Get ready for some board management wisdom! In this episode, I sat down with the brilliant Bill Ryan, a nonprofit board governance expert 🌟 We dove into the nitty-gritty of effective board management, covering everything from board culture to fundraising and the three modes of governance. 💼💰
Key Points:
🌟 Board Culture: Boards need to align their culture with the organization’s mission. Bridging generational and ideological gaps through open dialogue and getting to know each other is key. 👥✨
💪 Fundraising Challenges: Boards often struggle with fundraising due to unclear expectations, lack of training, and avoidance. But fear not! By providing the right tools, training, and support, we can empower board members to fulfill their fundraising responsibilities. 📈💰
🌟 Changing Board Culture: Boards must take ownership of their fundraising role and engage in honest discussions about goals, accountability, and individual contributions. Realistic expectations and meaningful work are the secret sauce to motivate board members. 🏆💼
💼 The Three Modes of Governance: We explored the fiduciary mode (oversight and compliance), the strategic mode (planning and decision-making), and the generative mode (generating insights and agreement). Engaging in generative work allows boards to shape the organization and drive effective governance. 📊🤝
💰 The Connection Between Governance and Fundraising: Effective governance, especially through generative work, boosts board members’ motivation and generosity in fundraising. When boards take ownership and see the impact of their work, they become passionate fundraisers. 🙌💵
💬 Open Conversations about Money and Fundraising: Acknowledging board members’ fears and concerns about money and fundraising is crucial. Honest dialogue and understanding help board members overcome anxieties and become rockstar fundraisers! 💪💸
Don’t miss out on Bill Ryan’s expertise! Connect with him: https://ryanconsultinggroup.com/ to take your board management to the next level. 📞🚀
“We can find questions to put to boards that are at the right altitude.” -Bill
Episode Transcript
RHEA 0:00
All right. Welcome to nonprofit lowdown. I’m your host, Rhea Wong. Hey podcast listeners read along with you once again with nonprofit lowdown. Today, I am so excited because we are talking to Bill Ryan about innovations in board management. So if I had a nickel for every time someone asked me about their board, I would have many nickels. Perhaps I could retire on the nickels. So Bill Ryan is the founder and principal of Bill Ryan consulting II is a consultant and helps people with their boards. And today we’re going to talk about all of the things. So Bill, welcome to the show.
BILL 0:39
Thanks so much. Rhea, pleased to be here. And to talk about boards. That’s what I like to talk about.
RHEA 0:45
I also read to mention that bill is a former lecturer at the Kennedy School at Harvard. So we’re talking to the experts here, Bill. I actually don’t know this. Can you tell us a little bit about how you got started with the world of boards, because it is a pretty particular niche topic.
BILL 1:00
Ya agree? It’s this is some time ago at this point. And I got started the way many people do by chance. And in this case, with a little bit of dread, I had a chance to work on a research project about boards. And frankly, I thought to myself, Oh, this just sounds like a real backwater, of sleepy, ossified use lists, functions, I don’t really know if I want to get into it, got into this project, started talking to people who were really trying to make their boards work, talking to Ed CEOs and realized, okay, this is actually quite interesting. There’s a lot to do here. At that time. This is 20 plus years ago, there have certainly been many people working on it, but it still really was a sleepy area. And I thought, hey, this is fun, interesting. It involves human drama, organizational design, policy theory, practice. And I just went from dipping a toe into ankle deep needy Ben Graham, when he five years later or whatever, are still working away at it.
RHEA 2:05
Okay, well, there’s so much that we can unpack here. But let’s start here, which is the worst of the biggest issues that you see executive directors have with their boards. And one of the complaints that I hear all the time is, it’s a structure that is, as you say, ossified. It just doesn’t serve us the way that perhaps it was meant to serve us. Let me start there. But we’ll delve much deeper for sure. Yeah, yeah.
BILL 2:29
Maybe really, as we explore these issues to Rhea, there’s, there’s like a meta level of this. How have we particularly in the US nonprofit sector? How have we built boards? And what role do they play socially? Why are they the way they are? And then there’s just the real life level for real boards, real EDS and CEOs? What do I do with my board tomorrow, but I think when we talk about them being ossified, for example, there is some truth in this that boards, despite the variety of types of organizations in the nonprofit sector, boards tend to look alike, they tend to have the same structure, they tend to operate in the same ways, you move from one boardroom to another, and sometimes you could barely discern what the mission of the organization is, everything is just by the script.
BILL 3:21
So I’ll wind down the theoretical part of this, but there’s a really, I think, compelling theory about this. And if you forgive the jargon, it’s labeled mimetic, isomorphism. And it was some researchers trying to study organizations, not words, but organizations generally. And they were pondering this question, why do they all look alike? when actually they could organize themselves however they want. And their conclusion was, people aren’t all organizing things in the same way. Because that way works. They’re organizing things in the same way. Because no one knows what works. And in the absence of knowing what works, the safest thing is to do what everyone else is doing. And I think we have a lot of that going on with boards, very few of them really reflect any distinctive culture of their organizations don’t seem to be informed by their missions, just plain vanilla.
BILL 4:18
So that’s the ossification that I’m referring to not an area for great innovation. Instead, you have people moving from board to board bringing practices that might have worked, okay, no one’s really sure but bringing it from one board to the next. And then we’re locked in really operating the way boards have for hundreds of years. So that’s at the metal level, the structural level, I think, the much more pressing challenge for CEOs for board members themselves, if you leave aside group dysfunction, and we can come back to that because that is part of board reality. If you leave that aside, if you were to assume, hey, I’ve got a pretty good group of smart people, and they’re committed Add to this mission.
BILL 5:01
Why is this not coming together? Generally, the leading problem is that that table is not set the board is really in search of meaningful work, and instead is in a passive role just receiving information and updates. And occasionally chiming in. And again, that’s leaving aside dysfunction. So it can get into that juicy stuff, for sure. But I think it’s more in this encourages me, it’s more people who are earnestly searching to make their contributions as board members really meaningful and consequential. They want to help. And they’re just stuck sometimes in this structure. And with these practices and mindsets that makes it hard to do that. Okay,
RHEA 5:45
let’s delve into it. There are so many points that you bring up that I really want to delve in and how much time do we have. But one of the phenomenon that I have observed, and I certainly experienced this as an EDI is it felt like my board members were accomplished professionals in their own sectors in their own fields and their own companies. And somehow, when they stepped into the boardroom, it felt they forgot all of that if they forgot their to the drive for innovation, they forgot the risk taking they forgot how to invest in resources in order to move the business forward. Why is that?
BILL 6:19
Great question. I think it has to do with the conditions under which they’re operating. In their day jobs. These are people who generally may not love their work, but they’re generally in situations where they are relied upon where they have to produce the app to deliver, they may enjoy doing so and get some satisfaction, working with their colleagues in their workplace is organized, with clarity about their goals and what they’re trying to achieve. Maybe they even have norms and values to guide them. All of that makes it possible for them to have an impact. When they step into a nonprofit boardroom, I think it has less to do with them, saying oh, I’ll just phone it in here and more to do with the conditions under which they’re working.
RHEA 8:11
I want to go there for a second. But I do have a question I’ve been thinking about. So we’re seeing a lot of scholarship coming out now about the value of teams and trust and belonging, and team dynamics, which in theory is wonderful. And I feel like the challenge is when you really have a board that comes together maybe once a quarter and maybe you do one board retreat, how do you actually build a sense of team and a sense of us and a sense of community working towards a common goal, when really it’s the touch points are quite light at in comparison to their day jobs and their families and their everyday life? Now?
BILL 9:08
It’s a great question. And the truth is because it is a great thing to look at the team research literature, this is a great source of kind of design ideas for boards to be looking at larger kind of scholarship on these areas, but you put your finger on it, boards really are different they are not this a team bonded in the ER are in the cockpit or side by side in the trenches. That’s not what it’s like. It’s this sporadic episodic type of engagement. So you’ve got to bolster them on so if you think about what a lot of the team research says, for example, is one thing that’s really essential to effective teams is clarity about your goal.
BILL 9:52
So one of the things we could do is to hey, let’s get clear about what we as a board are trying to accomplish what that calls For each of us individually to do, and maybe even more specifically, like, what’s the game plan for this board for this year, so getting clarity about goals, and I think really dialing that up, because the engagement is as episodic as you’re describing it. So that’s one thing we can do that you can get that clarity and provide people that clarity. The second part are norms and expectations. People really do better in teams, when the team has clear ground rules about what’s acceptable, and what’s not. And I know what boards it’s funny in my consulting work with boards often, there’ll be a reticence that people will say cheese, knees are all volunteers, and they got their own wives and their jobs, families their own pursuits, we can ask too much of them.
BILL 10:48
Truth of the matter is, I find board members would prefer to be in a board with clear high expectations and culture of accountability than they would to be in a kind of mixed shambolic group, where it’s not really clear what’s required of them. So if we can dial up those goals, we can get clear about norms. Just simply asking what is each of us on this boards required to do? Or even with boards are having trouble? What is it with long tolerate it, but no longer? Well, you can get clear on those norms of that will help. And then the third piece, and I’m drawing on research by Hackman, and some colleagues, their third piece in a team framework, I really is suiting the yuck to the team, don’t give the team work, that’s too hard for it, that’s outside its skill set, that’s going to lead to frustration, there’s another thing we can do, we can find questions to put to boards that are at the right altitude, so you can dial all of that up.
BILL 11:55
And then I would sprinkle into it some opportunity to get to know each other, break bread, roll the board meeting into dinner, start the board meeting the day before, if it’s that type of board that meets over a period of two days, with a dinner, get people engaged socially, give them a chance to get to know each other, this really does have an impact on the performance of groups. So it’s all a matter of just this is all stuff we know. So it’s just a matter of how do we adapt to this to a board. And how do we dial up all of those features? So people are working under better conditions, it’s possible, there are plenty of really good vibrant boards out there. And this is the type of stuff they’re doing minus the wonky language about team effectiveness and the research. But we do not do this. We just need to do more of it more intentionally, more consistently.
RHEA 12:47
So I’d love to talk about altitude, because I think this is an issue I see a lot, which is in the absence of clarity about what they’re supposed to do I see a lot of board members get into the micromanagement, and the doing the work of the executive, because they just don’t know what they are supposed to do. So walk us through what you think the appropriate altitude is for a board and how do you get them there and stay in their lane.
BILL 13:14
At that altitude, you’re going to introduce it. So it’s altitude. And I would also say it’s timing, when the board engages with an issue affects its ability to engage productively. And I think what happened both with altitude and timing, and oh, we can get into some examples. You’ve seen these board movies, as well. But I think with both of them, it again comes back to setting let’s focus on board meetings, because I really think that’s the biggest lever for both revealing how a board is doing and for improving a board. If you think about a classic board meeting pattern is there’s a pre read, that doesn’t go far enough in advance for people to spend a lot of quality time with that. I’m sympathetic to all of this with my own deliverables as a consultant. And then because in ED knows board members don’t seem to read all the material. The meeting then includes a rehash of the pre reads, which by the way, of course is telling board members, they’re just going to read it to you in the boardroom. Don’t bother reading it. So you
RHEA 14:21
know, I’m getting PTSD as your child. I’m like getting bad flashbacks. But please continue.
BILL 14:26
You’ve been there. You’ve been there and you’ve done it and you’ve had an inflicted on you both sides of the table. So you get there you repeat the material, it all and it’s puts the board instantly in a passive role, where they’re listening and receiving generally it concludes with Are there any questions? Which kind of means don’t ask any questions and board members will have their eye on the clock. If the agenda has time on it. The group will be good at managing itself. So it can just skim the surface and what you get In response to Are there any questions is just a bunch of random observations, questions, comments may not be connected. Often they’ll be down in the weeds people latching on to to a detail, something that that that catches their eye for whatever reason.
BILL 15:16
And then you run out of time and you move on, repeat it with the next topic. Okay? How could that be different? This is where altitude and timing together come in. One is, instead of just asking, Are there any questions at the end of your rehash of the board material? First, don’t rehash that material, set a new norm, we’re not going to rehash the pre Read, read, dump. And then give a lien overview, a quick recap, you got to get people’s heads back into that material. And then of course, you can say, Are there any questions, people will have questions that will help them understand what you’re putting in front of them? So of course, you need time for that. But instead of just leaving it there, you can get the board at the right altitude, then by putting a question to the board, and that question could be something like, if it’s a proposal that’s on the table, guide people into it by saying what resonates about this? Or what do you find concerning about this, let people engage with those two ends of a spectrum? You’ll get into a more connected conversation.
BILL 16:23
Board members might even talk to each other, which they usually don’t? Do they usually talk to the IDI and every one it’s just ping pong, I asked you a question you answer, someone else serves the ball to you, you serve it back. So by putting a question on the table, you can really choose the question. So it gets to the right. So it could be what resonates? What concerns it could be if we approve this proposal, what do you think the biggest risks in executing it successfully will be? If you’re very early on, in the development of a proposal, there isn’t something to vote on, you could get to the right altitude by using the board to frame the issues. What are the criteria we should use whatever proposal I come back with as Ed, what marks does it need to hit? So those questions can pull the board up to the right level? And those questions, by the way, often is just one is most useful.
BILL 17:21
And just get one question. Those can be in the pre read. And let people think about that as they do the reading. Actually, having the question that we read gives people a way to engage with the pre read more effectively, they know what they’re looking for, they’ve got a bit of a frame, they might jot down notes can be really powerful. So that’s altitude set the table, find the question that puts the board at the right level timings a little bit different. And what I would say, a lot of boards, underperform in the sense that they don’t add much value, because they come in at the 11th hour, they’re coming in when take the budget vote of a board. So arguably, you could say, this is the most important meeting of the year. The budget drives everything.
BILL 17:50
What really happens, that vote is often coming just a few weeks before the fiscal year, the budget has been chewed over endlessly by the senior team by a finance committee, it might get moved from the finance committee to an executive committee, when it finally gets to the board, you know, arguably the most consequential decision. Everyone knows that the right thing to do was to vote yes, it’s the 11th hour, people have worked hard on it. There’s a lot of social pressure not to unravel things and start asking, tell me more about your assumptions, which to me seemed flaw, this is not the moment to get into it. But if you picture changing the timing, so that you could come in early and say, Hey, we know budget doesn’t have that many moving parts here. But we do have a couple of make or break issues this year about the budget.
BILL 19:03
And although you won’t vote on it, or another few months in this meeting, we want to get your input on how we as a management team should be could be thinking about constructing the budget. That simple question for that could be something as broad as what questions should the senior team and maybe the Finance Committee be asking ourselves as we figure out how to balance this budget, in light of what we’ve told you. Now notice, what questions should we be asking ourselves, that’s pretty high altitude, pretty broad. It’s pretty accessible. People can go where they want, everyone can engage, generate something. What that reveals when you get that as the IDI, you get to see hey, are there any third rails here? I didn’t think about any big politically combustible issues that would have blown up in the 11th hour, you get maybe some new angles you hadn’t thought about and you get to understand In the mind of your board, what’s on their mind?
BILL 20:02
And what are they thinking about helps you engage them better when you come back a few months later with that budget, fully baked, wrapped up in a bow, whatever metaphor you want, they’re the board’s already shaped it in some way by that earlier conversation. So that’s the timing altitude, put to them a question that moves them beyond Are there any questions and timing on bigger issues, get into dialogue Well Ahead of the vote, not so the board can tell the IDI what to do. But to help the IDI frame the issues and think about them. So I’d put those both out there, as I think practical devices or moves, that an ED and a board leadership team could make shift some of this from the waters we’re talking about.
RHEA 20:48
I want to make sure that we get to the questions of generative strategic and financial leadership. But before we get there, as you’re talking, one thing that is occurring to me is the importance of a strong board chair, right, because, in theory, a board chair is supposed to manage the board. In practice, what I see a lot of board chairs that are well meaning but largely ineffective or too busy to actively manage the board, which makes means that it falls to the end. So can you talk to us about the importance of a board chair? And how they can actually help this process or hinder the process?
BILL 21:27
Yeah, no, it’s great question, you have seen both varieties and everything in between, as have I. And I think part of when you think about board chairs, in some cases do is literally the board chairs, not reflecting at all on what is my role as board chairman, they are implicitly I think viewing it as what, I’m co CEO, or I’m the supervisor of the CEO, or I’m the top board member, it’s just not a very refined vision of your role. Whereas if you say, hey, my role is not to co lead this organization, but to lead this board to ensure the board’s working on the right issues at the right time that they’re engaged, constructive, motivated. That’s plenty to do if you get clarity about that role.
BILL 22:14
So it is critical. One of the things is getting clarity about the role I extended even further, I’ve seen plenty of good boards that when it’s time to choose the next board chair, I spent 20 minutes it’s not rocket science doesn’t take one but just asking, Hey, what does this board need from the next board chair, and it will vary according to I saw it recently, in an organization that had been the product of a merger. And what that board told the incoming board chair was Do not let us talk about our legacy organizations. Stop us don’t let us talk about an organization x, we used to do it. Don’t let us do it. This really not only gave direction, but permission to the board chair.
BILL 23:00
So it’s not just what is my role, but also what does this particular group need from me in another setting, it might be you’ve come through a bumpy period might be Hey, we need you to lift our spirits somewhere else that might be hey, you need to turn the fire up half the group’s under engage. So it’s it is critically important, but the role clarity can help. And I’ll say one more thing, if you drop that type of chair with that type of clarity into a board that doesn’t have clear operating guidelines, doesn’t have a strong culture doesn’t have clear expectations for board members doesn’t have a good sense of what is the board here look like predictably, if it’s lacking all of that structure, the deck stacked against the chair. And so I think what often happens is people who wouldn’t be able to do or a fail, if the board doesn’t have any of that infrastructure.
BILL 24:00
And I’m talking about the culture as well as the practices. So I like to think a little bit not to demean board chairs. But how do you create a chair proof system, a system that’s robust enough, it’s got enough clarity and practices baked into it, that even a weak chair can bring it down, might not do a great job, but can’t wreck it. And that could extend even to meetings. And we can go back to that later. But not just hoping you get a brilliant facilitator, but instead saying, hey, let’s use three or four practices consistently, to get our meetings in good form. And then an average chair has a good shot at bringing the best out of the group. So clarity, specificity about what that role is in your organization, in wants of infrastructure, and I don’t mean like deadening bureaucracy. It just means lots of clarity about what are we doing when we do our best work and how are we I’m going to systematize that. So we don’t need a brilliant magician of a board chair, to save us thing ourselves.
RHEA 25:08
And so many things to say. But I think that’s the that, unfortunately, is the model that a lot of us work on in the nonprofit field, we just expect it, we hope and pray that a brilliant Edie drops in her lap, her brilliant development director, brilliant board chair, we don’t actually plan in advance, we just hope for the golden child. So I want to talk about board culture, because I think there’s so many, the road is littered with broken EDS along the way of people who tried to change board culture. But I think culture is read only. I think it’s the policies and the practice underneath that support culture. If that’s true, what are some of the key levers that we can pull in order to start to effectively change board culture? And then I’m going to get to fundraising next, because that’s a whole nother can of worms. Oh,
BILL 25:58
yeah, let’s open let’s take the lid off that Pandora’s box as well. Yeah, culture is tricky. And one thing to think about with culture, I haven’t really thought this through is that I am aware of this in my consulting work, how often is the culture of the board, similar to the culture of the organization, and staff, so often, those will not be the same. And that’s because the board has been recruited very often, I won’t get too far ahead of ourselves. But it is recruited very often with fundraising near the top of the list of requirements. So that’s leading you to people with a lot of wealth, or access to it, who may be at the top of their game in their field, elite, let’s put it that way. And I love these elite, I’ve met so many wonderful people who fit the bill on describing here, super generous and committed. And they may, among their peers on the board share a similar culture.
BILL 26:59
Because they’re also Alpha dogs in their companies, or whatever they get. That’s just one type of board. And they can be very different from the staff. So one thing to think of is, don’t be surprised if you go recruiting for a bunch of wealthy powerful plugged in connected people, if you end up with a group of people who have a culture or social norms that are really different from you and your team. So there’s that dimension of culture. But there’s a different dimension of culture, which is just like more, what are the habits and the practices of the group that endure, even as its members change? In there? I think this is just how do you define that culture and support that culture? I think it’s through dialogue. I really think there’s no substitute for asking questions like, I think maybe there are four or found that if all boards did this every few years, at least, and then had a way to keep themselves on track, they would have much stronger cultures, much more vibrant, engaged cultures of commitment and accountability.
BILL 28:05
But one question is simply, what does this organization need this board to be? Or do? If I’m the Gates Foundation, I don’t need this board to be fundraisers, I don’t need them to be free experts. I can I have all the money I need, and I can buy what I need. I just need strategic advisors. If I’m another type of organization, I’m going to have a broader set of requirements. So one is just starting to think about what kind of governing do we need? What type of support do we need from the board sets? Question one? What is this organization need from its board? Question two is what is that board need from each of its trustees or members? In order to succeed? This is where you’re really getting to board culture? How much do they need to give? Or do they need to give or get just to tip our hand on the fundraising again? What’s acceptable level of commitment? Can you come to meetings as you’re able? Or is this like, seriously a priority?
BILL 29:03
What are the norms about how we disagree with each other in the boardroom? or purchase all of those things? Then you could go down to, as we already talked about, what does the board need from the chair? And then you could go down to the most interesting conversations of all, in many cases at a board retreat. What is the IDI and her team need from the board? And what does the board need from the IDI and her team? And this is where you can really get if you map out an answer to that. You’re really answering the question, what’s important? What do we need and what are we holding ourselves accountable for it, that tends to drive engagement? It makes it clear, this is serious. Hopefully, there’s some joy in it, but it’s serious. It’s a commitment. It’s real service. And that’s what tends to get that culture going absent all of that.
BILL 29:56
You’re again in a vacuum, you’ll be vulnerable. up to a week cheer to the loudest most disruptive people, it’s just a crapshoot without that. And that’s where you get in really dangerous territory. Last thing I would say about this, because as I’m going through these questions in this culture of accountability, I’m sure people are think, Oh, my God, who would sign up for this in your spare time. But this, again, is something we do know from the research to what motivates people to work hard, is meaningful and interesting work. So where we tend to think about how do I, we tend to think, how do I protect my board from hard work, so I don’t scare them away? Probably a better question is, how do I find the most important work so that they will lean in? And that’s what he does? Do people are blocking out after 35 hours, they’re sticking at it because the work is important. It has meaning to them, and they can see it’s consequential. And they’re fired if they don’t. So anyway, that’s, that’s a whole side race. Oh, my
RHEA 30:57
gosh, there’s so many stopping points. But actually, one thing that you said that I really want to talk about briefly, but we can get a million rabbit holes, is I’ve been increasingly aware, and I’ve heard from my Ed colleagues, have this tension between the staff and the board. So the staff tends to be younger, and our generational tensions that are differences and maybe political views, social views, etc. And what I’ve seen and I’d be curious about your thoughts is that the staff tends to be younger, much more progressive, much more aware of things like racial justice and social justice compared with the board, that tends to be a bit more homogenous, probably a bit older generationally different. And I’m wondering, as an ED picture, what does one do, because your job is to work with both of these groups in order to move a mission forward. And it can often feel like being stuck in the middle, I speak for myself, I felt like I’m stuck in the middle between these two groups.
BILL 31:58
One is, and so you can’t just align yourself with one group or the other. If you’re a needy, you really are uncomfortable to we’re committed to helping both of them succeed. But they really can be so different. I think everything you’ve described is really true, especially in like I would say in my work in higher education, arts and culture, obviously anything rights based advocacy base, you literally will see it ideological differences, even among people who are they’re all committed to the same mission. So it’s not Florence Nightingale and Attila the Hun don’t get along. These are people who really do have fundamentally the same politics. So what’s going on with that? And how do you bridge that divide? I think part of it is just letting the two groups get to know each other a little bit.
BILL 32:53
And this can help boards in their governing anyway. So on all floor, the brown bag, one juror, the cocktails, where some board members can sit with a couple of staff, they need to the conversation needs a little bit of curation. So it’s not a free for all a little bit of a it could be just like, hey, what’s got you feeling great about this mission we’re committed to these days? Or what do you feel is really daunting, what’s got you feeling really optimistic about our organization’s prospects? What’s got you feeling really challenged, just to get to know each other? How they think. And I think what it can do reduce the tendency on both sides to caricature on the board side to see Oh, geez, look at these fired up woke staff members, and from the staff saying, Oh, god, look at these prehistoric titans of industry. So just the human touch.
BILL 33:45
And that’s actually important to governing, because you need to have your finger on the pulse of the organization. So that’s one, I think jus is and this is specifically around issues of diversity, equity and inclusion. I think it’s important if boards want to get into that, that they find a way into it thoughtfully, and that they don’t just grab a trainer, because what I have seen too often are people bringing for this worthy goal, right? Let’s make ourselves as best we can be in terms of our commitment to these values of diversity, and inclusion or equity or belonging, however they frame it, and the board will be delivered a trainer that’s got it could be really interesting. And it could be really well done, but a framework that say like some of them that are built, get woven into them is an anti capitalist view of oppression and about concentration of wealth and power.
BILL 34:40
And it’s gonna that may be fine. That may be very appealing and compelling. Is this actually going to work for this board? No, it’s not going to turn them off. So I find on that issue particularly, I’ve seen for his incident. I recently saw a board that took more of a book club approach. So they took some articles by Coates and by a more centrist MLK style, 60s style EP approach, not referring to them in the current day, and they gave him a menu and they sat and dialogue, and we’re like, hey, which are we? And how would we live those values out in it was much more productive than having dropped on them, frameworks that are just really hostile to who they are. So there’s a lot there. But I think getting to know each other a little bit, obviously can be helpful.
BILL 35:30
And then really taking seriously this work, and not just grabbing a trainer and do things off the shelf. That being thoughtful, that can help. And then I think just making your peace with the fact that it can be okay. If the staff and the board have different life experiences, or a different life stages, might have different values, as long as we’re different politics really, as long as they really are on the same page by permission. I don’t think that’s a bad thing. I think that’s a healthy thing. If a billionaire board member can get along great with 28 year old activists, the country probably needs more people who can get along like that. So I’m all for it.
RHEA 36:14
It’s funny, I just did an interview with my friend Darren about generational differences, and Boomer and Gen X leaders, and Gen Z millennial stuff. And it was a spicy conversation. So folks should definitely check that out. Alright, let’s talk about the F word fundraising. The number one complaint I hear from every executive director or CEO is my board is not fundraising. Yeah, I think there are many different reasons why that could be true. Sometimes people are not recruited with the expectation. That is what they are supposed to be doing. Other times they’ve not been provided the proper training to know what fundraising actually means or entails. And then other times, they’re just avoided. I mean, it’s a huge question. But what are some of the things that you’ve seen that are really keeping boards from engaging in fundraising, which, frankly, is their fiduciary responsibility?
BILL 37:06
Yeah, this is another one where there’s like the meta version of this. And then there’s like the real life and Netta version, it is good to keep an eye on this. If we want to change things. In the long term, the meta version is that for us nonprofits, we have decided to make fundraising essential to the governing equation, as you could say, it really doesn’t have to be. And indeed, some boards get along fine without to participate their organizations succeed without their involvement in fundraising. But just like that’s a choice we’ve made. But one of the things to notice is how bad inadvertently makes governing so hard, and how hard it is to get a board that’s both really good at governing. And really good at fundraising, we’re kind of practical support functions. And the reason why it’s hard is if you’re using the board for fundraising, right out of the gate, you want that board to be as big as you can get it to be.
BILL 38:04
So you have more seats is more money, quite simply. So this is why we end up with most boards would prefer to be smaller, in the reason they’re big is they’re trying to get the board not just to govern but to fundraise big board, good for fundraising mix governing quarter to have the type of dialogue we talked about. So that’s at the middle level to go back to your culture. And this I know it was a little bit cartoonish the way I was talking about it, at least. But yeah, the board culture and the staff culture, that’s a product of our use of boards for fundraising, because we’re drawn to people who are going to have lots of money. So they will tend to be older, they’ll tend to be in business very often in the US right now. It’s finance, private equity, venture capital types of pursuits, that’s going to be very different from the stuff that’s another offshoot of it. So I just raised that to wrong, mind us. This is a choice we’ve made.
BILL 39:03
And it has some downsides in it at the metal level, what we have said is we’re turning the nonprofit sector over to people who preferably have a lot of money. So what would it look like at a grand scale? If instead, we had people who are super smart, savvy, strategic, high performers, but whatever, they weren’t from private equity, they were teachers, or they were professors. And I don’t mean like this glorious kind of image of total participation by everyone, but just it would be different. So I point that out, because it’s a choice we’ve made with a lot of negative consequences. Okay, just step into reality. Since this is where we live. You already guess I’m gonna say that has a lot to do with getting clarity about what what our role is. Here’s what I’m seeing now is that the places that do best with their boards as fundraisers are not only thoughtful in recruiting about it.
BILL 40:04
But they go beyond just the in letter of the law that either says make us one of your top three philanthropic priorities, or you must give or gab X dollar per year. And they’re really if not literally asking them implicitly, they’re asking and answering the question, how are we going to inspire, and equip this board to step up as fundraisers. And that means training them, that means giving them their elevator pitches. That means getting them to really understand the organization so they can be authentic champions of it. It means setting up the ask of the lotto logistics, to get 20 or so people who don’t work in the place on the same page, following up on tasks. So there’s a lot to it that needs to be done.
BILL 40:55
And when we say equip and inspire them, the other thing I see on boards that have succeeded goes back to the way you framed your question, because you said the question you often hear is Edie saying my board won’t step up and fundraise. The boards that are succeeding, own the challenge. So it’s not the IDI out there alone scratching his head saying, How the hell do I get this group engage? There are people on the board, who are saying, Hey, we’re not stepping up. And there’s a board conversation once a year, that says, not all of us gave last year, when here was the median gift here was the hot not with names, of course. Here’s the high and the low and the median. And over three years, here’s how it looks. And hey, we’re not doing what we said we would board. Are we going to change that? So it’s ownership. The worst wilderness to be in is the one you’ve been in and lots of people are in the board doesn’t really own it. There’s not a lot of clarity. The IDI and the director of development are like pushing on a rope. And that the board’s kind of yessing Oh, no, of course, we want to help. And then there’s a lot of finger pointing the boards, I don’t have the right elevator pitch. And
RHEA 42:08
I ate the deck done.
BILL 42:10
I needed a different deck, my peak, right respond to that bond I needed in all of that in Earth sense, which is basically just an excuse for kind of not doing it. So it really, to me, it’s just about getting real. And if that means lowering aspirations to a more realistic level, one that you can achieve, that’s probably healthier for the organization than banging away at some theoretical fundraising role or goal that, you know, they’re going to struggle to deliver. And then it becomes such a downer for everyone. DAF feel disappointed the board members, if they’re paying attention, are feeling guilty. So it’s a lot I will say it just blows my little rant here. But I did see one Ed, in a social service feel this is what got going in consulting, to was proposing to his board in our process.
BILL 43:07
Let’s if you want to be donors, of course, you should we want you to, but we’re not going to pay any attention to you as fundraisers, this has been a huge waste of time. And mental energy, we will be much better off figuring out our business model, getting our government grants, in better shape, doing better events, doing better marketing. And I’m just going to stop wasting our time with this. We couldn’t wait to see how the story ended. And the guy got recruited, of course, to be CEO of a foundation, where he would never have to ask his board for money again, but we need I think we need more honest conversation, not to let people off the hook, but just to find a realistic path forward. But there are plenty that bring it all together in the ways Yeah. And do what I do joyfully. Yeah.
RHEA 43:59
And the one thing that you didn’t mention that I find is hugely important. And in my work in training fundraisers is we have to talk about money and one’s relationship to money. I think we assume that if you’re a person of means that you don’t have any negative baggage about money, or asking people for money or asking your wealthy friends for money, and I think that couldn’t be further from the truth. I think in our culture, money is the third rail. We make it mean so much. We have so much emotion attached to it that our poor members are also fearful of rejection. They’re also fearful of asking for money. They also have their own baggage around money. So I think we also have to acknowledge and lean into that.
BILL 44:41
Absolutely. This is all where we’re both at is let’s get real about it.
RHEA 44:46
Let’s get real. Let’s talk about the thing. Okay, but I could talk to you forever. But last question for me. And I will credit you after having read governance as leadership having gone through dinner from a craze course at Harvard, I changed my board meetings because I realized that I was talking way too much at my board meetings. And why is it that I was at the table with brilliant people? I already knew what I knew, why am I wasting my time? When I could be asking to know what they want that what they know. So could you walk us through the three modes of governance? Because I find it hugely helpful. And how do we get to that generative level? Because do you find that there’s a lot of richness there? There’s a lot of purpose, there’s a lot of connection, but we often get into the weeds of the budget.
BILL 45:33
That’s a great question. And this is not a kind of I know, I’ll be happy to give you the mini tour. Yeah, this is not a highly prescriptive board operating model that my colleagues are retailer to chayton, I put this model out 15 years ago or something, it was what we were really trying to do is put some language and a framework to walk boards were doing when they felt themselves to be very effective. And what we saw as they were capable of working across these different modes you refer to, one is the fiduciary mode, where the board’s real job is to protect the assets of the organization, including its reputation, but definitely, its financial assets by providing oversight, and a one and board life is set up to accomplish to support the boards work in that fiduciary mode. So we have audits.
BILL 46:33
And we have dashboards and we have finance committees, investment committees, if we have money, if we’re lucky enough to have money to invest. And even the committee structure of boards is typically built for that oversight. So whatever management as the board will have a committee Oh, we have facilities are at the board has a Facilities Committee, we’ve got a big staff, let’s have a Personnel Committee, we have programs committed to all of that. And this is all good boards should be overseeing the organization, they should be looking to make sure it’s in compliance. No one’s looting, or stealing, or wasting resources that should go to mission. Obviously, that’s all appropriate. But it is interesting that everything tilts that way.
BILL 47:18
In board design, it’s really all about that, even when the board wants to switch to the other really familiar mode, which is strategy, how are we going to get we know where we are now to point B where we want to go, it has to start clearing the regular board furniture out of the way, we have to have a retreat, which is telling you right away, our meetings are designed, so they don’t even support meaningful conversation, we have to serve that, well, we’re gonna have to have a strategic planning task force, because really, our committee structure isn’t aligned with strategy. So strategy, the boards are really familiar with that can do it less well, or better, depending on what they’re up against and what their resources are. But boards can be really good at that.
BILL 48:02
And staff can really take the lead set the table. So that’s pretty, pretty familiar to people. The third mode, which we call generative, that we talk a lot about, because we think a lot of boards can have breakthroughs here is not isn’t legal? Is that the right level of risk? It’s not about those fiduciary concerns. It’s not these kind of analytical choices you make in strategy, would it be better to go that path or this path, if the generative work is trying to generate, first of all, just a sense of what’s going on here. So you take an organization that I’m dealing with one right now, its revenues are down demand for IT services are down, the first thing that board is trying to do is collectively generate a sense of what the problem or challenges and they’ve differ on that some of them are like, this is a blip. You’re too focused on the past two years, just let’s keep forging ahead, don’t get rattled. Others are saying these are early warning signs, canaries in the coal mine, we’ve got to get our act together.
BILL 49:13
And there’s a third group that are feeling pretty when say panicky, but concerned how they decide to make sense of this. Is it really urgent or is it just troubling? Is it a calamity, or is it just a rough patch? How they make sense that that is going to determine what their options are. That’s the generative work. It’s finding out before staff tries to solve the problem. What actually is the problem? So to generating sense, it could be before you’re about to develop a new proposal generating the design criteria. Yeah, we want to expand nationally. But we have to do it in a way that guarantees these five things. So we’re generating a frame and a point of reference, all of this This then shapes, what staff what board committees do downstream. So it’s generating an insight and agreement about what’s the situation. And then what’s important for us to get right. And then then in turn, drives the problem solving.
BILL 50:17
And the last thing I’d say about it is what’s so useful about that work engaging your board to say that in effect, how do we make sense of what’s going on here? Okay, more had helped me as the IDI. Think about this. What’s great about us, it’s very accessible. Everyone can weigh in on conversations about risk, can weigh in on how to make sense of the situation of the organization doesn’t require expert knowledge doesn’t require the board to know what the IDI knows. So it’s a space where the board really can engage productive lane. And by doing that, they tend to get more motivated, because they’re doing work where they can see they’re shaping things. And that motivation, by the way, and and ultimately pay off, of course, and fundraising to not write that dirty word. But yeah, the more you’re owning it, the more you’re shaping it, the more you’re influencing it, through good board work, the more passionate people tend to be, and the more generous they tend to be.
BILL 51:19
So this can all come together. It never comes together perfectly. Boards are human systems, and you got a lot of people. And as you said, they’re episodically engaged. So it’s I accept a fair amount of messiness. But there are plenty of boards out there that get enough of it. And so that these aren’t feeling nauseous. The day of the board meeting, board members aren’t leaving UCLA. Why did I just waste my time? It’s possible. And that’s my ultimate message. keep chipping away. Keep asking the fundamental questions about what your organization really needs, how you’d like to work, don’t take foolish risks. If you’re an EDI, with brutal honesty, make it real, get real about what you need and what the organization deserves. People tend to respond to that.
RHEA 52:05
So thank you. So you delivered us right where we started, which is that people want meaningful work, and they want to be part of something brilliant, I will make sure that all of your information is in the show notes below. Thank you so much. We could have gone on for hours. There’s so many questions.
BILL 52:20
We’re both interested enough in that nerdy topic. Apparently we could. But this was great to have a chance to do it. Thanks so much for having me. Rhea.
RHEA 52:28
Thank you so much for being on the show. And I will make sure to include your information if folks want to get in touch with you. I have to say from my own personal my perspective as well as those of my colleagues Bill Ryan is the man to hire I know probably are now looking for more business, but we
BILL 52:43
finally get to the hidden agenda of my appearance.
RHEA 52:48
That there’s a reason for it to be hidden. This is how I figured out a fundraiser bill. Nailed it. Alright, take care everyone. Thanks so much.
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