3 Templates for Your Board Recruitment Campaign

This process takes time and energy – – – but a structured recruitment campaign is 20-times more effective than randomly recruiting new board members individually.

From the first committee meeting to the final board vote that elects your new class of board members, the entire process will likely take 4 to 6 months. I covered the recruitment process extensively in my book, Successful Nonprofits Build Supercharged Boards . I’ve found most governance committees have benefited from 3 tools in particular. I’ve dramatically updated these after working with nonprofits over the past 6 years:

• • • • Board Matrix (sometimes called a board skills checklist)
      • • • • Board Recruitment Announcement
            • • • • Board Application Form (sometimes called a board nomination form)

                  In addition to explaining each of the tools in this blog post, I’ve offered sample templates that you can download, edit, and use in your nonprofit’s next board recruitment campaign

                  Tool #1: Board Matrix

                  The board matrix helps your governance committee take stock of the current board’s skills, demographics, and connections. Knowing these details helps you identify the gaps on your board so you can fine tune your process and recruit the board members you need.

                  1) Skills

                  Think about all of the skills necessary for a well-rounded board to govern your nonprofit organization. It goes beyond just having an accountant, an attorney, and someone with programmatic expertise.

                  The variety of skills you need are based on the life-cycle stage of your organization. If you have a small working board, you will need board members with expertise in marketing, volunteer management, and perhaps even events. But if you have a large governing board, then you will probably focus on high-level professionals, philanthropists, and subject matter experts.

                  2) Demographics

                  Your board matrix should also help you understand board member demographics. This typically includes gender, gender identity, race, and ethnicity. This portion of your board matrix ensures your board is considering diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in its recruitment process.

                  In addition to these measures of DEI, you also might want to consider other demographic factors that are important for your organization. For example, a statewide organization might want geographically diverse board members to better represent the entire state. While an organization serving just one neighborhood might want board members representing young adult, middle-age, and older adult community members.

                  3) Connections

                  Most board matrix templates I have seen include both skill and diversity metrics. But I am often surprised that they do not include community connections. It’s important to think about which communities are important to your organization’s success. These might be religious communities or congregations, ethnic communities, civic organizations, or even political groups. Then make sure that you have board members who can open doors within those communities.

                  I’ve created a sample board matrix in excel, which you can download below. This is a fully editable template, and I encourage you to customize the skill, demographic, and connection sections to meet your nonprofit board’s needs: