored source to do recruitment. Two or two funders, corporations, foundations that might be interested in supporting us in a different way through ford relations. Okay, so you’re relying more on your board because you don’t have those cultivation events. By the way, terry, i want to welcome you back to the show. Thank you. Chatted with you this time last year. How about you, holly? Like they have that goodwill industries is doing well differently. Well, we’re also human service organization. We serve the blind, and those were deaf blind. And so we have the same process as terry. We look for people who are already within the organization. People that know people that want to be committed for the long along home. Okay? And i apologize. I confused you with i’m sorry, terry. I’m here with goodwill industries and holly. Of course, you’re with falik falik color this’s blind. Thank you very much. Coach me on each individual word. Now i have it. Holly’s with helen keller services for the blind. Thank you, but no, thank you. Thank you for saving me. Okay, after we’ve way haven’t identified the right people way have to start. Teo, make conversation a lot more serious. Terry, how do we how do we go about that? Well, we work with a development committee. In fact, i had my development kitty meet committee meeting last night, which we met with five of our board members. And we talked about the different things that were doing to raise money. And we talked about developed direct mail cultivation events and funding alerts for possible corporate foundation connections, finding out what they’d like to do, how they like to help. And so that’s that’s, how we work with our board, we have a lot of other board members that in war policy driven, so they’re not so much into fund-raising so we have to use them as ambassadors they’re not so comfortable in. They get scared about fund-raising and what the expectations will be have to have to come out in the recruitment process. Right? Right. Would you say holly? This is critical. We need to be up front. How do you how do you do that? Helen keller. Well, right now i weigh had a board meeting on monday morning and a golf tournament afterwards. And so i i spoke with the board that i will be interviewing them over the next couple of months. Existing existing board, the existing board. Okay, and on that will be part of the question is, we also had a former board members come to the golf tournament to reinforce the other ties to the organization, and i will be interviewing them, too. And so is part of that process reaching out to not only what they’re interested interests are going forward, but, you know, looking for prospects and, you know, foundations as well as their personal connections for future board development. Imagine it’s it’s it’s important not to be trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. Different board members have different interests. Aptitudes abilities, right? They can all come to the board for different reasons. Maybe they had someone in their family that is blind or deaf blind. Or maybe it just seems like a really cool thing to do. They learned about helen keller in third grade here in new york state. And they want teo you. Know, be a part of it. So various everyone has various reasons why they want to be on the board, and we want to exploit those personalities and and credentials, right? That’s, right? Some people they may not be able to get give from their personal wealth or their corporate wealth, but they are connected to lots of people who may be able to give to us or a foundation. I interviewed someone earlier today who uses is actually sort of ah, trainer on linked in hey uses, linked in board, connect on trains, organizations to use linked in board, connect to any of you use that for identifying potential board members. Anybody? Yes, that’s one of the things that we are planning to grow our board in the coming fiscal year fiscal starts in july, so we will be using board, connect as one of the tools and dish in tow board source to reach out and look for a new board members. So you haven’t used board connect yet? No. Yeah. Okay. Okay. I do plan to use it, though, so you’re so holy. You’re aware. Also aboard. Connect. I’m aware of it, but i haven’t used it. I’m creating a separate committee. A cz i told you before the interview. I’m hyre helmsley. We have a grant from the helmsley found charitable foundation and one of their charges tow us is to create a aboard for one of our programs so that we can attract funders and people who are interested in serving the deaf blind. And so i’m going to be using it soon to look for people across the country that might want to become members of this committee. Alison to make this aa two way street. How does the organization identify what it has to offer board members in return for their for their service? Right? Well, when we interview a prospect way really try and find out what? What is it that draws them to the museum? What is their interest? And for us, we have, ah, large education component. We have the whole art collection component, so they’re different reasons why a trustee would join the board of the museum. So we try and suss out what that will be. And i find a commonality is that they want to learn more. They often want to learn more about art. So for those who do, we put them on the acquisitions committee, and that way they can meet artists, and they can learn all that are they come to gallery tours. We sort of feel what? What is it that attracts them? So for others, it’s education, and they want to be part of the whole education programs. So they join the education committee for the board waken segment, their interests, and sometimes they don’t even overlap with board members. But we can sort of put them where they’re most enthusiastic. Okay, talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. Do you need a business plan that can guide your company’s growth? Seven and seven will help bring the changes you need. Wear small business consultants and we pay attention to the details. You may miss our culture and consultant services are guaranteed to lead toe. Right, groat. For your business, call us at nine. One seven eight three, three, four, eight, six zero foreign, no obligation. Free consultation checkout on the website of ww dot covenant seven dot com are you fed up with talking points? Rhetoric everywhere you turn left or right? Spin ideology no reality, in fact, its ideology over in tow. No more it’s time for action. Join me. Larry shot a neo-sage tuesday nights nine to eleven easter for isaac tower radio in the ivory tower will discuss what’s important to you society, politics, business and family. It’s provocative talk for the realist and the skeptic who wants a go what’s really going on? What does it mean? What can be done about it? So gain special access to the ivory tower. Listen to me. Very sharp. Your neo-sage tuesday nights nine to eleven new york time go to ivory tower radio dot com for details. That’s. Ivory tower radio, dot com e every time i was a great place to visit for both entertainment and education. Listening. Tuesday nights nine to eleven. It will make you smarter. Hey, all you crazy listeners looking to boost your business? Why not advertise on talking alternative with very reasonable rates? Interested simply email at info at talking alternative dot com and just while we’re still on this recruitment process, terry, how i said, terri and i looked at allison mary-jo terry, how do you explain the organization’s expectations? Is it in writing, or is it just a conversation? Thie expectations around all all the functions of a boardmember it’s through conversations way actually, in the past, our board has not really been a fund-raising board, and so we’re in the process of kind of transforming and educating our board as to their financial responsibility, even though that’s something that most people understand that that is one of the reasons why you become aboard is to support the organization, unfortunately, we have boardmember is that have not made a gif right? And so we need to have the conversation with them and to say that we need one hundred percent support, it doesn’t mean that you need to give us one hundred thousand dollars. You can give us five thousand dollars, you could give us three thousand dollars, you need to give us something so that’s one of our challenges with our organization, with a board that we are working through, even though we’re jumping way ahead in the boardmember life. Cycle that could be an indicator that it’s time for a boardmember step down exactly. In fact, we just started a new campaign to attract the millennials, the young twenties and thirty somethings to start, eh? Maybe a young, not so much a board, but a council we’re going to call the good the good counsel, and they’re going to be younger people that we want to get involved and engaged and so that they could eventually turn into board members. So we’re starting with the youth, starting with they’re all about cause marketing and the finding ways to make a difference by their volunteering, so we’re going to be working with them to do that, and then eventually, you know, have them start their own, like little special events and cultivation and awareness and marketing, and then eventually waken see floats to the top and hopefully get him on board. Okay, back-up another step, let’s say we’ve recruited the boardmember we need to keep that person active, engaged who wants to talk about keeping a boardmember active and engaged way have we’re fortunate that we have a vehicle for doing that, we can invite them to openings and too many events, but it’s really also about having them see the inner workings, lights, lights just dimmed here. Nothing wrong for those of you watching the video on youtube, there’s nothing wrong with your vision. The overhead lights all just went out here. Marriott marquis. But we’re continuing. We have our own lights powered battery so doesn’t doesn’t interrupt back on. Okay, no, don’t adjust your sets. Everything is fine. Okay? I’m sorry. Go ahead. So for example, that the trustees who are interested in education way let them come and see the classrooms that come to the museum to see the work in progress and to see the work that we do so it’s very important that they come in and see all the grassroots work that’s that’s happening. And the other thing is that we just try to make them feel special. I mean, we try to write letters that are personalized for them that nobody else could get, so that they would feel that, you know, they in fact do make a difference there. So, you know the gratitude combined with hands on and really seeing what what’s going on works to really keep them interested. Invested? In it good, great, it isn’t. One of the things that i have begun doing is whenever we get a grant or a large donation, even a small donation, but we are an organization that’s been around for one hundred twenty years or more, and so we have lots of get small gifts that we get and half for a long time, but i ask different board members to call the foundation or call the person and just a thank you they don’t ask for anything, but to in that way, they’re learning more about that organization, and they’re feeling connected and that’s been a real positive response that i’m getting. So as i said, we’ve been around for a long time, we have many donorsearch couldn’t call everyone they are picking up more and more that they can do. So. Holly, how about training training the new boardmember what does that look like for for helen keller way haven’t i haven’t started training yet since i’ve been since october, but what that will look like is for is creating a talking points and some role playing for those that haven’t gone out and ask for money, paring them with someone who has done it and feels comfortable with it, having conversations about their experience on other boards. It’s, interesting custom, many of our boardmember serve on other boards on, sometimes they’ve gone out and made asking some have not so it’s going to be a combination of things here teach person’s comfort level. At the very least, i tell boardmember sze in in the past that invite the person to join you, make your donation in first and then in fight uh, your prospect to join them if you just can’t really say, can you give x amount of dollars so that’s a nice, non threatening way to get started and asking for money. Allison, how about training the new boardmember bronx museum of the arts? What does that look like? Well, we have a retreat on annually and in terms of role playing, there was a facilitator who came and your role played about making an ask and talking about the priorities for the museum, so it was really a time it was a very concentrated long day dahna meeting the other board members really learning about the mission and learning how to move it forward howto ask. And how to do that. Nut’s involves metoo holly, it sounded almost like you have ah, maybe a mentor mentee relationship for board members is that? Is that is that overstating? No, it didn’t help that a senior boardmember mike, you that’s correct, my position is newly created position, and part of that is to help our board became come more of a fund-raising board many of our programs our government funded, so there wasn’t a need in the past to be a fund-raising board and many organizations like helen keller, are transitioning from having helly government funded programs to where they’re going to have to go out for private gifts, and they’ll get bored members more senior boardmember help with that, terry. Anyway, you want to add about training the new boardmember right that’s, exactly the same situation that good will in addition to having individual individuals support, we have also had in the past a lot of government funding, so asking board members to help with raising money is a somewhat new angle for them. So what we’ve been doing is bringing on a different new board members, for example, way just havin a new boardmember from j p morgan chase, who has been on other boards and has done fund-raising so he is kind of going to be a example or role model to the other board members to show show them how easy and painless it is, but we do have to identify tasks board members who just can’t do fund-raising or maybe maybe won’t? Well, maybe won’t takes little training, but they’re just they’re timid. They’re terrified of it. Terry, what do we identify other things that that boardmember could do around fund-raising right, right. Other than asking right it’s it’s getting them to come to different events or different cultivation events, too, talk, be an ambassador, so they’re not asking for money. They’re building awareness, they’re talking to their friends about what they do about what goodwill does and sharing the passion about what the organization’s all about and really building awareness, not so much asking for money. If they’re afraid of asking for money, they could be a representative and record. For those who are afraid, teo, ask or it’s just uncomfortable for them. We often say what we need you to do is identify potential trustees, advocate cultivate b passionate and then we come in that’s our job and the and the executive director’s stopped to come in and do the ask, so it takes the awkwardness and the onus away from them, and they feel that they can just freely invite a guest without the worry of having to do the actual ask, okay, how about may be hosting an event? They could perhaps open their home? Holly other tasks that again trying to identify things that people who will solicit can still be involved in around fund-raising well, i have someone on our board who is an attorney, and that person uses their personal skills to review documents that are very important to fund-raising such as st charitable registrations for things like that that are very important documents that keep my department moving and keep us legal and transparent, but that’s not at, you know, going out, asking for money, but it is very important to the movement of the organization. So, yes, there are other task that besides fund-raising the other part of my practice, besides plan e-giving is the charity registration i wrote. I wrote a new book on how to do-it-yourself you and i do the registrations for charities i don’t want to do. Them so very well acquainted with that enormous morass called charity registration. Terry, we’re gonna have something. Yeah, just the same thing is asking people to host a breakfast, maybe at the club, maybe at a restaurant they go to or at there. If they have a nice house or an apartment to host something again to invite their friends or people that we want to get more engaged, all they need to do is be the be the host they don’t need to ask. Okay? And we do that also especially we play in the bronx nostalgia. So we have people hosting private problem bronze talk to sow bronx artists from storytellers. We really emphasize the bronx and have these very small, intimate events at people’s homes, and those people who host often become interested because they posted they become vested. And then the whole positive spiral happens where they want to get more involved. It’s great. How about the i don’t know the recalcitrant boardmember who just either can’t do it? I won’t do it. Or that you could. But it’s just not too. Is that person need to be transitioned off the board? How do we how? Do we finesse that situation or they’re recalcitrant? Maybe about or maybe there their attendance is very poor. Maybe they are. Maybe they’re great fundraisers, but their attendance is back. You start to see these signs, how do we want to take the first shot that way? Especially the previous job i had at a small museum. It’s, very hard because in a small shop you get to develop relationships with your trustees and you realized, especially in the economic downturn in the past years, that life happens that trustees have goes divorces, they go through bad business times, and that may account for they’re not coming there, not being able to give. And i think in a small place where you built intimacy it’s really important to have some flexibility to give them, for example, if you know there’s a personal situation to give them a year or so, it is sorted out and have a little bit of leeway. On the other hand, you know, once you do that and it continues, i think then that’s, when the board president needs to talk to the boardmember find out what’s going on and have a really frank discussion about whether it’s working for both people often they’re relieved to be let off the hook. Okay, mary-jo you’re tense, that’s totally familiar with me. I mean, we in my past organisations and in this one you have sometimes people that you just know that they’re heading out because they haven’t shown up wave a big gold wheel or a rappel wheel in the four in the booth next to us. That’s what you’re hearing it’s not we’re not giving any other way, but with next to us is giving away t shirts, caps, mugs or ipad mini being in the drawing for a night. So that’s that’s what you’re hearing going so, you know, we just recently had one of our board members say that she needed to step down because life changes and different areas of interest abila different, different levels of interest in what we’re doing, we’re already priorities changed, and she said she would continue to support the organization, but she needed, you know, she just couldn’t make it to meetings, and we knew that because she hadn’t been to meetings in like, a whole year that starts to hurt ford morale generally, i mean other board. Members who are making the time fine, making time making effort start to get resentful everything right? Holly? Yes. Okay, anything you want to add more about thie transitioning off boardmember i just sort of playing what you’re doing in terms of building up a younger constituency in my past job and now in the bronx museum, trying to build a board a parallel board. It’s called the leadership council, which conserve as a farm team for future board members and also as a retirement place for trustees. Who can’t you know, the financial onus is too great as trusting, but there’s a lesser amount expected as from a leadership council member. So it’s nice to have a transition. You’re keeping them in the fold, keeping them interested. But they don’t have all the responsibilities and duties of a trusting. Do we each have term limits for boardmember ship? No, none of you have term limits. Really that’s interesting. And that’s, you know, that’s. A very double edged thing. Because in my former job we had founder syndrome. You know trustees who had been there a long time. Really? Basically. So i ran the board de facto it’s very tough. And it really made me understand why term limits would be good. On the other hand, when you have donors who give these were our biggest donors, it’s very tough to give up financial support that they provide so that’s one motivating reasons to have this other board where they could go as well. Anybody thinking about adding board limits, we would like normal social. Yeah, we would like to add term limits, that’s something that we need to have a discussion with the board president and make some changes so that we’re hoping that we can implement that, then they’re coming here, ok, way happening had that discussion on at this point way have long serving board members who and she said, contribute and are active, and i don’t want to say goodbye to them because they’re valuable to the organization and we love them. So ish, as she said it, zo double in. Okay, we have about a minute left or so anybody want one talk about anything that i didn’t ask you about, that you’re it’s on your mind because you’re doing your seven or in a couple of hours about the board relationship hyre final final final thoughts? No, nobody. Okay, well, we’ll leave it there. All right, thank you. Oh, my god. Thank you. Thank you all very much. Thank you. Say that. Remind listeners and viewers that holly bellows is chief development officer of helen keller services for the blind. And terry billy is director of corporate and foundation relations for goodwill industries of new york and new jersey. On up, of course. Alison looking for your name here? Alison? Sure. Now sorry. Director of external affairs in the bronx. Regime of the arts, ladies. Thank you very much. Thank you for sharing your experiences. Thank you for being with me. Tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of fund-raising day two thousand thirteen i love that roulette wheel in the in the background they were giving away the big prize was an ipad mini so i heard that in a bunch of interviews always nice to have a little little pleasant background music for an interview. And my thanks, of course. Also to the organizer’s at fund-raising day i’ve got some live listener love moscow in the russian federation and in china, taiwan, guangzhou, wuhan and beijing. Ni hao i’ve been to beijing and of into wuhan, also, and seoul in south korea, on yo haserot in japan, hiroshima, metallica and tokyo. Lovett konnichi wa there’s. Plenty of domestic live listeners will get to them in a couple of minutes. Right now, we go to a break when we come back, tony’s, take two, and then gene takagi, continuing our are all aboard day with back to board basics, do keep listening. They didn’t didn’t dick, dick tooting, getting dink, dink, dink, dink, you’re listening to the talking alternate network e-giving. Dahna good. Are you suffering from aches and pains? Has traditional medicine let you down? Are you tired of taking toxic medications, then come to the double diamond wellness center and learn how our natural methods can help you to hell? Call us now at to one to seven to one eight, one eight three that’s to one to seven to one eight one eight three or find us on the web at www dot double diamond wellness dot com way. Look forward to serving you. Hi, i’m ostomel role, and i’m sloan wainwright, where the host of the new thursday morning show the music power hour. Eleven a m. We’re gonna have fun. Shine the light on all aspects of music and its limitless healing possibilities. We’re gonna invite artists to share their songs and play live will be listening and talking about great music from yesterday to today, so you’re invited to share in our musical conversation. Your ears will be delighted with the sound of music and our voices. Join austin and sloan live thursdays at eleven a. M on talking alternative dot com. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Schnoll if you have big ideas but an average budget, tune into tony martignetti non-profit radio for ideas you can use. I do. I’m dr. Robert penna, author of the non-profit outcomes toolbox. And i’m dr tony martignetti and it is time for dr tony martignetti is take two. I just appointed myself phd since last week. They’re pretty easy to come by, so i figured, why go through the that the trouble? I’ll just name myself one my interview with beth cantor, which was on this show a couple of weeks ago. The video is now on my blogged you may recall, she is the author of the network to non-profit and measuring the network to non-profit we talked about riel online engagement and had a measure your success in your online efforts. That video is on my blogged at tony martignetti dot com, and i think i let you down. Last week i tried a new segment called out of the blue, and my intention was to bring things bring in people who have you are supporting non-profits but are doing work that’s not directly related to non-profits on dh sandora cats was the fermenter who are brought in, and he was terrific. He was delightful, but a zay was listening to him, and then i replayed it during the week, you know, i was kind of struck with why what? Is it why we listening? What does this have to do with non-profits it’s just not close enough to non-profits he supports non-profits um, but we didn’t talk much about that and that’s not really. Why you listen, is tto find out why people support non-profits i mean, at least not from one person’s perspective. S o we’re not goingto i’m not going to continue that out of the blue i what my intention was was to try to recognize that people who work in non-profits have lots of interests that have nothing to do with non-profits i read all the profiles of new twitter followers, and a lot of people comment on food that their food either to cook, ah, a lot of people coming on their kids, wine is a pretty popular one, different sports, so, you know, so that got me thinking people are multidemensional and maybe we should bring in some other dimensions besides non-profits and i thought a fermenter was a great place to start, but you have plenty of other podcasts, tens or hundreds of thousands of other podcast that you can go to to satisfy all those multidemensional interests that you have and i don’t think it’s right for me to try toe satisfy all those we have our niche here non-profits and picking the brains of experts to help people in non-profits that’s my mission here on this podcast, there’s plenty of other outlets for youto satisfy all those other interests that you have, so i think i let you down. We’re not going to continue out of the blue. We’re going tow. Focus more on on the core and that is tony’s take two for friday the today’s the ninth of august, the thirty second show of the year. I’m very happy to bring back jane takagi he’s, the principal of neo the non-profit and exempt organizations law group in san francisco he edits the very popular non-profit law blogged dot com and on twitter he is at gi tak gt a k welcome back, jean takagi. Hi, tony it’s. Great to be back. Thank you. I can tell you’re smiling i couldjust always telling you i could tell when you’re smiling. It’s ah it’s. Wonderful to have your energy even from san francisco. I feel it great. I’m conveying that over the phone. You absolutely are. Yes, we started this. Conversation back to board basics two weeks ago, july twenty six so you can go back and listen to that if you missed it, jean and i are going to pick up where we left off, and that was with term limits. Question of whether there should even be term limits. What’s your what’s what’s the advice around that gene. Well, first piece advice tony’s to check with your state laws because individual state laws may vary. My understanding is that under in most states, that there are no term limits, meaning that a boardmember could get reelected onto the board over and over and over again, without any restriction of the law, unless the organization’s by-laws say otherwise. So then it depends upon the individual board thinking about, well, what are the good things about keeping board members on potentially forever? Versace? What is the good thing about limiting how long any boardmember serves so we can get new people onto the board? Increased our diversity on pursue other things and other perspective. So that’s kind of the starting point, but i’m wondering, tony. What? What do you feel about board term limits if you’re serving on the board? I’m i’m pretty pro term limits. Um, in fact, i was just on a phone call this morning with someone who works at the gnu heimans center she’s an instructor there, and i mentioned that you and i are going to talk about this very subject and she said has to be bored limits has to be, yeah, i like them, i think that they they boardmember could be extended if it’s a two year term or three term, you can always extend in addition on additional term tua boardmember but after four or six or maybe even eight years, nine years, i think boardmember tze get a little stale and i’d like a fresh perspective and i think there’s other things that boardmember khun do we don’t kill them just because they leave the board, they don’t die there’s other things there’s other ways they can help that’s such a great point, tiny, and i agree with you a hundred percent, i’m there are exceptions, but i’m very much generally in the pro term limit kapin with without term limits, i think you can encourage very insular boards that get stale as you said, they could become rubber stamp. Boards just going with the flow, you may not be able to attract additional skills and perspectives of the same people are staying on the board, and you’re not bringing new people in boardmember khun get very entitled about their positions and start toe slack off a little bit, and it becomes very difficult to remove long term board members politically speaking into from a sense of relationships and when you have term limits, it really encourages bringing in those new perspectives and thoughts and skills. But the best thing you know is to make sure that when you bring in new people that you’re really engaging them and not just bringing them as tokens so that that becomes very important too. But i like your ideas of, you know, just reelecting, you know, the board members who are performing really well don’t re elect the board members that are performing poorly or unable to attend the majority of the meeting and see exactly how many terms you feel would be sufficient before you could bring in new people. The previous segment was all about keeping boardmember sze engaged from the beginning getting, you know, identifying what their passions are. So these these two segments are discussion, and the the pre recorded panel discussion are fitting together very well. Now i asked each of those three panelists if any of them had board term limits on in in their non-profits and none of them did, and one of them express the concern that their board members are major donors and they don’t want to, you know, the way she said it, they don’t want to say goodbye to them, but i do think there a said there are other things that board members khun do maybe there’s, an advisory board or something that’s, not a fiduciary capacity, legal, legal, legal duty capacity, but still meaningful and not frivolous. Yeah, i think is individuals tonny it’s natural that we like to get our egos stroked a little in there for a major donor to a non-profit to be asked to leave the board can be, uh, a difficult thing for both parties, but i agree again one hundred percent with you let’s find other rules for them. And advice report doesn’t seem to sound prestigious, but maybe emeritus board oh, it’s latin oh, that’s latin brings immediate prestige. Yeah, obviously. Okay. You know, we can we can play around with the titles of the committees and even the titles of the individual board members or former board members if we really value their contribution, we continued to engage them but have been take a term off the board and maybe if we’re not if the board is struggling to recruit and can’t find somebody, teo, take the place of the departing boardmember after term off, maybe that person can come back on again. So that may depend upon each organization but that’s, the that’s, the putin model of boardmember ship you depart and then you come on. All right, all right, well, if we’re going to implement terms, then we should talk about how long those terms should be. What, um, is there is probably not state law guidance on that kind of that. That kind of detail is there. There actually is. So there is among state laws. So some state laws, like in california, we say if you have voting members, the maximum length of a term is four years. If you don’t have voting members who elect the board, the maximum term length is six years and that’s that’s just for one one term, but doesn’t wait. I’m confused by that doesn’t every boardmember have a vote aren’t all board’s voting boards? Well, so in terms of voting members like in the auto club or a homeowner’s association where members who are not board members elect the board members? Oh, i see ok, yeah, so a lot of operations a lot, but many organizations have voting membership structures, which are much, much more administrative, burdensome and difficult to maintain, so i typically don’t recommend that for smaller public charity type organizations, but for other organizations that do have voting members, they’re subject to different, or they may be subject to different term length rules under state laws. So be careful of that there’s also a special on california that i think maybe in other states as well. That says ifyou’re by-laws and articles don’t define what a term length is it’s automatically set that one year, so many organizations get tripped up on that. They didn’t contemplate that in their by-laws and they let boardmember stay on until the board members feel like, you know they want to resign, and you’ve got to make sure that the elections are going on on a regular basis, just sort of on the side, the by-laws air are so important because our don’t state laws have lots of defaults for by-laws being silent on different issues, absolutely. Tony, you’re one hundred percent right? So if if you’re by-laws don’t contemplate something than the default will be, whatever the state could end up with a lot of things you didn’t even know you had, right? And now imagine if you’ve got a board that didn’t do proper elections and you’ve got one boardmember who voted the opposite way from everybody else and then says, well, it doesn’t matter that it was ten against one, this sport isn’t properly compose. I challenge the validity of that action that that one thing can trip up the whole board until they solve that issue. Okay, okay, so we just have, like, a minute and a half or so before a break different term, you know, i guess obviously the shorter the term, the fresher the board is going to be, but you’re going to lose, you know, institutional knowledge. Yeah. And so what is the expectation when you recruit a boardmember if you recruit a new boardmember and you say the term length is one year, they make oh, yeah, easy commitment, but they made me feel very good about serving that one year before they really got you know the organization and develop a director for that organization and then leave after one year feeling fulfilled. Meanwhile, the organization may not be very satisfied with just the one year term. Human three year are probably more common, but some lawyers actually liked the one year term because it allows boards to get rid of or shed. Directors are really not performing very well ever failing to attend meetings, failing to live up to their produce, very duties where it otherwise might be a little bit complicated. Relationship wise toe formally remove. All right, so you can get you could get rid of the trouble quickly on. You could just continue to reappoint them. And i guess if you had one year terms, you probably want they’re to be many possible successive terms allowed. Yeah. You might set your term limits that something like four or five in that case? Yeah. Okay. All right. We’re going to go away for a couple minutes, of course. Jean stays with me and hope that everybody else does, too. And we’ll get some live listener loving as soon as we come back. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Oppcoll oppcoll are you stuck in your business or career trying to take your business to the next level, and it keeps hitting a wall? This is sam liebowitz, the conscious consultant. I will help you get to the root cause of your abundance issues and help move you forward in your life. Call me now and let’s. Create the future you dream of. Two, one, two, seven, two, one, eight, one, eight, three, that’s to one to seven to one, eight one eight three. The conscious consultant helping hunters. People be better business people. Oppcoll have you ever considered consulting a road map when you feel you need help getting to your destination when the normal path seems blocked? A little help can come in handy when choosing an alternate route. Your natal chart is a map of your potentials. It addresses relationships, finance, business, health and, above all, creativity. Current planetary cycles can either support or challenge your objectives. I’m montgomery taylor. If you would like to explore the help of a private astrological reading, please contact me at monte at monty taylor dot. Com let’s monte m o nt y at monty taylor dot com. Talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. Gotta live listener love all over the country mesa, arizona golden, colorado in daytona beach, florida live listener loved to you, newport, north carolina and brooklyn, new york live listener love podcast pleasantries gotta send those out, especially to germany, where there’s a big subset of podcast listeners and if you are a podcast listener and you want some podcast pleasantry sent directly to you, let me know who you are, you know there’s ah there’s, facebook, there’s, twitter, there’s a contact page on my block. Let me know where you’re listening from, and i will send you those podcast pleasantries. Always great for the for the live listeners as well. Jean, what if we had a hybrid? What if we what if we make the first term one year? I kind of like this one term one year term, and i’ve really thought about it until you mentioned and we started talking about this topic. What if you had a first term is one year and then successive terms are two years or maybe three years? Could you do that? Yeah, absolutely. Tony there’s there’s actually a lot of room in the by-laws if you decide if the board decides it wants to spend some time to create the right structures. You could do something like, like, one year for your first term. And if everybody gets along in this thing well, to do the second term of two or three years and that might be sort of communicated to prospective board members with the understanding that the first years kind of that test period. Although everybody has their fiduciary duties to live up to. But they hope that they’ll be continued service after after that term. All right, so it also doing my classes, tony? So we could have different classes of attorneys or different classes of directors? Sorry. Lawyers? Yes, yes, everybody. The whole world is attorneys. Everybody knows that the world revolves around the all of them. And then they’re just two or three people out there who are not lawyers. Yeah. Further embarrassed, not you. You’re welcome. So, yes, we could have different classes of directors out there in some classes of directors. Could have a two year term. Some might have a three year term. Some might be prone to term limits of two term limit. Some might be subjected to classes, but how? You gonna decide how you decide who’s in which class, when i have tears and and the senior the three year member is going to look down on the lonely one year members? How you going to make those distinctions? Yeah, really top i mean, this is these air possibilities that you, khun contemplate the sea if they would fit within your organization, but yeah, creating different respect levels for remembers, but absolutely be wrong. So i understand your caution there about forming classes and maybe classes is not the right word now, but still different to you, even tears. Or, you know, however you however you euthanize it. It’s still g. She got a three year term and i only get a one year term. Why is that? We often do that originally with brand new organizations to get staggered board. So if you have a two year term and you start the initial board members everybody in two years, everybody turns off at the same time. But by staggering it, having some served three years in some serve two years and sometimes that’s done just by lottery. Believe it or not, ok, that won’t can get half the board being elected each year, i guess if it’s random, then then i could see you’d overcome at least the personality or ego concerns. All right, but what? So what are your recommendations around term limits? What is gene takagi like? I generally like to the three year term limits, although i’m not opposed to what you just suggested about having a one year initial terms and then two or three year terms after i do think that it’s important to get that commitment from directors, that it’s not just going to be this one year where we’re expecting you to serve for one year and then you can jump off and serve on another board, i’d like to see a longer term commitment and deeper bond created between the organization and its director. Okay, now, when you’re talking to non-profit clients do do they ask you, what should we do on then? Do you deflect that back to them, or how does that how do you finish that? Yeah, it’s a good question, tony, you know, i can’t get to paternal about it and just tell people what the best practices, so we have to make sure that it fits what their individual facts and circumstances are not if they’re three, you know, founders of the organization that want to be on the board and are going to champion other people, the recruitment of other people, perhaps those three founders, they’re goingto have longer terms uh then then the subsequent boardmember is that get brought on, but it really depends because we don’t want to create that class hyre key system that you suggested before, so we’ll have to take a look at stuff like that. Very careful, okay, it xero only is individual and look, look at gene is not a paternalistic attorney, one of the few you said it, so i’m sure he’s not, um, let’s, let’s look att since we’re talking about being on a board and being removed from aboard, should there be automatic removal if you’re not not performing up to snuff? Well, removal for not performing up to snuff is going to require a board decision and that’s going to be governed by state laws well, and even if state law permit sports to remove poor performing directors, practically speaking it’s, so hard to do, especially if that boardmember is also a donorsearch otherwise, support organization in other ways what we like to see is an automatic removal provisions, but only for failing to attend board meetings. So for example, if there was, you know, the board meeting’s every two months, if you fail to attend three successive board meetings without an excuse that had been approved by the board, even either before or after the fact you are automatically removed without further board action, so the board doesn’t actually have to vote to remove you. You’ve just automatically been removed, and they called me allow that. Okay, of course, then you’d want to go a little further and define does attendance mean live attendance in in person? Or can it be attendance by phone? I think it’s the state laws permit by phone than and the by-laws permitted as well, and most state laws, i would say, would permit it by phone, then you’re fine. I would count that as attendance, but if you just failed to show up at all and then it’s something else and it may be whether you’re sick or you’re you’re on sabbatical or have a valid excuse that the board is willing to say where we’re going toe not apply this removal rules because of this exception, but then the board approves to save a person they don’t approve. They don’t vote to remove a person, which is much, much harder. Yes. Ok, i see. All right, just about a minute or so before we go. What about having young people on boards if it’s appropriate to your mission? But in certain states, including new york, they have provisions for having young people onboard. Youth onboarding i think in new york you have to be above sixteen years old, and only organizations that served used or deal with issues like education or juvenile delinquency are allowed to have such boardmember okay, other states there expressly not allowed, you must be eighteen in order to do it, but most states i think forty states are silent on the issue now, it’s great to engage in engagement is the key word again. You to participate with boards and maybe having them entitled toe participate in board meetings is a great idea latto have them on the board and giving them fiduciary duties can be a little bit more problematic if you’re going to do that and there may. Be some rare exceptions where i think that that’s okay, you want to make sure that they’re not tokens and that their contributions are valid and their vote is equal to anybody, anybody? Else’s, vote on that board, you’ve got to be very careful now you can probably be held liable for breaching their fiduciary duties, although that’s not very clear, and if it was really agreed, just perhaps they could, and they can’t sign contracts on behalf of the organization because they probably wouldn’t be enforceable. So be careful about having that emily chan, my former colleague wrote a great block post called youth boardmember khun miners serve on a non-profit board that that i recommend for any organization considering having having young people on their board. Jean, we have to stop there. Is that? Is that blood post at on your block? It non-profit latto block dot com it is, and it was also captured in a non-profit quarterly article as well. Okay, thank you very much, gene. Great, thanks. Durney pleasure you confined gene at that non-profit law blogged or at g tack on twitter next week a fund-raising day interview we’ll start and then maria semple is here she’s, our prospect research contributor and the prospect finder the overhead myth show his book i got the three ceos who signed the overhead myth letter are going to be with me on september sixth. That’s, the ceo of better business bureau wise giving alliance guidestar and charity navigator, and ken berger from charity navigator has been on the show before. I would love to have your questions for these three ceo’s these three signers of the overhead myth letter you know you can ask questions on twitter, through facebook or contact page on my blogged love to have your questions for these ceos, please insert sponsor message over nine thousand leaders, fundraisers and board members of small and midsize charities. Listen each week you can reach me on the block or on twitter or facebook if you want to talk about sponsoring the show, our creative producer was clear meyerhoff sam liebowitz is the line producer. The show’s social media is by deborah askanase of community organizer two point oh, and the remote producer of tony martignetti non-profit radio is john federico of the new rules. Oh, i hope you will be with me next week, friday. One to two eastern at talking alternative broadcasting at talking alternative dot com miree i didn’t think that shooting a good ending. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Get in. E-giving cubine are you a female entrepreneur? Ready to break through? Join us at sexy body sassy sol, where women are empowered to ask one received what they truly want in love, life and business. Tune in thursday said. Known eastern time to learn timpson. Juicy secrets from inspiring women and men who, there to define their success, get inspired, stay motivated and defying your version of giant success with sexy body sake. Soul. Every thursday ad, men in new york times on talking alternative dot com. Are you suffering from aches and pains? Has traditional medicine let you down? Are you tired of taking toxic medications, then come to the double diamond wellness center and learn how our natural methods can help you, too? He’ll call us now at to one to seven to one eight, one eight, three that’s two one two, seven to one eight, one eight, three or find us on the web at www dot double diamond wellness dot com. We look forward to serving you. You’re listening to talking alt-right network at www. Dot talking alternative dot com, now broadcasting twenty four hours a day. This is tony martignetti aptly named host of tony martignetti non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent technology fund-raising compliance, social media, small and medium non-profits have needs in all these areas. My guests are expert in all these areas and mohr. Tony martignetti non-profit radio friday’s one to two eastern on talking alternative broadcasting are you concerned about the future of your business for career? Would you like it all to just be better? Well, the way to do that is to better communication. And the best way to do that is training from the team at improving communications. This is larry sharp, host of the ivory tower radio program and director at improving communications. Does your office need better leadership? Customer service sales or maybe better writing are speaking skills? Could they be better at dealing with confrontation conflicts, touchy subjects all are covered here at improving communications. 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Tony’s guests this week:
Sheila Kelly, vice president of development at The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research
Pamela Mohr, executive director of FACES at NYU Langone Medical Center
Wendy Kleinman, president of WK Planning
Gene Takagi, principal of the Nonprofit & Exempt Organizations Law Group
Read and watch more on Tony’s blog: http://tonymartignetti.com
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Hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent it’s july twenty sixth i’m your aptly named host. Oh, i hope that you were with me last week. I would suffer atrial fib relation if it came to my ken that you had missed maria cuomo cole on relationships miss cole, a philanthropist and board chair of help yusa, shared the professional value of all her relationships, including her mom and how they’ve helped her and help yusa succeed. We talked at the june meeting of executive women in non-profits part of new york society of association executives and tumbler tactics, amy sample ward, our social media contributor, co author of social change, anytime, everywhere and ceo of and ten, explained the value of tumbler, how to decide whether you should be in it and how to get started this week, the event leadership puzzle from the association of fund-raising professionals, new york city fund-raising day in june, our panel solved this puzzle for honorees, chairs, hosts and event committees, from goal setting and recruitment to motivation. And thanks, i was with sheila kelly, vice president of development at the michael j fox foundation pamela more executive director of faces at noon you langone medical center and wendy kleinman, president of wk planning also back to board basics jean takagi are legal contributors back this month. We’re talking about who belongs on your board and for how long should you ceo beyond the board? Is it okay if your ceo chairs? What about term limits? Jean is principal of the non-profit and exempt organizations law group between the guests on tony’s take two my block this week is women’s touching relationship stories my pleasure now to bring the event leadership puzzle to you from fund-raising day new york city last month here’s that interview welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of fund-raising day two thousand thirteen, we’re at the marriott marquis hotel in times square in new york city, and our subject now is event leadership with me r sheila kelly, vice president of development for the michael j fox foundation for parkinson’s research on in the middle is pam moore, executive director of faces at noon you langone medical center, and wendy kleinman, president of wk planning limited ladies welcome it’s a pleasure, wendy let’s, start down the other end. There what what’s the trouble with that non-profits have of the challenges that they have around event leadership. Well, i think there are a lot of non-profits today, everybody is vying for the same dollars and everybody’s buying for the same audience everybody would like to have the same leaders at the helm, many of whom have been over asked, and i think it’s also it’s identifying, you know, the right match when you invite somebody to take on the leadership role it’s important that you identify what the organization’s needs are and you try to find the right person teo approach that matches and believes in your mission and who feels that they can help you raise the funds you need. Okay, pam, these thes leadership positions can take a lot of different titles, right? A lot of a lot of possibilities. What a quaint listeners with what, what the scope is that we’re talking about. It could be anything from being an honoree to an event where you’re expected to bring in a certain amount of revenue, either giving it or getting it. It could be whether you’re chairing an event, it could be whether you’re sitting on a benefit committee vice chairing an event there are so many different titles, so many different forms of event leadership, but the most important common theme is that everybody needs to know what their expectations are in advance, so they understand what their role is in your event. Okay, making expectations very clear and i guess also gold setting, i guess. Sheila, for the event itself. Yeah, it’s, it’s, tremendously important to be very clear from the outset what your goals are for the event, both from a revenue perspective and also just what you’re trying to achieve for the for the organization and making sure that the people that have a leadership role with that event no, what what they need to do to help achieve that goal on dh, that i think when you find the right people and they know that they are part of something that, you know, there’s there’s a distinct goal for they’re going to be more willing to sort of step up to the plate and take on what you’re asking them to d’oh okay, now we just have about twenty minutes together. So why don’t we start at least our focus and maybe we’ll end there. We’ll see with the committee. Get your volunteer committees. What? What? What kind of what committees are we looking to recruit? First, i think it’s very event specific. It depends on the kind of event that you’re hosting. So if you’re hosting a golf event, for example, your committee could be helping you plan the event. They could be helping you with all the details. But if it’s your gala and, you know, we have a large gala, really? We look to our committee’s simply for fund-raising and for forgetting new people to come to the event and to help us expand our network. So i think it’s it’s about being sort of clear about with the specific events what you’re looking for, people to d’oh. Okay. And how do you start the recruitment process? A tte michael j fox foundation for us for bone event volunteered for event volunteers. Now we really do look within our network. We have so many amazing supporters who care about our work. I think that that’s key. You want to make sure that the people who are are involved have a direct connection to to your mission and to what you’re what you’re trying to achieve and so looking within first before going outside makes a lot of sense because there are people right there who are going be willing and able to get involved, and so that’s that’s typically where we start and also people self select, you know you will have people within your network who will who will raise their hand and say, please let me know how i could be of help and it’s if that person is, is the right fit. You know you should take them up on that for sure, pam, what wanted your quaint listeners what’s the work of faces at the gnu lango in medical center? So faces stands for finding a cure for epilepsy and seizures. We are an organization within and why you and go on medical center that raises funds for research, education programs, advocacy for patients with epilepsy and their families. Okay, and where do you start your recruitment process for event volunteers? So i’ve lived two very separate lives, one working for a major health care non-profit and the other one now it faces, which has only been eight months what’s so amazing to me. About my job now is that i’m dealing with a grateful patient fund-raising so i work directly for dr orrin devinsky, who is the director of the comprehensive epilepsy centre at n yu, and we work directly with the people that we impact every day. So where i’m looking for events, volunteers or donors or chairs or honorees, they’re all people that have been impacted some way by the comprehensive epilepsy centre and a recipient of some service that we’ve provided so it’s building relationships with the existing folks that have been involved and seeing who they know that they want to get involved and then being introduced to new people. One of the things that were actually looking to do with our board is to create a board event. We really want to get the word out. People don’t know enough about epilepsy, seizures and how common it is, and one of the ways that we want to do that is not just our gala, because not everybody wants to come to a gallon, so we’re working with our board to develop an event where they invite some of the individuals that they network with so they can hear. About what’s been going on in the world of epilepsy right here. When did you have advice for smaller and maybe midsize shops that that may not have the internal constituency? Teo look to first for event volunteer leadership. Well, every organization has somebody who is in charge, and that person is out in the world all the time. So what we do is we try to encourage every mind, whether it’s, the board or it’s, a executive director or the director of development, or even if it’s a small committee made maybe two or three people that they should always remain cognisant of of a good candidate is just in their travels through life, you know, in the workplace or in their social life. Oh, you know, we mentioned earlier in the panel, you know, everyone goes to cocktail parties and many people have jobs full time jobs in addition to the non-profit work they volunteer for so on, and then, you know, you talk about what you do, and if somebody expresses an interest in wanting to learn more that’s someone who could be a potential candidate to get involved in your organization. So that’s one way of looking at the outside to bring people in, they don’t have the infrastructure to pull from, like, a donor of strong donor-centric urging those conversations and basically that’s essentially good branding to yes, people should all your people well outside fund-raising should always be talking well about the organization and and know what it’s needs are, i think, and those needs might be event leadership volunteering. Exactly. And i think it’s it’s learning how to talk about what the organization was also in a very friendly, approachable manner on dh to make it interesting because people want to know who you are, what you like to do and where you spend your time what’s our next step, then wendy, you’re the consultant on the panel what’s the next step, after we’ve identified some people who are potential leaders of the event, how do we start to approach? What should we be talking about with them? Well, i think you can you can meet on a one to one basis. Maybe initially, teo, explain all the different areas where the organization might need some health. It could be joining the committee. There might be a greater interest in the board, which has a bigger picture approach, or the gala committee, which might be specifically for one event. Uh, and everybody has their different strikes. Some people are better at selling table. Some people are better at bringing an auction items. Some people are better at selling journal. Latto. So i think, it’s it’s, having that discussion and trying to find someone’s comfort zone and really assess their capabilities, where their strengths are, ok? And i think it’s a mutual decision sometimes, and that makes a lot of sense for all volunteer positions. Really? Yeah, from the board. Teo teo. Someone who’s, doing something, not his time consuming but way, want to be engaging people where their interests are. Okay. Talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. 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So gain special access to the ivory tower. Listen to me. Very sharp. Your neo-sage tuesday nights nine to eleven new york time go to ivory tower radio dot com for details. That’s. Ivory tower radio dot com e every time i was a great place to visit for both entertainment and education. Listening. Tuesday nights nine to eleven. It will make you smarter. Hey, all you crazy listeners looking to boost your business? Why not advertise on talking alternative with very reasonable rates? Interested simply email at info at talking alternative dot com durney yeah. Sheila. Pam, do you want to share how you approach people for for these kinds of positions? Anybody wanna with your first up? You know, for us, really? It’s it’s, the relationship building in stewardship is is sort of the most important piece, right? And i think to wendy’s point people have different strength. And so when you find someone within your network, or or someone who’s new to you realising what they want to be involved in, there might be someone who is very interested in events. There might be someone who’s just interested in helping to to find new donors. There’s, you know, there’s lots of different ways that you can engage with people in it. What we what we refer to it, the fox foundation is giving someone a seat at the table, you know, having them feel that they are, they might. They have separate work outside of what, what they do with the foundation. But they are an extension of what we do and making sure that they feel that they’re armed with the right tools in the right messaging so that they can speak to the work of the foundation as well. I think that’s hugely important you want you want all the people who are associated with your foundation and with your mission out there talking about the things that are important and it’s the job of of the internal people to make sure that they have all the right information, that they’re on the support that they need? Absolutely what do we do now? So we’ve recruited suppose there are some committee members who aren’t quite pulling their weight, sam, i imagine that gets frustrating to those who are how do we how do we deal with that situation? I’ve dealt with that situation many times, so i think the first thing that actually needs to happen is and we had talked about this earlier is roles and expectations. I think that when you’re working with an event committee, the most important thing that you can do from the beginning is give them the rolls and expectations, so they understand exactly what’s expected of them this way. There’s really no question about what they’re supposed to be doing and what the result is supposed to be. These committee members need to be treated as leaders because most of them are probably leaders in their industry, they need to understand that the event that they’re working on, you know, the funds raised for this event are directly impacting the mission of the organization, and they have tto take ownership, and they have to own the actual event and understand that what we’ve, you know, and we’ve talked about this earlier during our session, what tends to happen is that if you do have individuals that aren’t pulling their weight on the committee, but you have people that are many times those people will almost self select away from the committee because they understand and recognize that they’re not doing what needs to be done in order to get to make it happen. Ok, in order to reach that goal, all right? That’s helpful? What if they don’t start self elected? Sometimes it could be it could be a problem, obviously, i you know, i’m a shoot from the hip kind of person if there’s somebody who’s not pulling their weight and they’re bringing the rest the committee down, it would probably be an individual conversation with that volunteer and letting them know that, you know, this is really what we expect for. The level of what this event is, perhaps this isn’t the right police for that particular volunteer, maybe there’s another part of the organization a lower level event, some sort of program we understand that they’re completely passionate about the mission and the cause, and they want to continue to remain involved. But maybe this particular event isn’t the right match for them and let’s identify what might work and as long as you know you can find that place for them, they’ll be happy. They don’t want to be a part of something where they feel like they can’t give what the other people are giving that’s also kind of, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s not a comfortable place to be. I would think. Sheila, what about having the committee organize themselves in terms of who’s going to be a leader? Who’s going to take on? What do you prefer to see? The committees decide that among themselves or you appoint people once they’ve agreed to be part of a committee, appoint them to certain certain positions we typically help with a structure. This is it’s really more apparent in some of our smaller events that are led through? Our community fund-raising armed with team fox way. Find that people really do want teo want to know what what we need of them. And as we were talking about in the panel, people that do this for a living, we would probably we were all on a committee. We would self select ourselves, right? And we would be able to divide ourselves up. But that’s not everyone’s, core strength. And so i think guidance in this area is key. And if you if you have a group of individuals that are passionate and they want to help and they want to get involved, helping them with the structure is very important in terms of the overall success of the event. Okay? Anybody want to add tio having the committee cam or wendy having the committee decide among themselves and versus lending structure? I think that there are some individuals, you know, much like sheila had said there are some individuals that might know, you know, if we were on an event committee, we would probably know what we would be good at. Whether i would be really great it’s sponsorships and shell. It would be really great. A ticket. Sales or whatever that looks like and every so often you obviously want to honor the request of a committee member that says, i really want to work on this, you know, and what i usually do with the committee when i am dividing them subcommittees, i give them a interest for him and they’re going to fill it out, and they’re going to indicate what theywant, obviously, i don’t want to put somebody in a role where they’re selling something if their strength might be planning, but most of my committees that i have formed, we’ll have some sort of fund-raising, you know, commitment to it, but that level might very depending on each individual person, so i don’t necessarily let them make their, you know, they can select what they want, but in terms of the overall leadership structure and setting that up and dividing them up and letting them know and, you know, i’ve handled that as a development professional, okay? I’m sorry, wendy, was there something you want to add to that? Well, as consultants, we’re we’re a little bit more objective, and sometimes we can observe a committee in a different way because we’re not. Dealing with them every day like hammond, sheldon might be in the sense that their internal so, you know, we’re asked for opinion about almost everything when it comes to putting an event together, so that includes sometimes helping to identify who we feel or who we would recommend to be the chairs, for example, who shows the strength. Dahna and because sometimes the committee members themselves were just too close to one another that they can’t single each other out, so we’re standing a little bit apart, we could say, well, we think that she would be a great chair and then and that person would be a great co chair, and this person probably shouldn’t leave the auction the auction chair, for example, because they’ve been so influential ins and busy obtaining auction item, so sometimes the strength or more apparent to us and they are even to them, to the committee members themselves, so we just helped them identify that guy. What else can we say about these events leadership committees? I haven’t i haven’t asked you about more more advice around. Go ahead, i think one of the things that also came up in our most in the most recent panel that we just had is the importance of treating the committee as as a leadership group on treating them like a professional group of individuals who are there to help move the mission of the organization forward giving them, you know, in addition to setting the expectations that i mentioned before making sure that they have all the tools that they need in order to be the best that they can be, whether that’s making sure they have a budget, making sure they have a timeline, they need to understand what this event needs to gross. We need to understand the expenses behind the event, what it needs to net at the end of the day as well. They need to have those clear Job expectations 1 of the best examples that i had given is making sure that, you know, if let’s say you have a committee and they’re actually submitting a list and there soliciting individuals, making sure at the end of each week there’s a spreadsheet that’s organized by solicitor, so every single person on that committee understands what money’s come in, who is responsible for bringing it in how much and where they need to be to do this on a weekly basis. I’ll do it on a weekly basis during events season. Absolutely. So i think, it’s, just the same way that you would handle it like a business. You want to handle your event committee the same way they want to understand, they need to understand that you’re taking this seriously. This is serious. Without this money, the mission of your organization is not going to move forward, and i think if you treat it that way, they will treat it that way and it’s a mutually respectful and professional relationship. More more you want, i couldn’t agree more. I mean, transparency is imperative when you’re dealing with planning of events, and when you’re working with the committee, they need to know exactly what expense structure looks like what the revenue expectations are so that they can feel a part of it, you know, events event fund-raising is expensive. It’s it’s, one of the more expensive ways to raise a dollar and anyone that does it for living knows that. And so there’s always that balance of making sure that you’re keeping your costs down, that you’re doing that. You’re maximizing your investments, and again, many of these committees air filled with people who run their own businesses who have great perspective in this area and and using them to there, you know, to the best of their abilities is actually makes your event even better. It sounds like this kind of work for ah volunteer could be great cultivation to be, be enhanced, enhance the they’re their own giving, or maybe expand their volunteer rolls in the future. I mean, if there’s that kind of transparency and they see that it is run like a business, as you say, sounds great cultivation from or more activity, whatever, whatever, yeah, whatever form that takes, we’ve seen people move at at the fox foundation from someone who just gets involved at the team fox level who running, running a marathon and fund-raising from their peers to then joining, you know, our leadership council, which is sort of a junior board of directors, and you know that that level of engagement just continues, but it’s about making sure that you’re cultivating that relationship from the beginning in the right way, especially for people who want to who want to have a greater involvement with your foundation and i think it’s giving him that experience too, you know, it’s making sure that they’re having a positive experience. One of the best feelings that i have is when i’ve transitioned a committee that might not have been functioning as well in the fund-raising side and giving them these tools and providing, you know, changing the structure of a committee so that it functions the way we’ve been talking about and then having them get so excited about it. And then when they come to the event and they see this, you know, seamless, amazing galla golf cocktail party, whatever it looks like, they want to get more involved, and then they want to recruit other people to get more involved so it in turn by doing it this way, it might be a little bit more work on errand, but in the end, it’s going to increase our revenue and it’s also going to expand our relationships within the whole community. We have to leave it there, ladies. Thank you very much. Thanks for having us. Thank you. Pleasure. All three. Thank you. Sheila kelly ceded closest to me. Is vice president for? Development. Michael j, fox foundation for parkinson’s research pam mohr is executive director of faces finding a cure for epilepsy and seizures at the gnu langone medical center. And when d kleiman is president of wk planning limited again. Thanks very much, ladies. Thank you. Thank you for being with me. Tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of fund-raising day two thousand thirteen. Thanks so much. And my thanks. Also to the organizers of fund-raising day twenty thirteen, sponsored by the association of fund-raising professionals. New york’s, greater new york city chapter. Gotta live listener love lots of new yorkers. Massapequa, new york, new york and brooklyn, new york. Welcome, live listener. Loved to you also new bern, north carolina. Gonna be there very soon, very soon. And washington, dc all up and down the east coast. Where’s there’s, nobody east of ah, nobody west of philadelphia and, well, we got santa. See joe argentina, that francesco or alejandra? And also ottawa, canada. Welcome live listener love to all of you will hit asia shortly. Right now we take a break for a couple minutes when we come back. Tony’s take two and then gene takagi with back to board basics. Hang in there. You didn’t think that shooting getting dink, dink, dink, dink. You’re listening to the talking, alternate network, waiting to get in. E-giving good. Are you suffering from aches and pains? Has traditional medicine let you down? Are you tired of taking toxic medications, then come to the double diamond wellness center and learn how our natural methods can help you, too? He’ll call us now at to one to seven to one eight, one eight, three that’s two one two, seven to one eight, one eight, three or find us on the web at www dot double diamond wellness dot com way. Look forward to serving you. Hi, i’m lost him a role, and i’m sloan wainwright, where the host of the new thursday morning show the music power hour. Eleven a m. We’re gonna have fun. Shine the light on all aspects of music and its limitless healing possibilities. We’re gonna invite artists to share their songs and play live will be listening and talking about great music from yesterday to today, so you’re invited to share in our musical conversation. Your ears will be delighted with the sound of music and our voices. Join austin and sloan live thursdays at eleven a. M on talking alternative dot com. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Schnoll hi, i’m kate piela, executive director of dance, new amsterdam. And you’re listening to tony martignetti non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Hi there, welcome back, i want to also send along with the live listener love podcast pleasantries, especially to germany, gooden dog have lots of german listeners to the podcast, from a site called podcast that d so good in dog to all end and podcast pleasantries toe all the german listeners. Time for tony’s take to my block this week is women’s touching relationship stories? Remember last week you heard my interview with maria cuomo coal, which was pre recorded at a meeting of executive women in non-profits after that, we opened the discussion of relationships to the group and lots of women shared very touching stories of people who have been important in their lives and help their careers. And i included just a couple of minutes of the group discussion in last week’s clip, but the whole discussion was about twenty minutes and it’s really very uplifting on dh very tender, and that video of the video of that interview is on my blogged at tony martignetti dot com and it’s, also on youtube, if you prefer to go there directly the channel israel tony martignetti cem very tender and touching stories from executive women running non-profits now and the audio is much better than it was in the clip that i played for you last week. And that is tony’s take two for friday twenty sixth of july thirtieth show of the year and show number one hundred fifty two. Jean takagi is with me. He’s, principal of neo the non-profit and exempt organizations law group in san francisco. He edits the popular non-profit law blogged dot com and he is at gi tak on twitter. Hello, jean takagi. Welcome back. I’m tony, thank you for having me, it’s. Always a pleasure. Thank you for joining us from the west coast. We’re talking about cem cem board basics this month on dh specifically, who should be on the board. And maybe for how long? Let’s. Start with the well, let’s start before we get into individual people. Do you see trouble or or challenges a lot of times around who belongs properly on a board? Well, i think a lot of organizations right now, tony, are struggling with recruitment, trying teo attain diversity. Getting a different skill sets on the board. Different representations of populations. Um, at the same time, it seems that the boards are very underutilized asset of many organizations in terms of the valley that they’re adding, or at least in terms of how the ceo or the executive director perceives the value add of the board of directors. And i think i’m going back to some of the board basics. Is a good place to start and explore some of these issues about not only what that board could be doing. But what, what aboard should be doing. You since you mentioned the ceo and their role with respect to the board, we polled listeners before the show and asked if your ceo is a boardmember and forty percent said yes, sixty percent said no. Should a ceo be a boardmember great question, so i think they’re different stages of evolution of organizations where whether the ceo belongs on the border not may change, and i’m going to sort of give you kind of the lawyers disclaimer about that i’m dunaj unconscionable thoughts on this, but there’s always going to be some exceptions tease general rules, and my general thought is tony, is that once an organization is matured, having the ceo or executive director on the board of directors can be troubling because of the potential conflicts of interests that are involved. And the big one is that the board is responsible for overseeing, evaluating the performance of and determining the salary and compensation of the ceo at the same time. If the ceo is on the board that is overseeing himself or herself, you can see the inherent conflict that’s involved. What couldn’t they? Couldn’t they recuse themselves from any discussions off of those issues? Yeah. Absolutely, and i think that’s commonly how organizations treated so if they’ve got their ceo on the board, whenever it comes around, too evaluating performance or determining compensation, the ceo recuses themselves from the board and the rest of the board makes that decision. However, that seems teo sort of discount the possibility that decisions on programs and finance and budget don’t also affect the ceo personally and the ceo very may very well have a personal interest in all of those aspects of an organization that are very important for boards latto oversee and make decisions on, and if the c e o by virtue of being on the board, i can control the board discussion and analysis of these issues, then it really creates a problem and allows the board to sort of get away from from mid duties of acting as the check and balance to the ceo. So is it not sufficient than let’s? Say we have a boardmember i’m sorry, we have a ceo who’s a boardmember um if they can contribute, but they don’t vote sounds like i mean, they still could they still control the discussion, but then they don’t have final decision. Making authority because they’re not a voting member of the board. It’s a great question the night, you know, i see lawyers actually struggling with this idea in many states and in california, we actually recently made a change or a proposal to a change in in the statutes about what is a director, and i think for most lawyers, the idea they want to get across to their clients to their non-profit clients is that there really is no such thing as a non voting boardmember and the reason for that is because boardmember have fiduciary duties, and they’re ultimately responsible for the management of their organizations. So while they khun delegate duties, toe officers and executives and ceo, they ultimately hold responsibility for what happens with the organization, and you can’t really ultimately hold responsibility is a boardmember if you can’t vote on the issues ah, yeah, so there really is no such thing as a non voting boardmember nonvoting director. What you may have, though, is a ceo or executive directors that is invited to attend in and participate in all of the board meeting’s except when the board meeting go into executive session and determining when the board should go into executive session without having the executive director there so that they can actually tied it by themselves on independent of the director, determine what is necessary to direct the organization and the future toe oversee the organization, how it’s doing in the present and in the past and do a little of what i’m going to quote somebody else’s term that they coined the lucy markets is a governance expert out of the uk, and she calls a stargazing about planning for the future and trying to determine how teo look into the future and make sure that the organization is ready to be able to respond to future challenges and take advantage of future opportunities a great role of the board that they probably don’t do enough for most boards don’t do enough of this when the ceo is they’re trying to ground everybody to the present, sometimes that future stargazing aspect is lost. So those are some of the reasons why maybe the ceo just recusing themselves at certain times isn’t isn’t the best idea. Well, that kind of cells short, visionary ceos, i mean, every ceo is not going to be wedded. To what’s happening this quarter in or this year and i think a ceo could be visionary and be looking fifteen, twenty years ahead doing that stargazing also, yeah, absolutely. I think we would hope that that when when, as a nonprofit organization boardmember myself, we would hope that when we hyre are ceos that we are looking for somebody that that has that inherent ability to be able to stargaze and be a visionary and a champion of that vision. On the other hand, i think we know, especially for smaller organizations, tony, and you’re probably well aware of this as well. Ceos are so burdened by the work of the day to day management of the organization that sometimes they just don’t have the opportunities, even if they have the skills t able to engage in that type of stargazing and board members may be in better position to bring their valley. So that added value that we talked about that board may not be giving enough of to an organization that’s, a really strong air in which they could do it and having the ceo lead, that would be great if that’s possible and then having the board, you know, sort of be the counterbalance and check, uh, to the ceo. Perfect, but if if the board is just relying on the c e o to champion all of the vision and determine what the vision is of the organization, he may not have the healthiest organization around let’s, go back to something you said a few minutes ago, jean the that you can’t really have a nonvoting boardmember because that that abila gates, the fiduciary responsibility of a boardmember was that i’m sorry was that was that california law or that’s a california proposal? What? Well, that’s california law and i think, while it may not be stated explicitly in other statutes, are depending upon what state your urine, i think that’s the general idea of most, if not all, of the states, that we’re not really supposed to have somebody who is a boardmember with the fiduciary duties of a boardmember, but otherwise unable to to vote on any of the issues do corporations for-profit corporations struggle with this? Also mean, my sense is that it’s routine for a president ceo to be a board member of a corporate board? Do you do you know? Do they struggle with this the same way? Non-profits are they absolutely do? Tony, this is a major topic of controversy and has actually been hitting twitter a lot in the for-profit circles as well among the governance experts and it’s close to a fifty fifty split about whether ceos they’re going to serve on the board of directors neither mainly mainly for larger public organizations. Oftentimes again, yeah, that the board is supposed to be the check and balance to the ceo and to bring the ceo onto the board might start to facilitate this rubber stamp board that just sort of agrees with a ceo and sort of puts all of their trust and relies on the ceo’s opinion just too far rather than acting is the check and balance, but it goes both ways because, you know, we haven’t really talked about the benefits of having the ceo on the board, and there there are some benefits, especially in the early stages of an organization. Do you have a visionary ceo? The only way that that ceo and possibly that’s, the founder of the organization to recruit the best members onto the board? Maybe if the ceo is on the board himself or herself because they’re the draw. They may be the draw to the organization, and without that person’s leadership, that organization may not be able to evolve to the next stage where, you know, i’m talking about where hopefully a cz the organization mature a little bit that you can get to a phase where their partners, the ceo on one side and the board of directors led by chair of the board on the other side, rather than blending the two together. But that may take a little bit of time to get to that stage, especially for small organizations, really depending upon the champion of the organization and its mission being the founders ceo and the boardmember all, at the same time, another advantage to having the ceo on the board sounds like would be that the other board members would be not so likely to get intruding into management day today. Issues. Yeah, but that’s that’s actually a good point. So sometimes, while directors ultimately have the authority tio and the obligation to ultimately manage the the organization that’s collectively, as the board of directors individually, board members have no inherent powers. At all. So that’s that’s something to really think about individually, director’s really don’t have powers unless they’ve been delegated to them as possibly officers of the organizations are agents for some specific tasks, but it’s a boardmember just by virtue of being a boardmember shouldn’t start directing employees of the organization and telling them what to dio even the executive director or ceo because it’s the board collectively that that overseas that that and not individual directors so i’m good, really good point let’s move to having a ceo chair, the board? What what’s concerns there. So all of the concerns of having the ceo being on the board of directors as a director are amplified when the ceo is also the chair of the board, and interesting enough, this was a recent article in the non-profit quarterly where and author just took the opposite position not now, fairly advocating it in all cases, but sort of making us aware that, well, sometimes a compensated ceo cancer because the chair of the board and it may be perfectly appropriate because what they want to do is completely aligned with what the board wants to do, which is advanced the organization’s mission is effectively and efficiently as possible, and if again the board doesn’t have a champion to do that other than this is the ceo, the ceo is almost resigned, teo being a member of the board and leading it forward so that part of the argument that that that author made but they’re the cons are again is that you can really encourage a rubber stamp board, you can lose the checks and balances that you’ve tried to design for the board, and ceos can, even without knowing that they’re doing so, make decisions that are based not necessarily in the organization’s best interests, but in the ceo, you know, ceos best interests as well, and not in terms of sometimes in terms of making more compensation for themselves or protecting their own job status, but sometimes it can be for more innocent reasons. Just the ceo thinks a certain way about a particular project and wants to protect that project ahead of others, perhaps, or looks to the present more than to the future of the organization and again in wanting to protect everybody, all the employees from from facing layoffs or anything like that doesn’t want to make that difficult decisions that might improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the organization in future, and really holds to the status quo, because there’s so many personal interests that are involved as well that the ceo maybe, like, here she is safeguarding too. So that’s where the board you know, it’s kind of this objective party from the outside looking in, khun really provide this different perspective for an organization. If you have the ceo of the chair of the board, designing the agenda of the board, being responsible for the education of the board and orientation of the board and preparation of all the board members before every board meeting, everything can get planted in a certain way to sort of direct everybody else to just approve. But the ceo is recommending and that that’s the danger of having a ceo is the chair, the listener pole. If if your ceo is a boardmember does he or she chaired the board, only thirteen percent said yes, and the other eighty seven percent said no that they don’t have that. We have just about a minute before we go away for a couple of minutes um, you’ve seen cases where the there’s, a volunteer chair of the board, and they’re identified as ceo of the organization. Yeah, and and that’s that’s kind of an interesting fact pattern that that oftentimes takes place even if the by-laws don’t say anything. So if you’ve got an executive director hired but your state law says that either the president or the chair, the board is the ceo, unless the by-laws state otherwise, even though you haven’t executive director, the chair of your board, maybe the ceo just by default of the law because you’re by-laws don’t say anything else, and that may not be a great place for a volunteer chair of the board tow want to be in should anything ever go to court and that person be held responsible as the ceo of the organization for understanding and knowing what the organization is doing on a day to day basis? And aside from the legal aspect of it, i think that would diminish the authority of the paid executive director. Absolutely. Here you’re absolutely right, and i wantto point to something that was on the april twenty sixth, two thousand thirteen show the guest was eugene fram, and he and i talked a lot about the title ceo versus executive director and how that and how executive director tends to diminish the authority of what, what he recommends. B b the ceo. We have to go away for a couple of minutes. When we come back. Jean, i’ll keep talking about board a six. Hang in there, stay with us. Dafs you’re listening to the talking alternative network. Schnoll are you stuck in your business or career trying to take your business to the next level, and it keeps hitting a wall? This is sam liebowitz, the conscious consultant. I will help you get to the root cause of your abundance issues and help move you forward in your life. Call me now and let’s. Create the future you dream of. Two, one, two, seven, two, one, eight, one, eight, three, that’s to one to seven to one, eight one eight three. The conscious consultant helping conscious people. Be better business people. Have you ever considered consulting a road map when you feel you need help getting to your destination when the normal path seems blocked? A little help can come in handy when choosing an alternate route. Your natal chart is a map of your potentials. It addresses relationships, finance, business, health and, above all, creativity. Current planetary cycles can either support or challenge your objectives. I’m montgomery taylor. If you would like to explore the help of a private astrological reading, please contact me at monte at monty taylor dot. Com let’s monte m o nt y at monty taylor dot com. Talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. God, that’s. More live listener love. Ah! Houston, texas. Yakima, washington. Rocklin, california. Outside sacramento. San francisco, california. And a masked us avenger listener. Tokyo, japan durney chua and we know that it’s francisco imbriano zara is francisco welcome. Lots of masked listeners in japan. Also bunch of mass listeners in japan, seoul, korea and goose on korea on your haserot and chung ching, guangzhou and shanghai, china. Ni hao, so happy to have all the live listeners. Love i love sending live listener love it’s, more like my live listener love, then love going out to you because i love doing it. Jean let’s see that’s ah, let’s continue with the possibility of having other paid employees or even contractors on the board. Seems to me this is getting messier the further we go, yeah, it can get messy hair as we go along and, you know, here in california, we actually have ah, state law that says for non-profit what we call public benefit corporations. So those air, the charitable organizations that are not not religious and focus, um, on lee up to forty nine percent of the board may be compensated or related to someone compensated and that’s, whether as an employee or an independent contractor, so a majority of the board essentially must be interested or not compensated or related to anybody confident no, jean, that still seems too high to me. Forty nine percent, i think, should be, like, ten percent. You know, most states actually don’t have that law at all in the vast majority of states don’t have that. So i agree with you that it would be great to have a small minority of the board compensated so the board can be can be the real checking balance in terms of making decisions that are not beneficial primarily for the employees directors, but primarily for the mission of the organization in most states don’t have those laws. And i think part of that is to accommodate some smaller boards where they may only be three or four board members to start out with. And you do have the founder, who’s compensated on the board and, you know, so e-giving ten percent, which would be very tough. Well, all right, well, then, say one out of force, you know, based on the size of the board. But but it seems risky tohave employees or even do you see this case where it’s it’s other employees or even vendors to the organization on the board? Yeah, way, absolutely, tio i don’t know, i don’t know, maybe i’m it just sounds crazy to me to have especially vendors on the well, no, actually, they’re equally bad to me vendors and and other paid employees aside from the ceo, i just don’t think they should be on the board at all. Yeah, you know, i for the most part again, generally, i would say i would agree with you, you really lose out on all the checks and balances that we talked about, even maur if you’ve got not only the ceo on the board but other employees or contractors as well, and then what about the situation, tony, if the ceo is not on the board but one of the vendors is on the board now, that creates, like this unusual situation where the ceo is really responsible for making sure that bender’s is performing under whatever contract that they have. But the vendors sits on the board that oversees the ceo and can affect the performance or even the retention of the ceo and that that’s kind of crazy, isn’t it? Yes, that’s, i can’t. I can’t see a case where a vendor or contractor to an organisation belongs on the board. I don’t care, even if they’re volunteering their time and the value of their services, or whatever, they, whether they’re volunteering or being paid, they just don’t belong and an employee’s equally bad. You know, some employees are on the board, but not other employees. I mean, what does that do to the peer-to-peer relationships, working relationships in the office? Yeah, they can’t create problems, but let me take the other side for just a moment. That lawyers love to do this right, then so let’s take the other side and say, well, what about a vendor who has been a great vendor paid vendor to the organization that’s been giving discounted rates to the organization all along knows the organization really well on dh if you continue to use that vendor, you just get far better value than you would by using any of her his competitors out there. And now you feel like the vendors so aligned with the mission of the organization, you actually value the perspective that this person could bring to the board and no one invite them onto the board. But you don’t necessarily want to take away this advantageous business kind of action that you have with this vendor, and you may be paying double if you go out and bring them on the board, but not continue to use their services. That may be a case where i say that’s, ok, you’ve to be very careful about this, but that may be okay to bring that vendor onto the onto the organization and in, you know, in a slightly different matter. What if you’ve got a board member? Who’s not a vendor right now, but he says, hey, i can leave my, you know, that’s, an extra business space, and we’re looking to expand i can offer you a lease that, you know, just half the price that you’ll find anywhere else, and you go ahead and have the all the independent board members of that that statement to make sure that what actually is much lower than when what fair market value would be for that space, and that may be another case where it’s okay, the boardmember eventually becomes the landlord of the organization, but that may be okay as well, but you do need the check and balance of independent board members to prove those type of transaction. So you’re not just relying on somebody saying that, yeah, we’re way cheaper than everybody else, you’re actually verifying that with the independent boardmember okay, well, i’m not willing to go that far with you. I think the the vendors perspective can be brought in by the by the ceo so that i think the perspective could be represented. And, you know, if the person loves the organization so much the way you’re describing it, i don’t think they would double the price just because, you know, way didn’t put them on the board. All right, i don’t need to do neither do i, tony, but, you know, it’s interesting board source, i believe, are no urban institute did a study of non-profits that have they’re they’re contractors on the board, and forty five percent said it would be difficult to terminate that relationship that contracting relationship and but only seventeen percent, haywood said it would be very difficult terminate that contract relationship and still keep that member on the board. So it’s an interesting thing, i think generally i agree with you, we don’t like the idea of having them on the board because of the conflicts of interest, but i can understand situations sometimes went when it might be appropriate. You’re more understanding than i am. Jean wait, we have to leave it there to be continued let’s do aboard basics again because we didn’t get to term limits. And then there’s also the question of, you know how often should the board meet? And i’ll bet you have some other topics. So let’s do board six again next time. Okay, that sounds good. I look forward to it. Excellent, i do to thank you, jean takagi, yet it’s the non-profit law blogged dot com and on twitter he’s at g tak thank you again, jean next week, a new feature out of the blue we’re going to bring people in that have offed be jobs and a connection to non-profits of course we’re going to start this with sand or cats he’s a fermenter, and actually he called himself sandorkraut and we’re going to talk about the history, benefits and methods of fermenting foods and he’s got a simple sauerkraut recipe and in a future out of the blue, we’re going to go from sandorkraut to santa claus, we’re going to bring in santa claus and mrs claus, they’re going to be in the studio in october, kicking off their busy season next week. Also, scott koegler returns he’s, our technology contributor and the editor of non-profit technology news he’s also in ina file, so that means fermentation is bad for scott koegler you want to follow me on twitter, i’m at tony martignetti our creative producer is claire meyerhoff. Sam liebowitz is our line producer, the remote producer of tony martignetti non-profit radio is john federico of the new rules, and we’re saying goodbye to regina walton of organic social media. We’ve had a terrific three year run with regina she’s, been with me from the beginning of the show, and you’re listening because regina promoted the show and you saw her good work, and that brought you to us. Thank you very much for gina it’s. Been a pleasure. I hope you’ll be with me next week. Friday, one to two p, m eastern, a tucking alternative broadcasting at talking alternative dot com. E-giving intending to be a good ending? You’re listening to the talking alternate network. Get in. Cubine are you a female entrepreneur? Ready to break through? Join us at sixty body sassy soul, where women are empowered to ask one received what they truly want in love, life and business. Tune in thursday, said noon eastern time to learn tips and juicy secrets from inspiring women and men who, there to define their success, get inspired, stay motivated and to find your version of giant success with sexy body sake. Sold every thursday ad. Men in new york times on talking alternative dot com. Are you suffering from aches and pains? Has traditional medicine let you down? Are you tired of taking toxic medications, then come to the double diamond wellness center and learn how our natural methods can help you to hell? Call us now at to one to seven to one eight, one eight three that’s to one to seven to one eight one eight three or find us on the web at www dot double diamond wellness dot com way. Look forward to serving you. You’re listening to talking alternative network at www dot talking alternative dot com, now broadcasting twenty four hours a day. This is tony martignetti aptly named host of tony martignetti non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent technology fund-raising compliance, social media, small and medium non-profits have needs in all these areas. My guests are expert in all these areas and mohr. Tony martignetti non-profit radio fridays one to two eastern on talking alternative broadcasting are you concerned about the future of your business for career? Would you like it all to just be better? Well, the way to do that is to better communication. And the best way to do that is training from the team at improving communications. This is larry sharp, host of the ivory tower radio program and director at improving communications. Does your office need better leadership? Customer service sales or maybe better writing are speaking skills? Could they be better at dealing with confrontation conflicts, touchy subjects all are covered here at improving communications. If you’re in the new york city area, stop by one of our public classes or get your human resource is in touch with us. The website is improving communications, dot com that’s improving communications, dot com improve your professional environment. Be more effective, be happier. And make more money. Improving communications. That’s. The answer. Talking. Hyre
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