Non-profit Board recruitment resources

Board recruitment is on my mind because I'm starting my second year chairing a non-profit Board and the personnel committee, which in our organization serves as the nominations committee, has asked me to help them think through the framing of our nominations process. As a pastor in the United Methodist church, I also serve as the chair of our congregation's nominations committee, so it also true that I've always got nominations thoughts in the back of my mind. 

I remember the first non-profit Board on which I served. It was a local Board, and I remember looking around and noting that I was the youngest one there and likely the only person of my generation. I was also the only pastor. In retrospect, I had likely been invited to join the group in large part because someone had been working from a Board matrix and was hoping to fill in some spots that had looked empty. That Board was where I gained my working knowledge of profit/loss reports, donor relations and personnel committees; and in my second term learned how to conduct organizational merger due diligence when our affiliate merged with one in a city a few counties away. Since then I have served as the Executive Director of two non-profits, Interim Executive Director of two others, and been a member and/or officer of at least twelve others. I've learned a great deal along the way, including the value of taking the time to recruit a mission-focused Board of Directors. 

Some Boards on which I have served have fairly well-defined recruitment plans accompanied by firm two three-year term rotations for service, but many others have found themselves dealing with some stress when they realize that several long-term Board members are retiring from service at the same time. I went searching online for some of my favorite tools for considering both recruitment and composition, and have assembled some here.

I remember the first time I heard of something called a Board Matrix. I think it was about 15 years ago, and I was probably attracted to it because it involved a chart and the word "matrix." When I searched for more information about the board matrix, the first thing I found was a critique of it from Blue Avocado, the enewsletter of American Nonprofits (find out more and sign up for the enews here: blue avocado This article matrix critique describes both the board matrix model of analyzing board composition and then proposes a better way, which hinges on recruiting Board members to help meet the goals of the organization.

The idea is this: determine what your organizational goals are, figure out what your Board’s role is in meeting those goals, and recruit people who can help you achieve those goals. This might sound like an obvious recruitment strategy, but often we use other strategies, such as replacing a Board member with someone we already know well; finding someone who reminds us of the person who is departing; or continuing to mine a particular institution or workplace for volunteers who serve in sequence.

I suggest reading the Blue Avocado article above deeply but then returning to some of the notions of what made the matrix popular a decade or so ago. Here’s a link to a sample template I found online: matrix template While the formulaic nature of the matrix can be problematic, stifle creativity and prevent the nominations or governance committee from recruiting new members with the overall vision and/or near-term goals in mind, I do think it carries with it the asset of accountability when it comes to having a lens for diversity within the governing body. Any time we are intentional about saying, “who is at our governing body table, and are they representative of our community and people who might be overlooked?” I think we are helping our Board of Directors become stronger.

I think diversity in a Board of Directors strengthens the group, and this includes personal demographics as well as knowledge base, constituent and affinity groups, and local/regional perspectives. While I was looking for a sample board matrix, I found this article, which is one of many on different topics related to diversity on non-profit Boards. I think it is helpful and compelling: racial diversity on nonprofit boards

I like to include a garden photo - this is a photo of the Botanicial garden in Berlin, from September 2016

 

 

Favorite public health resources

I'll write another post with some strategies for local churches to become more aware of and active in public health initiatives. For now, here are some resources that might be helpful in learning more about Public Health. 

One way to learn more about Public Health is to select a particular project and then begin to learn about the component parts to the underlying cause of whatever problem is being addressed. For instance, hunger advocacy might emerge from working with a particular food pantry and learning more about the needs of the people being served, the root causes, and then discovering interventions related to policies and practices that have led to the situation of people not having enough food.

General Board of Global Ministries: Find organizations doing solid public health work around the world. A wide range of topics, geography and scale are represented on this site, which has been revised to become much easier to navigate than "in the old days." http://www.umcmission.org/

United Methodist Women: Public Health issues are included throughout this website; see the Advocacy and Press Room tabs for clickable links to particular topics. http://www.unitedmethodistwomen.org/

General Board of Church and Society: Click on the "Explore Topics" link or use the search bar in the upper right corner to look for particular health-related issues. http://umc-gbcs.org/

American Public Health Association: resources on many, many, many public health topics. This is the national membership organization for public health practitioners. See the "policies and advocacy" tab to read about current issues and sign up for action alerts. https://www.apha.org/

Influenza: everything you could want to know, including maps and statistics.  http://www.cdc.gov/flu

Ebola: course for the general public from the Nebraska Medical Center. Home to one of four biocontainment facilities in the nation, the Nebraska Medical Center has produced an online course with basic information about this disease. http://www.nebraskamed.com/nebraskaebolamethod

Local Health Departments: If you are having trouble locating your local health department, this site should help.  http://www.naccho.org  Don't let the fact that the acronym seems to spell a tasty snack through you off; it stands for National Association of County and City Health Officials. 

UNICEF: Their website includes articles that help explain global public health issues from a local context. http://www.unicef.org/

American Community Garden Association: Community Gardens are an excellent way to strengthen local food systems, which then strengthen local public health and entrepreneurship. Find out more at this website, which includes a map of existing community gardens. https://communitygarden.org/

This was the last bouquet of the season from my yard, taken about two weeks ago before unseasonably cold air descended on Nebraska... and most of the nation. I'll look forward to seeing my flower friends again next year.

Pizza Crust, a recipe

I had a brief pizza crust crisis yesterday. I had planned for us to make our own pizza at youth group, but my cookbooks are now divided between two houses and the pizza crust recipe was in Omaha, not Lincoln. I did some research, and this is my working version of pizza crust. 

Stir one package of yeast into one cup of warm water. 
Add some honey, and let sit a bit.
Remember to turn on the oven, probably to 400 degrees. 
Stir in 1/2 cup flour with a fork. 
Add a tablespoon of olive oil.
Add another 2 1/2 cups flour, perhaps a cup at a time. 
When stirring doesn't seem to work any more, start kneading the dough.
Stop kneading once the dough seems elastic-y. 
Shape dough into a lump, set in a bowl in the back seat of your car, where it will remain while you do your errands. This works best on a warm, but not scorching, day. 
A couple hours later, divide the dough into two parts, spread out onto a pan (check to be sure baking sheet fits into your oven)(sadly, not all baking sheets you find in the parsonage actually fit in the oven).
Bake about 7 minutes, enough to get the dough to a place it won't absorb all the tomato sauce while you continue baking. Proceed with topping pizza, and bake about 10 minutes, maybe more depending on how reliable the temperature setting on your oven really is. 

The petunias and snapdragons on 33rd St are holding up well this fall. I like mixing peach and pink together in planters.

 
 

GPUMC health insurance - questions for the longterm

I could also title this: why we don’t have to meet in person

The Great Plains Conference of the United Methodist Church is working on deciding how to care for clergy health insurance in 2015. A number of resources have been made available this week, including details of a proposal to move away from group insurance to individual coverage. The decision about whether to make this change will be made by the Annual Conference, comprised of lay and clergy members. Which brings us to a pre-question: Should we insist on meeting in person to make this decision, or is it acceptable to utilize an e-ballot with a mail-in option for those without access to email?

My first instinct was to think that such a significant change absolutely demanded an in-person meeting. An inconvenient, likely-resented ritual gathering of the Annual Conference seemed appropriate for an inconvenient, likely-resented change to clergy health insurance custom and practice.

I’ve moved away from that first reaction for two reasons. First, I think people will have already studied the issue as much as they want to before the meeting, and will not be swayed during a mid-morning meeting. Related to this, I don’t think it will help our new history together to have a meeting of the Annual Conference that is either poorly attended or accompanied by participant schedule and travel stress.  

My second reason is the one that convinced me it would be ok to meet via email. As I started to think about the topics I would want to discuss related to clergy health insurance, I realized that very few of them related directly to the short-term problem of how to insure clergy in 2015. My questions and concerns have to do with longer-term process questions. Questions that deserve a richer conversation and a longer time for pondering than a single Saturday morning. 

Here are just a few of the things I think it would be interesting and good for us as a Conference to discuss, but not for just a morning:

1) What is our theology related to health and healthcare?

2) What is the role of the Church as we seek to find and bring wholeness to the communities we serve?

3) To what degree does the overall health of clergy relate to the overall health of our congregations and faith journeys?

4) If it is true that over time it has always been “hard” to insure clergy, what interventions (such as Virgin HealthMiles) might we create so that both clergy and church members might be more healthy?

5) How might we learn to have conversations regarding health and healthcare in ways that move us from blame and individual benefit to a view of the world that embraces community and benefit to the group?

6) How does the stress some clergy are articulating over this proposed change relate to national stress over healthcare, and how are we as a Conference called to address the right of people to healthcare, both in the United States, and globally?

I am hopeful that after we get through the next few weeks of stress over the immediate decision regarding how to care for clergy health insurance in 2015, we will remember to address the systemic and long-term issues that accompany the short-term decisions. 

October roses in Omaha

 (In other news, the roses are outlasting the tomato plants on 33rd St in Omaha)

How to send email to several people

How to send email to several people

A friend of mine asked for tips on sending emails to groups of people.

I have mixed feelings about group emails, mostly because of what I feel is the overuse of the “reply all” option. I generally include everyone in the “to” line if I’m emailing a committee or small group. This way everyone can see who else was included. Once I get past about 12 people, I tend to use “bcc” and then list in the body of the email itself who is receiving the email. This way recipients know who else is receiving the info, and I can easily find the list of who received it in case I want to double-check. Here’s an article about bcc etiquette. I found it helpful to think about personal vs business email address norms. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/22/email-etiquette-bcc_n_1221901.html

Another way to handle group emails is… use the group email function on your email program. You likely have this option, even if you don’t realize it. An advantage to using the group email function is that once you’ve added the names to the group, you don’t have to worry that you’ve forgotten someone – you just add the group of names as a whole.

Here’s a discussion from the folks at googlemail regarding how to set up an email group on their system. You’ll find similar instructions for your own email program. You’ll notice they reference the “bcc” technique as a way to be “discreet.” I think you substitute the words “not annoying” and the sentence would still work.  https://support.google.com/mail/answer/8824?hl=en

A related question is how to set up an enewsletter. I’m most familiar with http://mailchimp.com/ and www.constantcontact.com  Both of these are cheap or free to use if you have a small database. Their websites have information about cost. An email tool like this is handy for many reasons, including: 1) you can import and existing database into the tool so you don’t have to retype email addresses, 2) spam filters realize they are enewsletters and not spam, 3) they come with templates so if you aren’t good at layout you can use one of theirs, 4) they come with an analytics tool so you can find out what percent of your newsletters were opened, forwarded, and stuff like that, 5) they are easy to forward and you can include information about how to sign up so people populate your database themselves.

If you are trying to decide which enewsletter tool is best for you, you might check and see what other churches your size are using and ask what they like best about their enewsletter, and if they feel strongly enough to make a recommendation. 

Frisco with Praying Hands

 Here's a photo of my Lincoln neighbor cat, Frisco. He's almost two years old, which I feel is too young to be a curmudgeon, but he's one of the crankiest cats I have ever met. In this photo he has just hissed at me from near my Praying Hands yard art. The hands appeared one weekend while I was in Omaha. I arrived late Saturday night, went to remove what I thought was a plastic bag... and instead found these. One of my friends says I should not worry unless I return home and discover "praying feet." The donor has not yet come forward...

About Social Media

About Social Media

I’ve heard other clergy claim that they plan to “have nothing to do with” social media. I suspect what they mean is that they wish to not start a facebook or twitter account, and are hoping to avoid dealing with a personal online presence.

Here’s what I’m thinking: it’s too late. Whether or not we want to be present on the internet, we are already there. Pastors are present and findable via internet search because our names are associated with our church, our photos are posted whenever we conduct a wedding, and we are listed in obituaries whenever we conduct a funeral. These and other digital references are happening, whether or not we are aware of them, so the advantage of participating in social media at least a little bit is twofold – you have a better grasp of how you are being represented online, and you can add your own perspective and stories instead of relying solely on others.

In addition, social media can be an excellent communication tool. Like all communications, how social media is used determines how effective it is. I think it was in Junior High that I was taught the two components of effective communication: 1) message sent, and 2) message received. Social media provides opportunities to both send and receive information.

As one of the two main curators of our church’s official information channels, my job is to choose wisely so we reach our desired audience effectively. This includes planning ahead and utilizing several tools so we create neither a dry spell nor a flood of communications. 

I find in Church communications that when I rely exclusively on the print newsletter and bulletin and spoken announcements from the pulpit, our information stream can have significant gaps in it. Adding social media to our information stream helps fill in gaps, engage people in new ways, and gives some of our members tools to invite others to participate.

While there are number of places a person can go to learn about how to use social media in the Church, I really really appreciate UMCommunications. Here’s a link to some of their information about social media: http://www.umcom.org/learn/connect-with-social-media

Current articles at this site include Instagram, blogging, and text messaging.

Today's garden photo is from Baton Rouge, LA.The garden is across the street from First UMC - I love the garden name!!!! You might enjoy the church's website, www.firstmethodist.org