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Nonprofit Radio for October 28, 2016: Get The Most From Your Board

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Eugene Fram: Get The Most From Your Board

Professor Eugene Fram returns to discuss his latest book, “Going For Impact: The Nonprofit Director’s Essential Guidebook.” We’ve got the critical things your board needs to know and pitfalls to avoid. What’s your board’s most important job? How do you use your board members’ time wisely? And a lot more.

 

 


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Hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. I’m your aptly named host. Oh, i’m glad you’re with me. I’d be stricken with calla boma lo bill, i if i heard that you missed today’s show, get the most from your board. Professor eugene fram returns to discuss his latest book going for impact the non-profit director’s essential guide book we’ve got the critical things your board needs to know and pitfalls to avoid. What’s your boards most important job how do you use your board members? Time, wisely and a lot more on tony’s, take two non-profit radio on youtube, responsive by pursuant full service fund-raising data driven and technology enabled, you’ll raise more money pursuant dot com, and by we be spelling super cool spelling bee fundraisers. We be spelling dot com my pleasure to welcome back dr eugene fram he’s, professor emeritus at saunders college of business at the rochester institute of technology. He’s served on twelve non-profit boards and consulted with dozens of others. Jeez, first gene’s first book policy versus paper clips brought him to non-profit radio in twenty thirteen he blog’s at non-profit management, d r fram dot com and there’s hyphens in between those so non hyphen profit hyphen management hyphen d r hyphen fram, dot com and he’s at eugene fram that’s what she’s your twitter jean welcome back. Well, nice to talk to you again. Pleasure to have you back with your with your new book going for impact. What what did you feel? It was necessary with this book versus the policy versus ah paperclips book. Well, i’ve had a lot of experience between then and now, and i wanted to talk about that experience, especially in the movement towards impact, as you well aware, that funders air looking for impact. Ah, or governmental organizations, they’re looking for impact and a lot of non-profits really don’t i understand that, especially non-profit board members, they think if you meet objectives and on develop outcomes, that impact but it’s really not, as you well know, right impact reporting. I’ve heard rumors to that effect. That’s. Okay, that it’s critical, uh, the the, uh, the classic case on that is the newark schools that you’re probably familiar with. So it’s not too far from you in new york city. Uh, is that, uh ah. Sucker burghdoff gave one hundred million dollars. Forty and five years later they had reached their their objectives. But there was no impact on students. Okay, so that’s, the classic lesson that there is a difference between out comes and impacts. Yes. Okay, you’re echoing what a ah, another two time guest has been on well saying it sounds like he’s two timing the show not thirty two times a show, but another guest has been on twice. Dr robert penna makes the distinction between outcomes and impact. Yeah, and more people are. But if you look at the total of non-profits that i meet, some of them will argue that this is only a fad. I had that argue with a a fellow colleague, boardmember uh, just about a year, six months ago on that she was claiming this is just another fad. Let’s forget about it. But actually, this has been, um, around for eight or nine years. At that time, the really thoughtful people in in the non-profit area were saying to me, forget about outcomes. It’s impacts that air that are very important. And where it’s coming really into the four right now i remember in nineteen ninety four or nineteen ninety five. I had a friend who who said that the internet was just a fad hey wouldn’t get an email address felt that that was unnecessary wouldn’t get a website for his company. I don’t know. I don’t know if he’s coming to the i know if he’s coming to the modern age, we don’t talk anymore. I know. Yes, i cut him off. They’re not kill those people around. And unfortunately there on non-profit board. Yeah, ok. Well, yes, i think it’s if it’s any kind of a fad. It’s a critical fad, but i don’t believe that it is. Yes, lots of funders, including individual donors, won’t want to see impact, impact investing. We’re talking about donors as investors. Well, they want to see the impact of their investment. Okay, all right, i i hope listeners, i mean, i need to pay attention to that indeed. Borden metoo okay, so you didn’t feel well. That was really not the emphasis of policy versus paper clips. That was mohr making sure. I mean, i’m summarizing an entire book and we listened to go back and check is you were on to talk about it in twenty. I believe it was november twenty thirteen, but i know it was twenty thirteen. You could research, uh, jeanne franz name at tony martignetti dot com and you’ll find it. So i’m summarizing. So forgive me for trying encapsulate a whole book into a sentence. But it was basically you don’t want your board micromanaging and dealing with details that are not appropriate for them. But rather they should be dealing. It hyre more strategic levels. Yes. That’s. Exactly it. Thank you. You remember? Well, cool for dr. Okay. Professor? Yes. Professor from dahna in rochester institute. Technology. That’s. Pretty good. And it’s. Pretty good that i went to that schlocky carnegie mellon university. So that’s. Another it’s in the same category. I don’t know. I think in a and rochester maybe, maybe, maybe. Ah, well, i guess. Why would you say that? Tonight’s debate that one, okay? Know what would be a seat so that we could be going the other way? Okay. All right. So now what i like about your ah, you’re going for impact. You have you have takeaways at the end of every chapter. I appreciate a little more than a conclusion. It’s a. You know, i like to take aways like not tonight, not that i only read two takeaways. I don’t not that people should buy the book and only metoo takeaways. You’re going to miss you a ton, but i like, you know, it’s a nice touch. I appreciate that, and also short chapters, you know, you’re in, you’re out like two, three pages. I mean summer longer chapters, certainly, but the most are, like two, three pages or so four pages, you know, in a topic and onto the next, because this is for board members, they’re volunteers. They don’t have time for treatises, that’s, right, exactly. All right, it’s. Only one hundred four pages total reading, but it also has a, uh, on index at the back with one hundred fifty different items on it. And if you really need a specific topic, all you need to do is to go to the index and you’ll find out where it’s mentioned throughout the book. Okay, okay. Um, a little more than one o four, though you cut yourself off. You got these? Yeah. You kept making your cut yourself short, it’s actually, like one hundred eleven and ah, one quarter i would say thank you. I’m glad. Because last seven. Glad your fact checking. Yeah, we’re all about and what some people did last night on the phone. All right? Yes. Last night was the last debate we’re pre recording. Yeah, i know. You know, those last seven and a quarter page is air important don’t don’t all right, um okay. So we’re going to talk about some of the things that were, you know, we only can hit highlights because i want you to listen to shit by the book for going to say, uh, we’re going to talk about you got six essentials that board members need to know we’re going to talk about that, of course, uh, we got some pitfalls to avoid way got the most important job that you’re bored has on, then using your board members time wisely and and utilizing an advisory board. So those that’s what we’re going to cover, i’ll tell you what, let’s, go out a little early for our break. Now, i’ve just tease the whole show, and when we come back, you and i have the whole hour together remaining talk about that and i know you’ve got some stories to tell. So jeanne, i know you’ll stay with us every else doing that i’ll be here, i know everyone else do the same. You’re tuned to non-profit radio tony martignetti also hosts a podcast for the chronicle of philanthropy fund-raising fundamentals is a quick ten minute burst of fund-raising insights published once a month. Tony’s guests are expert in crowdfunding, mobile giving event fund-raising direct mail and donor cultivation. Really all the fund-raising issues that make you wonder am i doing this right? Is there a better way there is? Find the fund-raising fundamentals archive it. Tony martignetti dot com that’s marketmesuite n e t t i remember there’s, a g before the end, thousands of listeners have subscribed on itunes. You can also learn maura, the chronicle website philanthropy dot com fund-raising fundamentals the better way. Welcome back to big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Okay, dr fram. Let’s. Uh, hi. Yes. Okay. Let’s, get, uh, let’s. Get into this. We got we got six essentials. And, er, the first one is be aware of rose colored glasses what’s your what’s, your concern there? Well, there are a number of different concerns there. One i find that quite often, uh, that, uh, non-profit boards will tolerate a mind this size store type of ceo, uh, because they’re comfortable with the media. Ocracy in other words, they want to be good, but not great. And you hear that expressed every once in a while that says, well, when something goes wrong, well, you really can’t expect that of a non-profits yeah, this is not the same as for-profit mediocrity mediocrity, andi. And if you take a look at it from the point of view of some board members and remember, i only speak as a boardmember i’ve never been a needy, never been in the management of a and non-profit giving you the board members point of view. So when you do that here, you’re really, uh, moving towards the bottom, all right instead. Of the top. And so you gotta expect excellence from your ceo and the management staff as much as they can do within the finances that they have or to develop creative ideas. Uh, that will take the organization to the to the future. Okay, now, but you’re also speaking as a as a professor of business former retired professor of business. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you bring in that room that respect you see and like in policy versus paper clips, i only seat major differences between the non-profit on the prophet and that is the non-profit has, uh, mission, vision and values as as their objective. The for-profit obviously has to have is the profit motive s o that is the major differences i see and and everything else to me is very much the same. Okay, excellent. All right, so so you’re you’re your your experience as a a business professor. Converts, i mean, and and i’ve also had, uh, for-profit board experiences too. Okay? Yes. Not quite as many, though you aren’t twelve non-profit points in only four or five of them, for they range from ah, national corporation listed corporations. Tio start up. Okay. You credentials are unquestioned. Don’t worry. Okay, you’re you’re on non-profit radio your bona fide. Okay, good. I want to make sure my non-profit bonified are clear. Yeah. No, no, you’re, you’re good. Okay, um, let’s talk about the next one. You have, um, being wary of the silent boardroom, or when i call it, i that’s what you call it? I’m calling it that god. Yeah. I’m concerned about deference to directors. Yeah. That’s mine. I’m adding that what? What? What’s the problem here. Too much deafness, what’s what’s the problem? Well, this all started a couple years ago when i was doing some consulting work and a young boardmember said to me, hey, you said, you know, i wished we had mohr uh what he said, conflict of discussion, he didn’t need to say me, i mean, to say in the extreme but he said more discussion in in the board room of the issues because what he was seeing in that particular situation is that the, uh, the executive committee er would make a recommendation from people’s would ask, um, passive questions. And then they would pass the emotion on de so he didn’t see any, uh, any riel discussion going on there or real probing of the issues? S so you know, when he said that i developed this idea of the silent board board room and this is very typical, and i ask your listeners if you’re a non-profit director when’s the last time you saw a person say, i’m going to give a no vote to that ah proposition, because i don’t want to be liable either personally or professionally for what the majority has saved in here on dh make sure you put my no vote in the in the in the minutes, okay? I had to do it about a year or so ago, and i stopped the whole the whole process with that statement, but typically, if the president wanted a ceo wants it, or the board chair wants that people exceed to that very, very easily, yeah, alright, too much difference given right? Not not robust, the conversation not really duitz not real due diligence and, of course, your point about liability that directors are potentially liable for them, the deeds and misdeeds of the failing to upper failing to act and misdeeds of the of the organization there, there, fiduciaries they have a legal. They have legal duties. Uh, yeah. Now ah, this all comes, then becomes part of a culture. You know, the typical even business person will say, well, i really don’t want to go against the board chair or i don’t want to go. I don’t want to go against the ceo on this on duh on and it just becomes a part of, for instance, the university trusty came to me once. And he said, we were asked to comment on a particular program which happened to be in the business area. And you can, uh he knew that i had some expertise in that area. And he said, i when i listen to the, uh, to the people there, uh, they were all saying, yeah, let’s go with it, he says, but deep down in my heart, i felt that this was actually reducing the quality of the program. And he said, but early in the hand, i didn’t want to be negative, so i went along with it. So she’s kind of doing a confessional to may, right? But that’s, what you will often find in these situations why should i cause conflict? Why? Should i be the outstanding a negative person in the area. So forth in the situation i said in the committee meeting, i says, if you pursue this and my ass and i gave my reasons for it, i’m going teo a vote no on it. Okay? And then i never heard another thing about it after that, right? But you you have to make the vote that that you’re you believe is right that your conscience guides you two. You have my conscience there, right? Right? Right. Because i felt instead of putting the money and for what they were planning to do with it was a legitimate type of thing. I’ve felt that it had been a it should have gone into programs. Now you can overdo that, okay? And really cut out the over set, uh, down the overhead. But on the other hand, sometimes that overhead is needed, the payment is needed. I want to move to the next one. But before i do, i just want to point out you mentioned deference to the board chair. The ceo, um another. Another together. Pardon me, nto and each other. And i wanted to mention also something you point out the book is about difference, teo major donors who may be on your board that’s always right, that that could be a real problem. That’s a tricky one putting putting big donors on your board. You know, nobody wants to upset the apple cart risk-alternatives bing risk the payment by the pledge payments that have been promised, etcetera, um, you have to you have to tread carefully. Alright. Yeah, very, very carefully, andi. And you might have to compromise your values in some instances, but there’s only so far. You you should go because you still have the mission that needs to be achieved on this let’s. Move her in kapin a typical question teo typical type of donation is people will may offer you property, but the property has value, but they may pace restrictions on it, and you can’t necessarily sell it and you might be able to use it. But who’s going to pay for it in the long run out that property so far that’s a typical situation really real estate khun b could be a tricky issue, a lot of due diligence required around that, whether whether to even have that, whether to accept it in the in the first place on we’ve got i’ve got a video about that on the youtube channel, which i’m going to talk about tony steak too. I’ve got i’ve got a video on yeah, about the due diligence required for real estate gifts. Okay, jean, we need to move on because i want to i want to make sure we get everything in this hour. Next of the six essentials you described, what makes a non-profit board great? Go ahead to find to find great for us. Well, i’ve handed it something. One is the quality of the board dialogue and discussion on duh that’s. Uh, and it should be at the policy level or this or the strategic level at all time would say should be ninety percent at that level, and but you’ll find that boards get quite comfortable with discussing operations because they’re more interesting. Well, that’s the policies in policy that’s the policy versus paper across our street strategy, i have yet to find the person who goes on ah goes home and says to a significant other or her significant other oh my god, we had a just of tremendous evening. And she lt’s a he or she will say, what did you do? Oh, my god. We just discussed policy and strategy and fascinating. Yeah. Find that person, will you let me know? All right. What else? What else? Hallmarks of greek board. Tough questions. The ability. Teo, drill down. And teo, talk about things that might be had happened with the decision. Okay, andi, what air the unintended consequences of the decision. Ok, so these all need to be laid out and that’s where the tough questions there. Okay. And what else? Uh, well, you need a board diversity and experience. Unfortunately, many non-profit board members are made up of for friends, family and neighbors. Okay? And you rarely see intra prin nouriel uh, board members, people who haven’t an enterpreneurs, rials streak in them or willing to take some some modest risks. When it comes to risks, the typical board will back off because they don’t want to be risked in a situation in which they might be liable. So so those are the three top things, as i see out out of that area. Okay, hallmarks of a great board on. Okay, let’s. Move. Teo, our fourth are our fourth essential straight straight talk about the board members responsibilities. Go ahead. Okay. One is she obviously have used fiduciary responsibility. Uh, overviewing the board, but at the same time not micromanaging it on dh. Also understanding the difference that we talked about between outcomes and impacts is one thing. Shall i go on? You have another one? Yeah. Yeah. Fund-raising yes. Boards have a responsibility for fund-raising, but you have to have, uh but, uh, except if you might delegate it to a foundation to fundraise for you and that is that is a perfectly legitimate approach, but boards totally have a responsibility for fundrasing, but there. But as a group, they’re really not effective. Okay? It usually takes about three or four people who are comfortable with fund-raising on are willing to drive it. Okay? No. And, uh, you know, that’s kind of the facts of life of jean. Do you like to see these? These expectations about director responsibilities in a written document for new board members off course. And, for instance, i saw one for a, uh, for a human service organisation in which their expectations for the board we’re all listed and pretty much followed. What? I had a policy for what i have in policy versus paper clips, but they they left off the fund-raising, but they had a separate foundation set up to handle fundrasing. No. Okay, so that’s, that that’s acceptable. That’s, that’s. Perfect that’s find acceptable. Okay, so they’re difficult when you get into foundations. You have to, you know, and and can lead to a lot of problems where the foundation says what we raised the money. We want to determine how it’s spent. Oh, that, you know, the way it works, right? Okay. But you even if you know, even if there is a foundation the the organization’s board members may have ah, ah, personal fund-raising, you know, give or get requirement to the foundation. Yeah, but i just want to point the example i gave you a hundred. A zing was not listed in the area of board’s responsibility. Okay, right. But they left it all to the foundations. They see. It is the board responsibility. But there might also be a personal requirement to give. Yeah, there might be a personal environment for the board. Teo getter give type of thing way that we can talk about later. I have here. Okay. Now, there’s there needs to be a good amount of trust between the board and the staff. Yes. And the board in the ceo? Yeah. Yeah, well and okay. That’s hinting at something we’re gonna get to write. But now another thing. I’ve kind of abstracted what i think they’re the important ones. You have a legal responsibility that quite often boards don’t even know about, uh uh for non-profits they have to live better different from a four for-profit board in a legal way. Otherwise their quarter, their corporations the same as a for for-profit businesses. And one is, of course, in the non-profit area you have the annual iris form nine ninety and the board has a legal responsibility. Teo to review that and make sure it’s correct before it is submitted to the irs. Uh, they will even have a system for getting e-giving extensions. If you can’t meet the data on on this. The other one that few people know about are the intermediates is the, uh i r s is intermediate sanctions act, and they know about it in the sense that if you pay above average wages to the ceo uh, you can be really responsible and fine for you, but what they don’t know there are a whole host of other things related. Teo uh, the intermediate sanctions act. For instance, if you sell a piece of property below market value, the board and the management can have and i additional taxes paid on their personal texts that bills for for the for doing for voting, for improving it and doing it something something below market fto sort of an insider is insider trading basically, uh, it’s equivalent to the insider trading? Oh, it doesn’t even have to be insider. For instance, if if you sell a ah a ah, a piece of property below value to a let’s. Say a person who serves on a committee on the board. Ah, serves as a volunteer to the organization you can. You can, uh you can define you took this. Have at a tax bill added to your bill. They’re contributing writer. I have an article thoroughly explaining that if any of the people were interested in it, if you send it to my ah requested on my at eugene fram and send me an address. Where i can? Well, i can send it through regular e mail. I’d be happy to send it to them. Okay. Okay. Cool. That’s your that’s. Your twitter id. All right. Okay, i need you. I need you to sit tight for a minute while i take a little business for our sponsors and delighted who’s. Hang on, just hang on right there because we got more with professor fram coming up first. Pursuant, they’ve got another free resource for you this’s. Their donor line report card. It will help you evaluate the health of your donor pipeline spot. Possible weaknesses and identify areas of your greatest opportunity. It is an infographic, and it’s under resource is at pursuant dot com. Check out their infographic. The donor pipeline report card. We’ll be spelling spelling bees for non-profit fund-raising they’re not like any other spelling bee that you’ve seen or been to there’s live music and dancing and stand up comedy fund-raising, of course and spelling you could check out their video. These are ideal events for millennials. Great fund. We be e spelling dot com now, tony steak too. Have you checked out? Non-profit radio on youtube? There’s there are over two hundred videos on the real tony martignetti channel. Lots of interviews over a dozen playlists. Some of them are event fund-raising dahna relations playlist, social media, standup comedy, bi weekly videos and there’s. A bunch of others. Yeah. Find what you need. Look for it on the youtube channel. Subscribe my channel israel r e l tony martignetti you could just go to youtube and search twenty martignetti on the only tony martignetti doing anything substantial on youtube. I regret, though, that you have to put in marketmesuite eye, and then you still get like martin martinez. You know, marketmesuite and then i pop up, so but i’m the only tony martignetti pops up, but you got to get that g in there. That’s tony’s, take two. Thanks for checking me out on youtube. Okay, gene, that was okay. Appreciate your indulgence. Thank you know, uh uh, the other a couple more issues. Okay, only one more because i see we’ve covered the trust point here. Go ahead. One more on board members really have to understand who who the board represents. And the borg does not represent the staff quite often. They think they have to look out for the welfare of the staff. Obviously they have to look out for the welfare of the staff that they want to be productive. But their obligations are made to the various stakeholders. It could be the community. It could be the trade association. It khun b to the, uh to the mission of the organization. Obviously, esso and and the people related to the mission is ah, is the one that’s most most common for enough for non-profit not to the staff. Okay, okay, i understand that. And that’s ah, you know, we don’t weigh can’t have staff doing and runs around their vice president or their ceo and going to the board members that’s, that’s all no, no, i want to move on way. Tio, your last two are what the board should expect from management and what management should expect from the board. So i don’t know if we can maybe deal with ease the same time. But wait, let’s, take the first. You know, doing the order. You got it in the book. What? The board should what the board should expect from management and you start with, you know, no surprises, no spin on bad news must rise. So just say a little about no surprises, no spin. Well, let me, uh, let me no surprises there. Spin. Let me start that with a war story. I was on a board of a non-profit which was a very active non-profit and serving its clients well and serving, uh, it’s mission well, however, the executive committee decided that they wanted to acquire a for-profit in another city, and they had enough finances to be able to do that, and so they went ahead and do that did it? And then they came to the board and ask them teo, to approve the acquisition after they had already signed the contract and every everything else and the reason they did it, they felt there was a banker on the, uh, on the executive committee who knew all about these things, and it turned out the banker did not know our about it. For instance, the banker didn’t tell them you don’t give the buyer full payment, and until you can see that they can fit into the nonprofit organization when you you stretch the payments out so forth. So what happened is that i went for ah state on the on the board for oh, maybe another month or two. And i resigned and used the usual excuse of work pressures because i just didn’t want to abolish the whole whole thing up, actually, you. Could have. You could have had a a legal situation there if you really wanted to pursue it on. And it worked out that way. It was just a terrible act was acquisition, but let me ask you wait. Owner, the former owner wanted to run the er the division, the way she wanted to run it instead of the way the acquiring non-profit wanted to run it. That seems so i don’t know what happened beyond it. But there was evidently a lot of conflict there. What? Why? I have to ask you a question. Well, hold on. Hold on. Altum. Why? Why did you not tell them directly? What the reason for your resignation was ok. I took the easy way out. Ok? Why wine? Because, uh uh, you got me all right. I took these because i felt that they were doing well enough, and i didn’t want to muddy the water. Okay? Okay. Okay. And that’s typical of of, uh, of a poor who looks out for the welfare of what they’re doing. They were doing a good job in the base organization. But the expenditure for the, uh, for the acquisition just turned out terrible. Ok, i appreciate you’re appreciate your being honest now under on it. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for that. Okay, now wonder what the board should expect from management. We don’t have time to cover all the points that air that are part of that. So it just one more? I just couple. Okay, now i just want to cover one more in this, and then we’re gonna move on to what? What management should expect from the board. But talk about bad news must rise. Well, well, often, uh, people board members will keep bad news from the ceo or the staff will keep bad news from the ceo and s o uh, cia management has toe actually seek bad nose on this. For instance, one of the things that i recommend the people right now eyes make sure you have a whistle blower hotline for years. You owe your staff or even perhaps board members who don’t want toe get involved with, uh, causing conflict within the organization, but feel something needs to be checked out there. Ok? Eso eso you you have to. If you’re a wise ceo or board chair or boardmember you look for these things on dh you have to have the venues opened for them. All right, let’s, move to what management should expect from the board of the last of the last of our six essential wait, hold on. We don’t have again. You know, we don’t have time to cover everything listeners. You gotta buy the book. Of course. You know, we can just summarize, i wantto suggestion. I want e i want to focus on i wanna focus on something we just touched on. Briefly trust, trust and confidence. The mutual, the the that the management should expect the trust and confidence of the board. Yes, you have to have that because quite often, uh, the attitude is, well, they’re not-for-profits people. They’re not for-profit people aside talked about before. And you have to have to trust and confidence that the ceo is a competent manager. And there are ways of doing that. One of them when we get to advisory committees, uh, can talk a little more about that, too. But there has to be the trust that the ceo and his direct reports and others are competent managers, depending on the size of the agency, because the traditional point of view is that they’re not competent. If they were competent, they could be working for for-profit organised, i think that i hate that nonsense. I do two on, i’ve seen very competent people, wonderful people, you know, my traditional comment about the people in the nonprofit world, especially these there that they figured really stand ten feet tall rule that’s, the way i always look at it, no matter if their their case worker or if they’re a ceo when they do their job well, they tend to stand ten feet tall and there are a lot of people in that category, of course, no that’s, not it love that. All right, all right. We’re going to go. Teo. Teo, the pitfalls you’ve got, you got many chapters on potential pitfalls. We’re going to talk about the the the bad poor practices for border for boards. So why don’t you want to just start us off? Go ahead. Okay. One is dumbing down board with croup. Mint uh, where you take, uh, what who’s available and, er on that khun b anybody? For example, i recently encountered a situation, and i saw it myself with that board chair. In the nominations committee recommended a particular person who may accepted simply on the basis that his wife recommended he be aboard nhis no do deal is it’s so far, by the way, he lasted about two years burghdoff had a lot of problems, is and that is just, in my estimation, is just terrible. Okay, i understand. Wait, hold on, hold on. Because again, you got so much in this chapter. There isn’t time to cover. What do you remember? Everything you see and hear? Oh, yeah. Get they get stuff. Yeah, yeah, come on. You okay? You know, haley paid a fancy prices this. You know, this is a prepared show. Come on here. So, that’s our failing to this. I hear this a lot. So that’s why i’m flagging it, failing to delegate sufficient managerial responsibility to the ceo because this gets sticky. This gets to your policy versus paper clips so don’t can’t recite ceo and see him as her as a competent manager. Yes. Alright on that. That goes to what you were just saying about presuming competence and excellence not you know you’d be somewhere else if you if you want, let me give you a story on that one? When i was head of a, uh, board chair of a non-profit in rochester, we also had on the board of ah, the human human resource director of eastman kodak at that time. And so i wanted to make sure that we and i felt we had a competent person and but i was receiving static from other board members such as, well, his response. They had one hundred. The the organization had one hundred employees and hay on the comment. Wass well, hey, has the responsibility of the system pastor at my church. You know, uh, so but fortunately, i had the hr director from eastman kodak, and he says no. He said this man’s responsibility is equivalent to what a good, uh, middle level manager at kodak would have. Okay? And he should be paid accordingly. Ok. So as a result, i was able to get the salary that i wanted for for the ceo. But it took that in order to that power to get it right. All right, all right. And there’s there’s a lot more in there. There’s. Not more in that chapter pitfalls. But i want to get teo, don’t make sure we cover everything. I want to get to the most important job for a bored. What is it? What is it? The most important job for the for the board, uh, is ah eyes, i think ceo selection and overviewing okay. Hiring hiring the right ceo, hiring the right ceo and overviewing the person making sure that he looks at you as a partner. That’s. Why? I like overviewing the ceo and the board is a partnership. A relationship? It is not a boss. Subordinate relations look any good ceo no knows that. Uh, hey, here. She can be fired by the board. But if you give a develop a culture where the two are working together as partners and that both people will make mistakes from time to time. Okay, but that partnership is very, very important. Okay, okay. We’re going to go out for break, gene. And when we come back, you’re not going to talk about the last two. Will have just about six minutes or so to do that. Ondo? No, little bloomerang that like a little more than nine minutes or so to cover our last two. How to use the board members. Time, wisely and when and how to utilize an advisory board. Stay with us. Stay with us. Like what you’re hearing a non-profit radio tony’s got more on youtube, you’ll find clips from stand up comedy tv spots and exclusive interviews catch guests like seth gordon. Craig newmark, the founder of craigslist marquis of eco enterprises, charles best from donors choose dot org’s aria finger do something that worked neo-sage levine from new york universities heimans center on philanthropy tony tweets to he finds the best content from the most knowledgeable, interesting people in and around non-profits to share on his stream. If you have valuable info, he wants to re tweet you during the show. You can join the conversation on twitter using hashtag non-profit radio twitter is an easy way to reach tony he’s at tony martignetti narasimhan t i g e n e t t i remember there’s a g before the end he hosts a podcast for the chronicle of philanthropy fund-raising fundamentals is a short monthly show devoted to getting over your fund-raising hartals just like non-profit radio, toni talks to leading thinkers, experts and cool people with great ideas. As one fan said, tony picks their brains and i don’t have to leave my office fund-raising fundamentals was recently dubbed the most helpful non-profit podcast you have ever heard. You can also join the conversation on facebook, where you can ask questions before or after the show. The guests were there, too. Get insider show alerts by email, tony tells you who’s on each week and always includes link so that you can contact guests directly. To sign up, visit the facebook page for tony martignetti dot com. I’m jonah helper, author of date your donors. And you’re listening to tony martignetti non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Time for live listener love we’ve got to send out the love because love is always in the studio through the internet and interweaves of the of the nets and the woman’s and the weaves the love goes out phone lines i don’t know, you know it goes out so if you’re listening live love to you, i’m very, very grateful that you’re with us if you’re in japan, which is a very good chance you are because there’s always japan japanese checking in konnichi wa for our chinese listeners and also taiwan, always checking in ni hao and south korea also very loyal listeners on your haserot comes our ham nida, if you’re listening in the us, the love goes out just thank you. What more can i say? Glad you’re with us following quickly on the heels of live listen love it’s got to be the pod class pleasantries did i just say pod classed? I think i just iconoclast the podcast pleasantries. They always go out to our over ten thousand. I think we may be pushing twelve thousand. I gotta look at the stats. God, don’t let me look at this every week or even every month but ah, down with the the download bandwith has been expanding, so it may be more than two, but podcast pleasantries if you listening via podcast doesn’t matter how many thousands there are pleasantries to you and the affiliate affections for our many am and fm station listeners seated strategically throughout the country in carefully selected markets, our am and fm station listeners affections to you, our affiliate listeners. All right, jean, we’re going to get teo. I’m well, thank you for checking in boardmember time should not be squandered. Is that correct? That is, that is absolutely correct. Because they need thio understand you appreciating what you are doing and making sure that, uh, that they’re spending their time wisely. Okay. That’s not always the case. Uh, for example, boards tend to want to a culture eight new board members to the culture of the board. For example, if you have a financial analyst it’s likely that they might ask the person to help the bookkeeper instead of saying, why don’t you help us develop a long term financial plan for the organization? The culture is that the finances, finances, bookkeeping, not financial analysis that will take you. To the future. Okay, that gets into the micro management a bit too, if you’re having a boardmember look over the shoulder, have a staff member. Oh, all right, you have some very simple tips, but i think, you know, worth repeating because because i’ve been to board meetings that this is not done so the stuff needs to be reminded board meetings should begin and end on time. That’s right on dh er people respect that, and they they respect what what that means to them and things of that nature go ahead as we’re not just talking about these old tapes, i don’t i don’t think you specifically mentioned agendas, but nor do i like to see in agendas is is a time limit for each discussion item on the agenda, and you take a step further. You don’t just keep it there in parentheses next to the item on the agenda you appoint a timekeeper, a timekeeper. He’s not was not running definitively, not agendas should be sent out well ahead of time with the briefing materials. Most ofthe that i’ve seen is, uh, the agenda in the briefing material come to you day before or sometimes. Two days before so if you’re busy, really don’t have a chance to really study and and know what’s happening. As as a plant e-giving consultant, i am occasionally invited to board meetings to present on status, you know our plans and dance and, you know, you can tell first of all, some board members come in and they’re studiously going through the folder that was sent to them of the binder that was sent to them. You can tell that this is the first time they’re looking at it. That’s right? That’s, right. That’s done a robbery. That’s not how you make robust. Good decision. Yeah, yeah. They’re flipping through pages in the ten minutes before the meeting opens. That’s, that’s. Awful, but oh, yeah, but you see that all the time, you know? Well, it’s, uh, you’ll even see that sometime in for-profit boards to go on. But that gets kind of dangerous there because you might vote on something that will yield some fancy liability for you. Fancy liability. All right. So you like to see things? Not only before the meeting like a week in advance, but also minutes, minutes done within a week of the meeting ending? Yeah. That’s right. That’s right, because contemporaries me contemporary iss meeting’s minutes are very, very important to cover you and to make sure that they are all correct is very important. For instance, if i wouldn’t wantto i don’t want to emphasize this. If i were to vote no on something, i want to see it there at that time. So i’m on record that i didn’t think that this is a good idea. Okay, so you don’t really like waiting until the package for the next board meeting to get those units to get the minutes from the last meeting? Yeah, wait, what we have with the internet and with email and whatever, uh, there’s no reason for it except for the ceo will say, well, i just don’t have the personnel to do that. Well, uh, you auto find ways of getting that done. Okay? Uh, in each ah, and for getting it done. Yeah, so that, you know, the ceo always say, well, we don’t have the money for it, but when you press hard enough, if it’s really important, the ceo will find it. All right, we need to move to our last topic. How and when to use an advisory board. Now we just have about two minutes or so to cover this. So please bear that in mind. You have you have shortened long term purposes for an advisory board. Pardon? You recommend that advisory board to be either short term or long term? Yes. Okay. All right. Uh, it’s, your term you need people for a specific project, maybe building a on extension on the bill aboard. So you need construction people or people like that who can help you on that? That short term? Ah, long term. You want people who get to know you on and get to know the mission of the organization over over a time period. And that should be a person who is not it’s, not advisory to the board, but should be advisory to the ceo because the ceo has the responsibility for taking action. And if it’s advisory to the c e o of course, he’s going to read rejects some of the ideas except some of the ideas. And you want teo have somebody who can take action and initiate some of them. Now he has. The ceo has an obligation to report what the advisory board is saying, but i think the ceo needs to be left alone with the advisory board so he or she can let their hair down in terms of what they’re thinking about long term and what their current problems the are today, we’re going to leave it there. Gene the okay, the book is going for impact the non-profit directors essential guide book. You’ll find it on amazon. You can tell it’s packed with information we could just scratch the surface. Dr jean fran, i want to thank you very, very much. Well, thank you very much for the invitation. And i look forward to listening to it. My pleasure. And again, you’ll find jean at eugene fram fr am and his block is non-profit management d r fram, dot com and there’s a hyphen in between each of those items. All right. Okay, fine. Go. Thank you. And thank you for the questions. My pleasure, jean. Thanks for being with me. Okay. Bye. Next week. Amy sample ward returns. She’s been on maternity leave. She’s coming back alive. You bet that i guarantee you she’s coming back if you missed any part of today’s. Show. Find it on tony martignetti dot com. We’re sponsored by pursuant those online tools for small and midsize non-profits data driven and technology enabled, and by we be spelling supercool spelling bee fundraisers. We be e spelling dot com. Our creative producers climb meyerhoff. Sam liebowitz is the line producer. Gavin dollars are am and fm outreach director shows social media is by susan chavez. On our music is by scott stein. Stuck. My voice is cracked again. You with me next week for non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Go out and be great. What’s not to love about non-profit radio tony gets the best guests check this out from seth godin this’s the first revolution since tv nineteen fifty and henry ford nineteen twenty it’s the revolution of our lifetime here’s a smart, simple idea from craigslist founder craig newmark yeah insights, orn presentation or anything? People don’t really need the fancy stuff they need something which is simple and fast. When’s the best time to post on facebook facebook’s andrew noise nose at traffic is at an all time hyre on nine a, m or p m so that’s when you should be posting your most meaningful post here’s aria finger ceo of do something dot or ge young people are not going to be involved in social change if it’s boring and they don’t see the impact of what they’re doing. So you got to make it fun and applicable to these young people look so otherwise a fifteen and sixteen year old they have better things to do if they have xbox, they have tv, they have their cell phones me dar is the founder of idealist took two or three years for foundation staff to sort of dane toe. Add an email address their card it was like it was phone. This email thing is fired-up that’s why should i give it away? Charles best founded donors choose dot or ge somehow they’ve gotten in touch kind of off line as it were on dh and no two exchanges of brownies and visits and physical gift. Mark echo is the founder and ceo of eco enterprises. You may be wearing his hoodies and shirts, tony, talk to him. Yeah, you know, i just i i’m a big believer that’s not what you make in life. It zoho, you know, tell you make people feel this is public radio host majora carter. 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Nonprofit Radio for March 11, 2016: Policy vs. Paper Clips

Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%

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Eugene Fram: Policy vs. Paper Clips

Eugene Fram is author of the book “Policy vs. Paper Clips.” He introduces you to a corporate model of board governance to cut out the minutia from agendas so your board can focus where it should, on policy and planning. He’s professor emeritus at Rochester Institute of Technology, (Originally aired on April 26, 2013.)

 

 


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Hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. I’m your aptly named host. We have a listener of the week lynette johnson in virginia, she tweeted, listen to an old tony martignetti podcast with professor john list on the way to work today. Great stuff. Thanks. Thank you, lynette. That was from the february eighth twenty thirteen show and i’m gonna have to replay that one. I’m glad you brought it to my attention. That’s a very good that’s, a very good one. Lynette johnson, listener of the week thank you so much for your love of non-profit radio we have a new affiliate station welcome w l r i ninety two point nine fm in lanchester, that’s, lancaster and chester counties, pennsylvania. They’re a pacifica radio affiliate also non-profit radio is there on saturdays and sundays at ten a m welcome wlos tow our family of affiliates and welcome to the listeners in southeast pennsylvania. They’re in lanchester love it! Oh, i’m glad you’re with me. I’d bear the pain of osteo conroe dysplasia if i heard even a skeleton of the idea that you missed today’s show policy versus paper clips eugene fram is author of the book policy versus paper clips. He introduces you to a corporate model of board governance to cut out the minutia from your agendas so you’re bored can focus where it should on policy and planning. He’s, professor emeritus at rochester institute of technology and that originally aired on april twenty sixth. Twenty thirteen that’s a great shows from twenty thirteen on tony’s take two my dream realised we’re sponsored by pursuing full service fund-raising data driven and technology enabled, you’ll raise more money pursuing dot com and by crowdster online and mobile fund-raising software for non-profits now with apple pay crowdster dot com eugene fram coming up here he is from april of twenty thirteen of course i said lots of good shows from twenty thirteen. There were lots of good shows in twenty fourteen and twenty fifteen and we’ve had several in twenty sixteen also. So are you looking at the non-profit radio archive? Just go to tony martignetti dot com search whatever key words you need and all the shows related will show up. Here’s your jean fran, showing up my pleasure now to welcome eugene. Fran. He is professor. Emeritus at rochester institute of technology he’s, a consultant, board chair and volunteer director for non-profits he has authored a co or co authored more than hundred twenty five journal articles on marketing and non-profit and corporate governance, he wrote the book policy versus paper clips, which you confined on amazon to introduce a governance model that we’re going to talk about on twitter he’s at eugene fram f r a m just like the oil filter eugene fram, welcome welcome good morning to you. Good morning to you, it’s it’s morning in california on the day that we’re recording. Very early morning so thank you for joining me this early from the left coast it’s. My pleasure, jean are you are you part of the fram filter family bunny chance? Unfortunately i am not you’re not those things still around. I don’t own a car. I haven’t had a car for years. We are fram oil filters still around. Do you know what? I think? They’re still on the web? I seen them. Okay, you have but that’s, not you. I’m sorry on that’s. Not name that’s. Alright. I’m not part of the great martignetti liquor family in boston. And new england either. That’s. Okay, the both of us are suffering from famous names and chronic under representation in the in those wealthy families. Yes, we’ve been born with huge handicap. I’m still trying to overcome mind. I hope you have overcome your one hundred twenty five articles. Yeah, somewhat. But, you know, my ambition is to go to a thousand. Okay. Well, now that you’re in retirement, you have more time for that. But yes, that’s true. Professor emeritus jean what? What’s what’s happening with boards? Why? Why do you feel they are missing the mark? Well, boards from a governance point of view non-profit boards and from the government’s point of view frequently have retained the old, uh nineteenth or twentieth century model off of governance where the board has a multitude of committees and tries to eventually micromanage the uh uh, the staff in the process, nothing gets done or the organization, although it has potential as stunted growth. Ah, if it in that way, because volunteers like myself and again as i talk, i’m not talking as a non ah non-profit ceo or e d i’m talking as a volunteer director. We can’t be there. Day today, and we can’t, uh, manage the minutia that it’s no, are they not necessarily monisha or the work that really needs to be done and we can’t really manage truly professional staff, we can help, we can advise we can help. We have an obligation to set policy, but ah, but we’re simply part timers or some person has described that we’re birds of flight through the through the organization because we’re there, uh, traditionally three to six years, and the staff stays and works and works under different boards. Your concern is that despite the well meaning board on dh and individual members having great potential and the best interests of the organization heart, you feel they’re actually through these old models stunting the organization? Absolutely. And i think it could be proven when you look at any number of organizations which has suffered this way. Do you want to give an example or to, uh well, i’ve consulted with a number of them on, but i don’t want yeah, i’ll talk t o generalities specific organizations where, uh, the the board actually got ah, where the volunteers on the board actually got involved to the level. That they were they were managing departments. S o if the decision had to be made, the department had first went to the volunteer uh ahh advisor or whatever they call him at the time and then went to the e d with the advisers either decision or concern or whatever the department had wanted. So the organization didn’t grow until they finally change. They finally changed the model full time employees reporting to a parttime volunteer diver. Person. Exactly. Oh, my all right. Let’s, let’s. Start with the beginning of the process and we will get to the corporate model that you lay out in your book way. We’ll get to that let’s. Take a couple of discreet sort of time line points and along a board members life cycle with the organization like i’d like to start with recruitment makes sense, i think. What can we what can we improve around our board? Recruitment? Well, the chief executive officer where, whether they be a nadie or a president ceo, as i suggest, needs to have more contact with the board with the individual board members, i think. Ah ah, they have tto have more contact between meetings that has to be in often and formal. Ah, and they have tio they need to get to know each other. And i suggest, uh, that, uh, they actually made quarterly to informally discuss the concerns and the challenges that the chief executive officer is facing. I, uh there are various techniques for doing this. I recently read in the harvard business review, uh, a recommendation that the ah ah o r one for-profit ceo actually sends a e mail out to the board every sunday morning. Uh, just laying out very briefly, uh, in this case, his concerns about what’s going on in the organization and what new ideas? He has a c as he indicated in the article, he says, i don’t worry about grammar right now. Gina, i’m trying to focus on recruitment, so maybe maybe in in in this board meeting is often is you you’re suggesting they’re identifying gaps in the board and maybe they can try to fill those gaps with new board members? Yeah, that’s, right. Okay. And but as they’re going through that recruiting process to identifying skills that they need that the board is lacking, how should they be talking to potential? Board members well, they should talk to board members that what they do is to value their contributions of time, the most important thing, and they make ah, meaningful use off the board members time. Ah, they don’t ask the boardmember the potential boardmember to do frivolous things, uh, such as stuff envelopes or our or get involved with watching slide shows or commenting on slide shows as one that i’ve heard of s o that that they focus on, uh, they focus on the policy and the strategic issues of the organization. Okay, we’re going to take a break now, jean, and when we return, we’ll keep talking about the little about the life cycle of the boardmember and then we’ll get into the corporate model that you lay out in policy versus paper clips, so thank you, gene is going to stay with us, and i hope you do, too. You’re tuned to non-profit radio tony martignetti also hosts a podcast for the chronicle of philanthropy fund-raising fundamentals is a quick ten minute burst of fund-raising insights published once a month. Tony’s guests are expert in crowdfunding, mobile giving event fund-raising direct mail and donor cultivation really all the fund-raising issues that make you wonder, am i doing this right? Is there a better way there is? Find the fund-raising fundamentals archive it. Tony martignetti dot com that’s marketmesuite n e t t i remember there’s, a g before the end, thousands of listeners have subscribed on itunes. You can also learn maura, the chronicle website, philanthropy dot com fund-raising fundamentals, the better way. Oppcoll welcome back with jean fran, and we’re talking about policy versus paper clips and focusing your board where the attention, where its attention ought to be on policy and planning and things like that. So jean question about in the recruitment process, the expectations around time and fund-raising for potential board members were still now just talking about the potential member what should, what should a non-profit be revealing about time and fund-raising well, they first ought to be very clear about the time commitment expected, and they ought to delve into a deep discussion with the boardmember on this because i’ve just consulted with a organization that has recruited some very fine people who are working on people who are building their careers, and they lay out the they discuss the the time commitment for the organisation, but in the final analysis, after being on the board for three to six months of the people have, uh, huge work commitments, and they say, j i just can’t meet the time commitment. Oh, and so they had to restructure the board in a way that allows the chairman much more responsibility. I think that a board chair should have and what about the fund-raising expectations? Uh, well, not all board members will enjoy fund-raising. I think it’s necessary to find those who might enjoy it or have experience with it to make some commitment to it. Andi, do you want to see that as a dollar amount or more flexible based on the individual based on what the individual strengths are, if they have contacts? That’s one thing, uh, if if they have aa dollars to give or you are in the are able teo network with people of substantial wealth, that is another thing. Okay, but there ought to be. Do you agree with this one hundred percent participation personal at some level for for all board members? Yes. That’s necessary? Because foundations, when you go for grants often look at that as a board commitment, showing board commitment that they have made the financial commitment to the organization. Should these expectations be in writing for the potential boardmember? I think so. But i think it depends upon the culture of the board and they understandings that air developed at the beginning. If you, uh, if they, uh, if the board gets a lot of questions after after being on the board for a while about those commitments, maybe it’s necessary to put it in into writing, but not necessarily a legally binding tract of oh, no, no, no, no. Okay, but just something that here’s what we’re expecting and please, you know, indicate that you’ve reviewed it. So we’re all have well have consistent expectations, right? We’re all on the same page, okay? Eso then moving. Teo orientation. If you recruited the right people, what should board orientation look like? Well, orientation, uh, should take place. I would say over i again size and complexity of the board, about a six month period. Oh, and in the sense that there might be a half day or a couple our orientation about the organization and its mission is a go mission vision and values. Ah, and any other details that they they have to be concerned with. But then other issues ought to be, uh, brought up for the new board members as they as they progress through their first six months during this period, the, uh, the board chair and the ceo. I need to be readily available to answer questions from from the new board members, so that they become fully apprised of the issues as they go along a two day board, uh, section in which a lot of information is thrown at the person, uh, simply doesn’t stick its a matter of repetition, understanding and going through the process themselves. And as you know, we all learned best when the when the problems are immediately in front of us. For example, with board liabilities, a lot of boards will bring in a lawyer and and lay out the potential liabilities for a boardmember in their particular situation, uh, they hear a lot about the laws, but they if you’re not a lawyer, they frequently forget it. Uh, so when an issue comes up ah, that the that there might be a a personal liability in in the situation, it’s up to the ceo and the board chair to remind the new people and refresh the older people that this particular situation might be affected by this particular legal precedent. Would you put new board members on a committee right away, or would you keep them at large? I would keep, um, at large unless they have a strong desire to go on a committee and of course. A sze yu know i suggest that there are really only three committees needed. Yeah, on this is a way of getting into the corporate model. What are those three committees? Well, first that’s. Very simple. You have a planning and resource committee. Uh, that looks forward. It looks towards the strategic plan. It looks towards the resources that i have both human resource is and financial resource is it looks forward to the planning that is, that is necessary. It also has a special responsibility that the other committees don’t have. And that is to is teo monitor and mentor ad hoc committees. Any man, uh, if special issues come up of a strategic or policy nature ad hoc committee need to be formed for that particular issue clearly, because because we don’t, we only have three standing committee, so we’re going to get this right. We’re gonna need ad hoc committee, particularly everything. Ascot committed to take care of the issues. They come up, come up esso, and then that that their their their responsibility on the other side of the picture is the assessment committee and assessment committee simply assesses how we have done. Okay. Oh, and that includes the arctic function and the er in states such as california, where you need a separate audit committee. A subcommittee of that assessment committee performs the audit function, meets with the auditors this all seeds up to the to the executive committee. The third committee, which has the traditional executive committee duties of of ah, of acting for the board and emergency situations, and taking a final review off the various reports that air coming through before they come to the board. So it was, you say, have a board of twenty one people with seven on each. You will find that by the time it gets to the board through the process is the large part or nearly all the board are familiar with the issues they may disagree with with some of the proposals and have other ideas at the board meeting. But everybody is full of pretty much everybody is wholly informed. You say twenty one board members as an example. So this is can this corporate model worked for organizations that have just maybe half a dozen boardmember xero their way, we could divide that in four or however we want to. Arrange that depending upon the needs of the corporations of the non-profit uh, this is a flexible model, okay? And people have used it in different ways on dh dahna, for example, i once met a person, a new organization that didn’t have any standing committees, all committees of the board were ad hoc committees reporting to the entire board. They were happy with it. I would have been happy with it, but evidently it worked. It worked for them. All right? So there’s flexibility is this more what we see in corporations and you have to you have to help me out because i don’t i’m not familiar with the corporate model is is this more typical of the way corporate boards operate? Very few standing committees? Maybe not exactly the same, but very few standing committees, lots of ad hoc committee’s. Well, this is being proposed by the ah by some major consultants. Now, as you as you noted in the book, however, i hate to say, but i’ve been at this for more decades than i care to admit and in turn ah, they’re a ce faras. I know. Based on the sales of the first two. Books there, which was the first to additions, which were their sales of over ten thousand copies. I would estimate the thousands of boards have adopted it on dh. However, it is still controversial among some boards and its best used with boards who have, ah, a about a million dollars budget and roughly let’s say about ah ah, over ten to twelve, fourteen full time employees when it comes to the nation type of non-profit board uh, the i think the traditional model of bored involvement in operations is necessary because, uh, they’re simply not the man power to get it done. The basic problem in the process in the change is that boards begin with board involvement in operations, and when they grow, they still sick with the old model stunting the growth of the organization, frustrating the chief executive office operations officer and on dh missing huge opportunities that they could have right in their growth gene, i’m not clear on, but i’m not clear on something. Is is your recommendation for smaller organizations teo to stick with a more traditional, smaller younger organizations? I guess. Yes, more traditional sport model if you have an organization with a budget, for instance. I know one that i’ve been very close to. Uh, it has only has a budget and does great work. Charitable work have two hundred fifty thousand dollars a year in that case, uh uh, i would stick with the traditional oer organization, however, in the book. Hey, hey still need tohave on audit committee of some sort. And the book describes what is necessary to have that, you know, once or twice a year a cz the accounting issues and financial issues come up. And of course, the corporate model is important, too. I have in mind, as the organization grows exactly that’s the transition there were going. I’m just saying that’s the transition that your urine compensation and allows you, teo, to growth a very large to a very large organization. If you want to go in that direction and and it’s sort of mandated once you get a larger number of poise and ah ah, nde larger financials to handle if you’re in the area of over a million, if you’re in the area of one point five, two, three, four, five, six million so forth i had one client a couple years. Ago that still had the old model on dh they had a budget of six million dollars and, uh, the chief executive officer said to may look, i could be running away with this board, you know? They’re just not had supporting me in the way they should be supporting me there, worrying about the details on the operational details that they hear about now that’s the policy versus paper clips. Yeah, and just there worrying about hypothetically the paper clips just to remind listeners that gene fram is professor emeritus at rochester institute of technology and the author of that book policy versus paper clips. Jean what? What can we expect? Aside from maximizing our growth potential? Sounds like more efficient operations. What else khun kayman organization expect if they adopt the corporate model of board governance? Alright, well, ah one is the the board members feel that they’re doing meaningful things. They think they see that they’re proposing projects. They’re monitoring their development, uh, they’re getting to know the staff. Eso if the succession issue comes up, they know who, uh who? Ah, who? The, uh, prime candidates might be. And they become really mohr involved with the organization, as i indicated in policy versus paper clips. Ah, the ideal organization is a partnership between the board, the management group and the staff. They are all working together, there’s communications there ideally and ah, and they’re all focusing on the the objective of meeting the needs and the grow, often the growing needs of the client. Okay, we just have about a minute and a half or so before the break. What about employees who are accustomed to going to board members with with problems that assume that’s gotta stop? Yes, that has to stop that’s what they refer to it is the end run in the non profit organization. So the end runs have to stop, and they and everybody has to understand that it has to stop so that people are not. People are not reporting to board members, they’re reporting to they’re they’re they’re supervisor or maybe it’s the ceo and president. But yes, but we can’t be going to board members for everyday problems. No, we can’t pay, uh, salary levels, uh, problems with promotions and so forth and so on. That’s particularly difficult and smaller community and smaller communities cerini where many of the employees might know the, uh, the board members personally, you know. So that becomes important. So there is a transition period, uh, which can take anywhere from two to three, maybe even four years while this adjustment takes place. Okay, jean jean, we have to take a break. We’ll have plenty of time or to talk after this. After we go away for a couple minutes, i’ll come back. Tony’s take two and we’ll keep talking to jean frame about the corporate model. Stay with me. We have two more with jean fran. Of course. Coming up first. Pursuant. It’s a simple problem. Solution statement. You need to raise more money. The pursuing tool velocity helps you. How can i make it simpler? Yeah. It’s one of the latto one of their tools at its designed to keep fundraisers on track with goals and that’s, whether you have devoted gift officers or you’re the sole fundraiser or director of development or you’re the executive director doing fund-raising probably all the more reason you need technology in the smaller the shop, the more efficient you need to be going to be going toe ntcdinosaur provoc technology conference. I’ve got lots. Of technology interviews coming up more about that shortly. But you need technology. Velocity is one of these tools that can help you. Um, no more index cards. I hope i hope. That’s analogue oriented by now, but or spreadsheets. Please check out these tools pursuant dot com crowdster they have a deal for non-profit radio listeners eager get thirty days free or fifty percent off. That means you can try a crowdster peer-to-peer fund-raising sight completely free for a month or you get the fifty percent off which means pay for a month and get him on three or pay for two months. Get two months free. Add it on claim your ah crowdster deal which everyone works better for you claim it at crowdster dot com and in the chat window, tell them you’re from non-profit radio and which deal you want. They’re all prepared crowdster dot com now time for tony’s take two a dream realized since i was five years old roughly i have wanted a house by the beach ah mei grandmother and grandfather grandma grandpa martignetti used to take me to the beach in belmar, new jersey and they had a home there and my parents just dropped me and my brother off for weeks at a time during the summer. And even when school was, you know it was whether was even before i was school age. But then school time, you know, summer vacation. Of course, weeks at a time, we’d be grandma and grandpas, belmar, new jersey beach house and i just like i got sand in my blood, and i have realized the dream. I now own a home in emerald isle, north carolina, and the beach is across the street, and along with the beach comes this ocean that is twenty four seven it’s, remarkable. It never stops, and i hear the ocean. I see it, it’s, it’s, across the street’s, my across the street, neighbor. So it’s all ah, very pretty special, um, no longer in new york city full time now, just part time, more time down in ah, in emerald isle and, uh, there’s a video called my dream realized and that’s at tony martignetti dot com with a little more detail about this, but, um, yeah, very special realized dream non-profit technology conference that’s coming up its later this month, march twenty third, twenty fifth. I’ll be in san jose, california. I hope you’re going to be there. I’ve been talking about it, it’s an excellent conference, lots of smart people helping you use technology. As i was saying earlier, you need it. You can’t you can’t get away from it. And if you’re not using it, not embracing it that’s just like, you know, neutral on it. But if you’re not embracing it, you’re probably not as efficient as you could be in lots of different operations, but fund-raising program other administration h r time management, you know, whatever it is, um, you need to be embracing technology in twenty sixteen pursuant is going to be there. They’re going to be right near me. I’ll be getting interviews on the on the exhibit floor space, i’ll have a booth and then we got a green room right next to that for guests who come early, big, big, you know, big establishment but non-profit radio big presence there pursue it would be right near and i’m expected to get around thirty interviews, maybe even a little more over the three days. This is my third, um, the interview schedule. I’m going to put that up at tony martignetti dot com. You could see who’s coming up which days the conference info is at inten dot org’s and that is tony’s take two for the two hundred eightieth show three hundredth show is going to be coming up. The anniversary is always july. I don’t know exactly which day i didn’t look too counted out. But the three hundredth show is going to be coming up in july. That will be our sixth anniversary. Let’s do i feel like i feel like live listener love so let’s. Ah, let’s hit the live listeners and there are many. Ah, i got some of my new neighbors in north carolina. New bern is with us and chapel hill, north carolina. Thank you very much. Live. Listen, love there, but also cleveland, ohio, pittsburgh, pennsylvania where i spent a very formative four years at carnegie mellon university. I was able to graduate in four years. I was remarkable. Class in nineteen, eighty krauz in nineteen eighty four, no nineteen, eighty four that’s. Right, ninety, eighty was the golden knights. It, uh, northern valley, old japan elearning i’m opening up a lot today. It’s. Unusual. Yes. Krauz ninety four, carnegie mellon, pittsburgh p a live listener. Love to you coming back to new jersey. Florham park. Cool. Ah, brooklyn, new york. Live listener love. Oh, there’s. Another, uh, duncan, south carolina. Not too far from north carolina. Los angeles, california. Nyack, new york. Welcome. I don’t think i’ve seen nyack before. St louis, missouri. I was stationed in aa. Ah, whiteman air force base in in ah, knob noster, missouri. But i did not live in knob noster. I lived in warrensburg, and somebody puts all this info together. That’s all on facebook. Anyway, i think s o st louis? Yes, i used tio used to spend time in st louis. We would take a train from st louis down to mardi gras. Did that for two. Years in a row from the beautiful st louis train station st louis live listener love to you, atlanta, georgia and san jose, california, where i will be in aa was it ten days or so? Roughly let’s? Go abroad? Mexico city, mexico window star days tehran, iran i don’t know how to say it, but live listener love to you. I don’t know the would that be farsi. I don’t know what foresee i’m sorry. I hope you’ll accept my live listener love in tehran. Tokyo multiple in tokyo, japan of course. Konnichiwa and seoul, south korea always checking in and multiple there too. My always question do you know each other on your haserot? Also, bolivia is with us. Bolivia welcome live listener love. Okay, let’s, get back. Teo eugene fram and his book his book, of course. Policy versus paperclips. Gene let’s. Keep talking. Okay, what about you? Mentioned? Just briefly. Let’s. Talk a little about assessing the work of the of the ceo. Who does? Does that fall under in this corporate model? Well, that’s the that’s. The assessment committee makes sense. Ideally, the assessment committee looks at, uh, two aspects of the of the ceos. Work and the organization’s outcomes you don’t look for processes, you look for outcomes and, uh, these khun b those, uh, those data which are what we might call ha ha ah, hard data and that’s the data that you have with accounting records, records of membership, what a number of clients, things of that nature that you can easily major. And then there there qualitative ah, measures that you can measure and has should make sure which most or many organizations don’t major, for instance, impact on the community or or excuse me image. Ah, in the community, things of that nature more qualitative. And in that area, i suggest that you do what we call dahna, uh, use imperfecta metrics. In fact, i have an article out on it, and i’m sure if any of you ah, if you take a look at my, uh website, you will you will see it there. Or if you even put it on in under my name, you will find it is available on on the web on. And that is a process that i suggest with the co author that if you use in perfect metrics over time that you khun dr process dr provoc progress and develop exchange it. Develop change. Excuse me. Jeans, blogged, itt’s. A little little lengthy. So i’m going to suggest that the easiest way to find jeans teo, do a google search on eugene fram? Yes, thank you very much. I have now have ah, ah. In fact, i have an anniversary right now. I’ve just put out my hundred fifty fifty it’s block a titled what non-profits ceos think of their boards? Other recent ones, air program reductions are mandated. What can a non-profit do? Okay, in another one just for example, is management knows all what does a what’s a non-profit director to d’oh. Okay, and people will find you. Really? I think. Easiest through a google search. Now, this year’s have put my name into google and there there’s a lot. A lot of links there for you. This use ofhim. Perfect data. Gene, won’t you say a little more about that? Doesn’t doesn’t sound like something we’d want to rely on. Well, if your process is good and you sample, uh, reasonably well, you get data. That is not exact. But you get a feel for it. Uh, for for example, i once have was on the board of a of a charitable non-profit that was targeted. Ah, to counsel. Ah, p ah! Various people in the community was heavily supported by the united way. And we weren’t getting many. Ah ah ah ah! We weren’t getting many respondents from the inner city, so i suggest it as the boardmember uh, that i, uh, talk with some of the people in the community. What, that time no one was the settlement houses and ah, and see in the inner city, uh, which were community centers, which is a better word for them and and see what they perceived is the problem. Esso i went to them, and i found out what i what they thought were the problems. And now you’re only talking to three people, but they knew the communities there. And the, uh the first thing that happened was the aids of the community centers called ah, my, uh, my president and ceo and said, guess what? One of your board members coming down to talk to me, so i ah, and he said, yeah, i know. And we had agreed to this prior to that and so i listen to these people. I came back. I gave him feedback. Hey made changes to try to ah garner a greater proportion of the clientele from the inner city. And then after a year, uh, went back and talked to the people and i said, as are many changes and they said yes, there’s been modest changes, but there’s still more that needs to be done. I fed this back to the present ceo. He made changes. And then at the end of the second year ah, there were there were substantial changes, and the board got out of the business of of evaluation at that point. All right, so buy some. Buy some key interviews of the right people, right? Yeah, we don’t have statistical significance. And exactly, but on everything that surrounds ah, proper peer reviewed research. But who can afford to do all that all the time? Exactly. And and the article contains practical examples. Were both myself and my co author, jerry tally, a sociologist. Uh, both of us have been in ah, and quote in the business a long time have have used the model and have found it very, very helpful and over. Time if you repeat this asai did and and the example i gave you it was only a about a two year run until the things started to turn around and then the ceo was evaluated on on on going from there you mentioned earlier something i wantto spend a little more time with the proper title, your recommendation for title. For the the chief of the of the organization, you feel pretty strongly that executive director is not sufficient. No uh, executive director can mean various things because it’s, used in in a in a wide variety of ways on executive director, can be a volunteer who manages the budget of a small church with a let’s say, a two hundred thousand dollars budget. An executive director, khun b, for instance, one i’ve encountered recently ah, was the was the head of a ten million dollars dahna a charitable organization with over one hundred employees, and, uh, i don’t think, uh, the title executive director in the twenty first century, even in the last part of the twentieth century, gives, uh, the chief executive officer off a non-profit the position and stature that that, uh, that he or she needs toe work effectively. So what do you prefer to see? I prefer once you get into the make the make the transition, i prefer president and ceo because people understand their what that means. It’s clear that that person has read sponsor ability for operations, except those decisions that have to be made by the board. And that title may have significance for board members also that they recognize the responsibilities of of the president. Ceo exactly on dh to add to that. And in many cases, the non-profit president ceo has more management responsibility than a number of the members of the board. For instance, if you’re a professor, you loft and ah, don’t have any management responsibilities, um, never had it. Okay, you worked as an individual contributor. Same thing about a physician who is, uh, who has a single practice. Ah, same thing with the, uh, a lawyer who is, uh, who has a a single practice or even a part of a major law firm. They just haven’t had the responsibility of the that the president and c the chief executive has off of the nonprofit organization implementing this. A corporate model seems to me there’s a lot of trust between boardmember sze, between the board and the president, ceo between the staff of the organization and the president ceo between the staff and the board. It sounds like there’s. A lot of trust required. Yes. You have to have trust it’s it’s. Really? Uh, if you’re and you picked it up exactly. It is a trust model it’s. A model in which you have to trust the ceo. Uh, you have to trust the staff that they are professionals. But on the other hand, it also calls for rigorous evaluation. It’s not the traditional evaluation of the border, the staff where they send out a questionnaire at the end of the year and and ask people to return it. You don’t get full returns and the questionnaire is poorly formatted. It takes investigation and robust evaluation. And what are we going to do with trustees who are reluctant to give up the the managing the paperclips responsibilities? How do we manage those people with difficulty? Yeah. Hope you got something better than that. Otherwise i’m taking you off now. I’m going to cut your mic down. If that’s the best you can do. No. With some people, you have to give them what they might consider a meaningful activities, such as, uh, chairing the annual dinner on things of that nature who are not working, who are not interested in the policy. For instance, if you have a major donor, who, uh, just is not interested in policy and strategy, and wants to do that over time. What you hope will happen with the ah corporate model with my model is that, uh, the, uh, board will turn over to people who have these dynamic interests and understand that they have to do a robust evaluation, not a cursory one, and that the majority of the board will be those types of people. We got to take a break. Jean fran stays with me. And i certainly hope that you do, too. Like what you’re hearing a non-profit radio tony’s got more on youtube, you’ll find clips from a standup comedy, tv spots and exclusive interviews catch guests like seth gordon, craig newmark, the founder of craigslist marquis of eco enterprises, charles best from donors choose dot org’s aria finger do something that worked and they are levine from new york universities heimans center on philanthropy tony tweets to he finds the best content from the most knowledgeable, interesting people in and around non-profits to share on his stream. If you have valuable info, he wants to re tweet you during the show. 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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 panna, author of the non-profit outcomes toolbox. Welcome back. We’re wrapping up. We have about another five minute it’s. So and want to continue with with jean for the that time and talk about some of the advice that you have around week board practices. There’s there’s. Something on your blogged. There are a few posts on your block about overcoming week board practices. One of those is one of those bad practices is overlooking absences. What do you suggest there, what’s the problem. And what do we do? Well, you have boardmember sze uh, who, uh uh, fill a board members, uh, board position and they’re consistently absent. And, uh, this is a very touchy situation. They may be very fine. People have great skills, but they simply don’t have the time to attend board meetings, which have obviously critical to the organization. Uh, i think the best thing you can do is to try to talk to these people, try to retain them on the board or understand, uh, what they’re missing by not attending the board meetings in some instances. Ah, it’s it, khun b a a termination discussion. For instance, i just recently encountered one and which, uh, the board chair had this discussion with the person and she said, i’m just sorry i like the organization. Ah, and and i’m i’m tied to the mission, vision and values, but i’m doing international travel and my best, the best i can do is to open up the position and resign in other cases if you can find the root cause of it and do something about it for them that’s that that could be ah, that could be another alternative, but it’s very situational on dh, very individual to see what you can do. Teo, handle the situation you had suggested earlier. There may be a different role for the person, maybe it’s not our board. Well, something else they can do to support the organisation in this one, they’re, uh instance that i just, uh i mentioned i i, uh, had talked to this individual and i said to her, well, look, uh you’re it’s obvious that you can’t do anything immediately, but your role made in your job may change again. Uh, have you asked about taking a leave of absence from the board and ah and ah ah, future time. A year, year and a half. Two years, maybe things during that change around and so she’s still connected to the board in some way, i may even get minutes of the board and so forth. So on as a way of retaining that person’s interest in the organization because she was she’s, a very fine person. Thoughtful, analytical does critical thinking and had very broad x variances. Kind of the dream. The dream boardmember. So you try to make these accommodations. What about insufficient due diligence on the board first? How do we how are we going to recognise that? Well, i think that’s again the, uh the, uh the board chairs ahh responsibility along with the chief executive officer. When things are not discussed in an adequate detail that they bring the issues up that they pride to do some of the due diligence for the people. Because again, the board members are not being compensated by large. They are. They have other job that are their main main concern. And so you may need to help them along on the dew dealings. Due diligence side jean has other identified bored weaknesses and and how to overcome them on his on his blogged jean what is it that? You love about working on boards? Well, i i like the people. Ah, and i’ve served on a number of human services are, you know, charity type boards as well as, you know, trade associations and so forth, but on the boards that especially those that are charitable in nature, you see in these organizations, people who figured early stand ten feet tall, they do much more than they are compensated for, they do it willingly, and they really have the client’s interest that mind, ah, at heart, and and then in their mind, you know, i’ve seen ah, social workers in on and homes buy-in group homes ah, take take some of their clients to their own homes on weekends, or even take them on vacations far beyond what is required of the people in order to ah, help them overcome the handicaps that they have. You know, those are just examples, and when you see people like that really dedicated it and you can contribute in your way, you know, i can’t do those sort of things, but i can contribute to they’re doing it, we have to leave it there. Eugene fram, professor emeritus at rochester institute of technology, google him remember it’s like the fram oil filters fr am googling to find his blogged his book is policy versus paper clips it’s on amazon jean, thank you so much for being a guest. Well, thank you for having me been my pleasure next week. Professor adrian, sergeant on relationship fund-raising did you think that i forgot the affiliate affections and podcast pleasantries perish the thought podcast pleasantries to those listening on whatever device or whatever time you’re very welcome at non-profit radio and i’m very grateful for your support pleasantries to you and affiliate affections, especially our newest affiliate, w l r lanchester affections out to all the am and fm station listeners throughout the country. If you missed any part of today’s show, i beseech you, find it on tony martignetti dot com where in the world else would you go? And i just don’t know about that. We’re sponsored by pursuant online tools for small and midsize non-profits data driven and technology enabled pursuing dot com and by crowdster online and mobile fund-raising software for non-profits now with apple pay crowdster dot com today’s show is dedicated to my aunt josie, who just died. This past week, not a blood aunt, but one of those ants, that just she was an ant, even though she wasn’t a blood aunt and josie, i love you, i miss you already. Our creative producer is claire meyerhoff. Sam leave, which is a line producer. Gavin dollars are am and fm outreach director. The show’s social media is by susan chavez. On our music is by scott stein. Be with me next week for non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Go out and be great. What’s not to love about non-profit radio tony gets the best guests check this out from seth godin this’s the first revolution since tv nineteen fifty and henry ford nineteen twenty it’s the revolution of our lifetime here’s a smart, simple idea from craigslist founder craig newmark insights orn presentation or anything? People don’t really need the fancy stuff they need something which is simple and fast. When’s the best time to post on facebook facebook’s andrew noise nose at traffic is at an all time hyre on nine a m or eight pm so that’s when you should be posting your most meaningful posts here’s aria finger, ceo of do something dot or ge young people are not going to be involved in social change if it’s boring and they don’t see the impact of what they’re doing so you gotta make it fun and applicable to these young people look so otherwise a fifteen and sixteen year old they have better things to dio they have xbox, they have tv, they have their cell phones me dar is the founder of idealist took two or three years for foundation staff to sort of dane toe, add an email address card. It was like it was phone. This email thing is right and that’s why should i give it away? Charles best founded donors choose dot or ge somehow they’ve gotten in touch kind of off line as it were on dh and no two exchanges of brownies and visits and physical gifts. Mark echo is the founder and ceo of eco enterprises. You may be wearing his hoodies and shirts. Tony talked to him. Yeah, you know, i just i’m a big believer that’s not what you make in life. It sze, you know, tell you make people feel this is public radio host majora carter. Innovation is in the power of understanding that you don’t just do it. You put money on a situation expected to hell. You put money in a situation and invested and expect it to grow and savvy advice for success from eric sacristan. What separates those who achieve from those who do not is in direct proportion to one’s ability to ask others for help. The smartest experts and leading thinkers air on tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent.

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Nonprofit Radio, April 26, 2013: A Conversation With Eugene Fram

Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%

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Picture of Professor Eugene Fram.
Professor Emeritus Eugene Fram
Eugene Fram: A Conversation With Eugene Fram

Professor Emeritus at Rochester Institute of Technology, Dr. Fram is author of “Policy vs. Paper Clips,” introducing nonprofits to a corporate model of board governance to cut out the minutia from agendas so your board can focus where it should, on policy and planning.

 
 
 


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Hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent for april twenty six twenty thirteen i’m your aptly named host question have you raided and reviewed the show? I haven’t asked for for many weeks, and if you haven’t done that, i’d be grateful if you did. We increase the ratings and reviews on itunes considerably the last time i asked, and if you haven’t, i’d be grateful if you did if you wouldn’t go over to non-profit radio dot net, start there and click readings and reviews and then give the show one to five stars, hopefully five and an a rating. I’d be grateful for that. Thank you very much. Oh, i hope you were with me last week. I’d suffer acute respiratory distress if it came to my attention that you had missed a conversation with amy. Sample ward part do she’s, our social media contributor and co author of social change. Anytime. Everywhere we talked about your multi-channel plan fund-raising calendar, staffing and budgeting and now you know what a home page hijack is this week. A conversation with you, jean fran lots of conversations professor emeritus at rochester institute of technology dr fram is author of policy versus paper clips introducing non-profits to a corporate model of board governance to cut out the minutia from agendas so your board can focus where it should on policy and planning roughly thirty two minutes into the hour on tony’s, take two ah that’s, a little bit of a toughie because i’m recording this about three weeks in advance, and i don’t know what’s going to be on my block, but i’ll share some gratitude on tony’s. Take two my pleasure now to welcome eugene fran he is professor emeritus at rochester institute of technology he’s, a consultant, board chair and volunteer director for non-profits he has authored a co or co authored more than hundred twenty five journal articles on marketing and non-profit and corporate governance, he wrote the book policy versus paper clips, which you can find on amazon to introduce a governance model that we’re going to talk about on twitter he’s at eugene fram four a m just like the oil filter eugene fran, welcome, welcome good morning to you. Good morning to you, it’s it’s morning in california on the day that we’re recording very early morning. So thank you for joining me this early from the left coast. It’s. My pleasure, jean. Are you are you part of the fram filter family, buddy? Chance. Unfortunately, i am not. You’re not those things still around. I don’t own a car. I haven’t had a car for years. We are fram oil filters still around. Do you know why? I think they’re still on the web. I seen them. Okay, you have but that’s, not you. I’m sorry. And that’s not me. That’s. Alright. I’m not part of the great martignetti liquor family in boston and new england either. So okay. The both of us are suffering from famous names and chronic under representation in the in those wealthy families. Yes, we’ve been born with huge handicaps. I’m still trying to overcome mind. I hope you have overcome your one hundred twenty five articles. Yeah, somewhat. But you know, my ambition is to go to a thousand. Okay, well, now that you’re in retirement, you have more time for that. But yes. That’s true. Professor emeritus jean what? What’s what’s happening with boards? Why? Why do you feel they are missing the mark? Well, boards from a governance point of view non-profit boards from the government’s point of view, frequently have retained the old nineteenth or twentieth century model off of governance, where the board has a multitude of committees and tries to eventually micromanage the uh uh, the staff in the process, nothing gets done or the organization, although it has potential as stunted growth. Ah, if it in that way, because volunteers like myself and again as i talk, i’m not talking as a non ah non-profit ceo or e d i’m talking as a volunteer director, we can’t be there day today, and we can’t, uh, manage the minutia that is no, are they not necessarily monisha or the work that really needs to be done and we can’t really manage truly professional staff, we can help. We can advise we can help. We have an obligation to set policy, but uh, but we’re simply, uh, part timers or some person has described that we’re birds of flight through the through the organization because we’re they’re traditionally three to six years, and the staff stays and works and works under different boards. Your concern is that despite the well meaning board on dh and individual members having great potential and the best interests of the organization heart you feel they’re actually through these old models stunting the organization? Absolutely. And i think it could be proven when you look at any number of organizations which has suffered this way. Do you want to give an example or to, uh well, i’ve consulted with a number of them on, but i don’t want yeah, i’ll talk t o generalities specific organizations where the the the board actually got ah, where the volunteers on the board actually got involved to the level that they were, uh, they were managing departments. Eso if the decision had to be made, the department had first went to the volunteer uh uh, advisor or whatever they call him at the time and then went to the d with the advisers either decision or concern or whatever the department had won it. So the organization didn’t grow until they finally change. They finally changed the model full time employees reporting to a parttime volunteer argast person. Exactly. Oh, my all right. Let’s, let’s. Start with the beginning of the process and we will get to the corporate model that you lay out in your book way. We’ll get to that let’s. Take a couple of discreet sort of time line points and along a board members life cycle with the organization and i’d like to start with recruitment. Makes sense, i think. Xero what can we what can we improve around our board? Recruitment? Well, the chief executive officer where, whether they be a nadie or a president ceo, as i suggest, needs to have more contact with the board with the individual board members. I think they they have tto have more contact between meetings that has to be in often and formal. Ah, and they have tio they need to get to know each other. And i suggest, uh, that they actually made quarterly to informally discuss the concerns and the challenges. Ah, that the chief executive officer is facing. I, uh there are various techniques for doing this. I recently read in the harvard business review. Uh, a recommendation. Uh, that the, uh uh uh, we’re one, uh uh, for-profit ceo actually sends a email out to the board every sunday morning. Uh, just laying out very briefly, uh, in this case, his concerns about what’s going. On in the organization and what new ideas? He has a c as he indicated in the article, he says, i don’t worry about grammar right now, gina, i’m trying to focus on recruitment, so maybe maybe in in in this board meeting is often as you’re suggesting they’re identifying gaps in the board, and maybe they can try to fill those gaps with new board members that’s, right? Ok, and but as they’re going through that recruiting process to identifying skills that they need that the board is lacking, how should they be talking to potential board members? Well, they should talk to board members that what they do is to value their contributions of time, the most important thing, and they make ah, meaningful use off the board members time they don’t ask the boardmember the potential boardmember to do frivolous things, uh, such as stuff envelopes or our or get involved with watching slide shows or commenting on slide shows as one. Now that i’ve heard of s so that they focus on, they focus on the policy in the strategic issues of the organization. Okay, we’re going to take a break now, jean and when we return. We’ll keep talking about the little about the life cycle of the boardmember. And then we’ll get into the corporate model that you lay out in policy versus paper clips. So thank you, gene is going to stay with us. And i hope you do, too. Talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. Are you confused about which died it’s, right for you? Are you tired of being tired? How about improving your energy strength and appearance? How i’m rika keck, holistic nutrition and wellness consultant? If you have answered yes to any of my questions, contact me now at n y integrated health dot com, or it’s. Six for six to eight, five, eight five eight eight initiate change and transform your life. Are you concerned about the future of your business for career? Would you like it all to just be better? 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Interested simply email at info at talking alternative dot com metoo welcome back with jean fran, and we’re talking about policy versus paper clips and focusing your board where the attention, where its attention ought to be on policy and planning and things like that. So jean question about in the recruitment process, the expectations around time and fund-raising for potential board members were still now just talking about the potential member what should, what should a non-profit be revealing about time and fund-raising well, they first ought to be very clear about the time commitment expected, and they ought to delve into a deep discussion with the boardmember on this because i’ve just consulted with a organization that has recruited cem very fine people who are working on people who are building their careers, and they lay out the they discuss the the time commitment for the organisation, but in the final analysis, after being on the board for three to six months of the people have, uh, huge work commitments, and they say, j i just can’t i made the time commitments. Oh, and so they had to restructure the board in a way that allows the chairman much more responsibility, i think, than a board chair should have. And what about the fund-raising expectations? Well, not all board members will enjoy fund-raising i think it’s necessary to find those who might enjoy it or have experience with it to make some commitment to it on dh. Do you want to see that as a dollar amount or more flexible based on the individual based on what the individual strengths are, if they have contacts? That’s one thing, uh, if if they have aa dollars to give or you are in the are able teo network with people of substantial wealth, that is another thing. Okay, but there ought to be. Do you agree with this one hundred percent participation personal at some level for for all board members? Yes. That’s necessary? Because foundations, when you go for grants often look at that as a board commitment, showing board commitment that they have made the financial commitment to the organization. Should these expectations be in writing for the potential boardmember? I think so. But i think it depends upon the culture of the board and they understandings that air developed at the beginning. If you, uh, if they, uh, if the board gets a lot of questions after after being on the board for a while about those commitments, maybe it’s necessary to put it in into writing, but not necessarily a legally binding contract. Oh, no, no, no, no. Okay, but just something that here’s what we’re expecting and please, you know, indicate that you’ve reviewed it. So we’re all have well have consistent expectations, right? We’re all on the same page, okay? Eso then moving. Teo orientation. If you recruited the right people, what should board orientation look like? Well, orientation, uh, should take place. I would say over i again size and complexity of the board about a six month period, andi, in the sense that there might be a half day or a couple our orientation about the organization and its mission is a mission, vision and values. Oh, and any other details that they they have to be concerned with. But then other issues ought to be ah brought up for the new board members as they as they progress through their first six months during this period, the, uh, the board chair and the ceo i need to be readily available to answer questions from from the new board members s o that they become fully apprised of the issues as they go along a two day board, uh, section in which a lot of information is thrown at the person, uh, simply doesn’t stick its a matter of repetition, understanding and going through the process themselves. And as you know, we all learned best when the when the problems are immediately in front of us. Ah, for example, uh, with board liabilities, a lot of boards will bring in a lawyer and and lay out the potential liabilities for a boardmember in their particular situation. Uh, they hear a lot about the laws, but they if you’re not a lawyer, they frequently forget it. Uh, so when an issue comes up ah, that the that there might be a a personal liability in in the situation, it’s up to the ceo and the board chair to remind the new people and refresh the older people that this particular situation might be affected by this particular legal precedent. Would you put new board members on a committee right away? Or would you keep them at large? I would keep, um, at large unless they have a strong desire to go on a committee. And of course, a sze yu know. I suggest that there are really only three committees needed. Yeah, on this is a way of getting into the corporate model. What are those three committees? Well, first that’s. Very simple. You have a planning and resource committee. Ah, that looks forward. It looks towards the strategic plan. It looks towards the resources that i have both, uh, human resource is and financial resource is it looks forward to the planning that is, that is necessary. It also has a special responsibility that the other committees don’t have and that is to, uh, teo ah, monitor and mentor ad hoc committees. Any man as, uh, special issues come up of a strategic or policy nature ad hoc committee need to be formed for that particular issue clearly, because because we don’t, we only have three standing committee, so we’re going to get it right. We’re gonna need ad hoc committee, particularly everything ascot committed to take care of the issues. They come up, come up esso and then that’s is that their their their responsibility. On the other side of the picture is the assessment committee and the assessment committee simply assesses how we have done. Okay on that includes the oddity function and the er in states such as california, where you need a separate audit committee. A subcommittee of that assessment committee performs the audit function, meets with the auditors. This all seeds up to the to the executive committee. The third committee, which has the traditional executive committee duties of of ah, of acting for the board and emergency situations and taking a final review off the various reports that air coming through before they come to the board. So it’ll give you, say, have a board of twenty one people with seven on each. Ah, you will find that, uh uh, by the time it gets to the board, uh, through the process is the large part or nearly all the board are familiar with the issues they may disagree with with some of the proposals and have other ideas at the board meeting. But everybody is full of pretty much everybody is wholly informed. You say twenty one board members as an example. So this is cannes. This corporate model worked for organizations that have just maybe half a dozen boardmember xero their way. We could divide. That in four or however we want to arrange that, depending upon the needs of the corporations of the non-profit, uh, this is a flexible model, okay? And people have used it in different ways. Ah, and, uh, for example, i once met a person, a new organization that didn’t have any standing committees. All committees of the board were ad hoc committees reporting to the entire board. They were happy with it. I would have been happy with it, but evidently it worked. It worked for them. All right. So there’s flexibility is this more what we see in corporations and you have to you have to help me out because i don’t. I’m not familiar with the corporate model. Is. Is this more typical of the way corporate boards operate? Very few standing committees, maybe not exactly the same, but very few standing committees. Lots of ad hoc committee’s. Well, this is being ah proposed by the bye. Some major consultants now, as you as you noted in the book, however, i hate to say, but i’ve been at this for more decades, uh, than i care to admit. And in turn, uh, there are a cz faras. I know, based on the sales of the first two books there, which was the first to additions, which were their sales of over ten thousand copies, i would estimate the thousands of boards have adopted it on dh. However, it is still controversial among some boards and its best used with boards who have, uh, a about a million dollar budgets and roughly let’s, say about, uh, no over ten to twelve, fourteen full time employees. Uh, when it comes to the nation type of non-profit board uh, the i think the traditional model of bored involvement in operations is necessary because, uh, they’re simply not the man power to get it done. The basic problem in the process in the change is that boards begin with board involvement in operations and when they grow, they still sick with the old model stunting the growth of the organization, frustrating the chief executive office operations officer and on dh missing huge opportunities that they could have right in their growth. Gene, i’m not clear on, but i’m not clear on something. Is your recommendation for smaller organizations teo to stick with a more traditional, smaller younger organizations? I guess yes. More traditional sport model. If you have an organization with a budget, for instance, i know one that i’ve been very close to, uh, it has only has a budget and does great work. Charitable work have two hundred fifty thousand dollars a year in that case, uh uh, i would stick with the traditional oer organization, however, uh, in the book. Hey, hey. Still need tohave on audit committee of some sort. And the book describes what there’s a nest starita have that, you know, once or twice a year a cz the accounting issues and financial issues come up. And of course, the corporate model is important to have in mind as the organization grows exactly that’s the transition that they were going in. I’m just saying that’s, the transition that your urine compensation and allows you, teo, to grow two very large uh uh to a very large organization, if you want to go in that direction and it’s sort of mandated once you get a larger number of poise and, uh and, uh and larger finances to handle, if you’re in the area of over a million, if you’re in the area of one point five two, three, four, five, six million so full. I had one client a couple years ago that still had the old model on dh. They had a budget of six million dollars and, uh, the chief executive officer said to may look, i could be running away with this board, you know, they’re just not had supporting me in the way they should be supporting me there, worrying about the details of the operational details that they hear about now. That’s the policy versus paper clips. Yeah. And just there worrying about hypothetically the paper clips just to remind listeners that gene fram is professor emeritus at rochester institute of technology and the author of that book policy versus paper clips. Jean what? What can we expect? Aside from maximizing our growth potential? Sounds like more efficient operations. Um what? What else? Khun kayman organization expect if they adopt this corporate model of board governance. All right, well, uh, one is the the board members feel that they’re doing meaningful things. They think they see that there proposing projects. They’re monitoring their development. Uh, they’re getting to know the staff. Eso if the succession issue comes up, they know who. Uh, who? Ah, who the, uh, prime candidates might be, and they become really maur involved with the organization, as i indicated in policy versus paper clips. Ah, the ideal organization is a partnership between the board, the management group and the staff. They are all working together, there’s communications there, ideally and on. And they’re all focusing on the objective of meeting the needs and the grow, often the growing needs of the clients. Okay, we just have about a minute and a half or so before the break. What about employees who are accustomed to going to board members with with problems that assume that’s gotta stop? Yes, that has to stop that’s what they refer to it is the end run in the non profit organization. So the end runs have to stop, and they and everybody has to understand that it has to stop hyre so that people are not. People are not reporting to board members, they’re reporting to they’re they’re they’re supervisor or maybe it’s the ceo and president. But yes, but we can’t be going to board members for everyday problems. No, we can’t pay, uh, salary levels, uh, problems with promotions and so forth and so on. That’s particularly difficult and smaller community and smaller communities, e-giving where many of the employees might know, the, uh, the board members personally, you know, so that becomes important. So there is a transition period, uh, which can take anywhere from two to three, maybe even four years while this adjustment takes place. Okay, jean jean, we have to take a break. We’ll have plenty of time or to talk after this. After we go away for a couple minutes, i’ll come back, tony’s, take two, and we’ll keep talking to jean frame about the corporate model. Stay with me. I didn’t think that shooting getting ding, ding, ding, ding, you’re listening to the talking alternative network, get him. E-giving duitz 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 going 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 their voices. Join austin and sloan live thursdays at eleven a. M on talking alternative dot com. Dafs you’re listening to the talking alternative network. Yeah. Schnoll i’m christine cronin, president of n y charities dot orc. You’re listening to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Oh! Hello, i’m sorry, i can’t send live listener love this week as i’m not live, but you know that i’m grateful for the live listeners out there so lots of love to those in the us and throughout the world we get routinely get listeners from china, taiwan, japan recently ah, the uk, england and ireland of checked in so grateful for wherever you are live listener love and that’s really ah tony’s take to you know i want to thank you for listening to the show and supporting the show. I produce it for you because you’re working in or volunteering for a small or midsize non-profit a charity that’s doing great work that you’re passionate about either is an employee or volunteer and you know, it’s it’s personal i’m saying to you, thank you very much. Thank you for listening and supporting the show, and i’m very glad that you’re with me, maybe through social media, all the places that i am in social media if we’re connected there to thank you for that as well. I am grateful for your support and that’s tony’s take two for friday, the twenty sixth of april seventeenth show of the year gene let’s. Keep talking. Okay, what about you? Mentioned just briefly. Let’s. Talk a little about assessing the work of the of the ceo. Who does? Does that fall under in this corporate model? Well, that’s the, uh, that’s the assessment committee makes sense. Ideally, the assessment committee looks at, uh, two aspects of the of the ceos work and the organizations outcomes. You don’t look for processes. You look for outcomes and these khun b those, uh, those data, which are what we might call ha ha ah, hard data and that’s the data that you have with accounting records, records of membership, what a number of clients, things of that nature that you can easily major. And then there, there qualitative ah, measures that you can measure has should make sure which most or many organizations don’t major, for instance, impact on the community or or excuse me image. Ah, in the community, things of that nature more qualitative. And in that area, i suggest that you do what we call, uh uh, use in perfect metrics. In fact, i have an article out on it. And i’m sure if any of you ah, if you take a look at my website. You will. You will see it there or if you even put it on in under my name, you will find it is available on on the web on. And that is a process that i suggest with the co author, that if you use in perfect metrics over time that you khun dr process dr provoc progress and develop exchange it develop change. Excuse me, jean’s blogged itt’s a little little lengthy. So i’m going to suggest that the easiest way to find gina’s teo, do a google search on eugene fram. Yes, thank you very much. I have now have ah ah. In fact, i have an anniversary right now. I’ve just put out my hundred fifty fiftieth blawg a titled what non-profits ceos think of their boards? Other recent ones air program reductions are mandated. What can a non-profit d’oh okay, another one just for example, is management knows all what does a what’s a non-profit director to dio okay, people find you. Really? I think easiest through google search now, this years have put my name into google and there there’s a lot. A lot of links there for you this use ofhim. Perfect data. Gene, won’t you say a little more about that? Doesn’t doesn’t sound like something we’d want to rely on. Well, if your process is good and you sample reasonably well, you get data. That is not exact, but you get a feel for it. Uh, for, for example, uh, i once, uh, have was on the board of a of a charitable non-profit that was targeted, uh, to counsel. Ah. P ah, various people in the community was heavily supported by the united way. And we weren’t getting many. Ah, ah, uh uh. We weren’t getting many respondents from the inner city, so i suggest it as the boardmember uh, that i, uh, talk with some of the people in the community. What, that time no one was the settlement houses and ah, and see in the inner city, uh, which were community centers, which is a better word for them. And see what they perceived is the problem. Esso i went to them and i found out what i what they thought were the problems. And now you’re only talking to three people, but they knew the communities there and the, uh, the first thing. That happened was the aids of the community centers called, uh ah, my, uh my president and ceo and said, guess what in one of your board members coming down to talk to me? So i, uh and he said, yeah, i know. And we had agreed to this prior to that. And so i listen to these people. I came back, i gave him feedback hey made changes to try to, uh, garner a greater proportion of the clientele from the inner city. And then after a year, uh, went back and talked to the people and i said, as are many changes and they said yes, there’s been modest changes, but there’s still more that needs to be done. I fed this back to the present ceo, he made changes. And then at the end of the second year, there were there were substantial changes, and the board got out of the business of evaluation at that point. All right, so buy some buy some key interviews of the right people, right? Yeah, we don’t have statistical significance and exactly, but on everything that surrounds proper, peer reviewed research. But who can afford to do all that all the time exactly. And and the article contains practical examples. Were both myself and my co author, jerry tally, a sociologist who both of us have been in ah, an end quote in the business a long time have have used the model and have found it very, very helpful. And over time, if you repeat this, asai did and and the example i gave you it was only a about a two year run until the things started to turn around and then the ceo was evaluated on on ongoing from there you mentioned earlier something i wantto spend a little more time with the proper title. Your recommendation for title. For the the chief of the of the organization, you feel pretty strongly that executive director is not sufficient. No, uh, executive director can mean various things because it’s, used in a in a in a wide variety of ways on executive director can be a volunteer who manages the budget of a small church uh uh with a let’s say, a two hundred thousand dollars budget. An executive director khun b, for instance, one i’ve encountered recently. Ah, was the it was the head of a ten. Million dollars ah, charitable organization with over one hundred employees. And i don’t think, uh, the title executive director in the twenty first century, even in the last part of the twentieth century, gives, uh, the chief executive officer of a non-profit the position and stature that that, uh, that he or she needs toe work effectively. So what do you prefer to see? I prefer once you get into the, uh uh, make the make the transition. I prefer president and ceo because people understand their what that means, it’s clear that that person has responsibility for operations except those decisions that have to be made by the board. And that title may have significance for board members also that they recognize the responsibilities of of the president and ceo exactly on dh to add to that. And in many cases, the non-profit president ceo has more management responsibility than a number of the members of the board. For instance, if you’re a professor, you loft and, uh, i don’t have any management responsibilities. Um, never had it. Okay, you worked as an individual contributor. Same thing about a physician. Uh, who is, uh, who has a single practice. The same thing with a, uh a lawyer who is, uh, who has a a single practice or even it’s a part of a major law firm. They just haven’t had the responsibility of the that the president and see the chief executive has of of the nonprofit organization implementing this. A corporate model seems to me there’s a lot of trust between boardmember sze, between the board and the president ceo, between the staff of the organization and the president ceo between the staff and the board. It sounds like there’s a lot of trust required. Yes. You have to have trust it’s it’s. Really? I if you’re and you picked it up exactly. It is a trust model it’s a model in which you have to trust the ceo. Uh, you have to trust the staff that they are professionals. But on the other hand, it also calls for rigorous evaluation. It’s not the traditional evaluation of the border, the staff where they send out a questionnaire at the end of the year and and ask people to return it. You don’t get full returns and the questionnaire is poorly formatted. It takes investigation and robust evaluation and what are we going to do with trustees who are reluctant to give up the managing the paperclips responsibilities? How do we manage those people with difficulty? Yeah. Go hope you got something better than that. Otherwise, i’m taking you off now. I’m going to cut your mic down. If that’s the best you can do. No, uh, some people you have to give them what they might consider meaningful activities such as chairing the annual dinner on things of that nature who are not working, who are not interested in the policy. For instance, if you have a major donor who, uh, just is not interested in policy and strategy and wants to do that over time. What you hope will happen with the ah corporate model with my model is that, uh, the, uh, board will turn over to people who have these dynamic interests and understand that they have to do a robust evaluation, not a cursory one, and that the majority of the board will be those types of people. We got to take a break. Jean fran stays with me, and i certainly hope that you do, too. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Buy-in 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. Buy-in durney welcome back. We’re wrapping up. We have about another five minutes or so and want to continue with with jean for the that time and talk about some of the advice that you have around week board practices. There’s there’s. Something on your blogged. There are a few posts on your block about overcoming week board practices. One of those is one of those bad practices is overlooking absences. What do you suggest there, what’s the problem. And what do we do? Well, you have boardmember sze uh, who? Uh uh, fill a board members, uh, board position and they’re consistently absent. And this is a very touchy situation. They may be very fine. People have great skills, but they simply don’t have the time to attend board meetings, which obviously critical to the organization. Uh, i think the best thing you can do is to try to talk to these people, try to retain them on the board or understand, uh, what they’re missing by not attending the board meetings in some instances. Ah, it’s it, khun b a a termination discussion. For instance, i just recently encountered one and which, uh, the board chair had this discussion with the person and she said, i’m just sorry i like the organization. Ah, and and i’m i’m tied to the mission, vision and values, but i’m doing international travel and my best, the best i can do is to open up the position and resign in other cases if you can find the root cause of it and do something about it for them that’s that that could be ah, that could be another alternative, but it’s very situational on dh. Very individual to see what you can do. Teo, handle the situation you had suggested earlier. There may be a different role for the person. Maybe it’s not. Our board will be something else i can do to support the organization. Yeah, in this one, they’re, uh instance, that i just mentioned. I i had talked to this individual and i said to her, well, look, uh, it’s obvious that you can’t do anything immediately, but your role made in your job may change again. Uh, have you asked about taking a leave of absence from the board on da ah, future time. A year, year and a half. Two years, maybe. Things during that change around and so she’s still connected to the board in some way. I may even get minutes of the board and so forth. So on as a way of retaining that person’s interest in the organization because she was there. She’s, a very fine person. Thoughtful, analytical, does critical thinking and had very broad experiences. In-kind of the dream, the dream boardmember. So you try to make these accommodations. What about insufficient due diligence on the board first? How do we how are we going to recognise that? Well, i think that’s again the, uh the, uh the board chairs responsibility along with the chief executive officer. When things are not discussed in an adequate detail, that they bring the issues up that they pride to do some of the due diligence for the people. Because again, the boardmember zehr not being compensated by large they are. They have other jobs jobs that are their main main concern. And so you may need to help them along on the dew dealings. Due diligence side jean has other identified board weaknesses and and how to overcome them on his on his blogged jean what is it that you love about working on boards? Well i, uh i like the people on dh i’ve served on a number of human services are, you know, charity type boards as well as, you know, trade associations and so forth, but on the boards that especially those that are charitable in nature, you see in these organizations, people who figured early stand ten feet tall, they do much more than they are compensated for, they do it willingly, and they really have the client’s interest that mind, a tte heart, and and then in their mind, you know, i’ve seen ah, social workers in on and homes on group homes, uh, take take some of their clients to their own homes on weekends, or even take them on vacations far beyond what is required of the people in order to ah, help them overcome the handicaps that they have. You know, those are just examples, and when you see people like that really dedicated it and you can contribute in your way, you know, i can’t do those sort of things, but i can contribute to they’re doing it, we have to leave it there. Eugene fram, professor emeritus at rochester institute of technology, google him remember it’s like the fram oil filters fr am googling to find his block. His book is policy versus paper clips it’s on amazon jean, thank you so much for being a guest. Well, thank you for having me been my pleasure. I hope you will be with me next week. Consultant and author amy eisenstein returns last time she was here, we talked about her book, fifty asks in fifty weeks that was april first, two years ago, and her new book is raised more with less took her two years to write it. I hope that was time well spent, and we’re going to find out next week we’re all over the social web, you know that you can’t make a click without testa dura lisp arika smack your head hard on tony martignetti non-profit radio twitter, for example, use the hashtag non-profit radio. Check out the hashtag follow me, i’m at tony martignetti you want to know what’s coming up before the show sign up for our weekly insider email alerts that’s on the facebook page, click alerts. Our creative producer is claire meyerhoff. Sam liebowitz is our line producer and assistant producer is janice taylor shows social media is by regina walton of organic social media and the remote producer of tony martignetti non-profit radio is john federico of the new rules were gonna be remote starting starting season in june at fund-raising day in new york city. I hope you’ll be with me next friday, one two to eastern on talking alternative broadcasting at talking alternative dot com. Hyre no. Durney i don’t think that’s a good ending. You’re listening to the talking. Alternate network duitz getting anything. 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