Are you trying to strengthen your board?

The answer should be “yes!”, an ongoing goal of every director and existing board member. We always need to be on the lookout for who is needed and can bring resources to our work by serving on the board. But sometimes we go about it in ineffective ways. We think we need a lawyer or business people or people who have wealthy friends, before we take stock of what skills are already inherent in the current board membership, and what skills are needed to help us accomplish the goals for this ministry in the next several years.

Focus on actions needed when developing a board membership matrix!

Rather than recruit someone "with connections to city hall," ask a prospect if he would be willing and able to set up a meeting twice a year with those responsible for building and zoning regulations that might affect your next building plans. Instead of recruiting someone because she's wealthy, ask her whether she would be willing to organize three other board members into a group that would try to raise $50,000 per year as a group. Instead of framing your need for persons of various racial/ethnic backgrounds, recruit members of communities you actually want to and can serve. Together identify leaders who provide the people connections and possibly the training needed, so that more diverse populations actually participate in your ministries.

By focusing on what people will do rather than what people are, we accomplish three goals:

• We broaden our field of sight as we recruit for the board. Rather than just looking for someone in marketing, we think more widely and include bloggers, writers, community organizers, and others who know how to communicate a message.

• We don't end up recruiting someone with the right demographics or professional background or financial means but who can't or won't do what we have mistakenly assumed they could or would. When we recruit people for what they will do, we get people who can and do what is needed, because we've asked them if they can and will. And someone who has joined a board to help with something they’re passionate about and able to do, is someone who will want to get started on that at his or her very first board meeting.

• We ground board recruitment in the needs of this organization at this time in its development, rather than on a generic set of skills or attributes out of a textbook. By doing so, we focus our recruitment on the critical path of our unique organization and its strategic, pressing needs.

So throw out that template board composition matrix. Instead, ask these questions:

What are the three most important things for our board to accomplish in the next 1-4 years?
Do we have the right people on the board to make those things happen?

Rev. Lisa Jean Hoefner serves part-time as Director of Lake Tahoe UMC Retreat Center in King’s Beach, CA and pastor of the Dinner Church housed at the Center. She also chairs the UMCRM Association’s Development Committee, is UMCRM's unofficial expert on the History of United Methodist Camping, and plays in the Tahoe Toccata Symphony. Lisa Jean retired as Executive Director of Camp/Retreat Ministries for the Oregon-Idaho Conference in 2015. Her career has spanned nearly four decades serving local churches and camp/retreat ministries. Lisa Jean also holds a D.Min. in Camp/Retreat Ministry and a certificate in Nonprofit Management.