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Creating an effective dharma center board
A board will only be as effective as the directors that make it up, and you want directors who bring with them either a particular expertise that you need now, or connections in the community that you can leverage to build partnerships that help realize your mission. Simply showing up in the zendo regularly is not in itself a qualification for board service. There should be other outlets within the center for people to develop and offer leadership, such as committees or work teams; not everyone has boardmanship skills and not everyone needs to or should be a board member.
Your bylaws will specify the length of a board member’s term. Many centers find it helpful to organizational stability to stagger the directors’ terms so that only a few folks are up for election or appointment each year. In the case of a start-up board, for instance, some directors may be appointed to one-year terms, some for two years, and some for three. Thereafter, each new director would serve a three-year term. This approach also allows the center to thoughtfully discuss board service with only a few potential new directors at a time, rather than scrambling to replace all the directors at once—resulting in better candidates and a higher-performing board.
It’s a good idea to maintain some diversity on your board. Consider age, gender, race and decisionmaking style. Do you have a balance between introverted and extroverted directors? Are there both big-picture conceptual folks and folks who concentrate on the tangible details? Does everyone make decisions based on their emotions, or do some use logic? Are there people who come to conclusions fairly quickly as well as those who like to leave things open-ended? If your sangha will encompass a broad geographic area, think also about representation from the various communities or states you will serve.
As Japanese temples do, you may want to consider reserving one board seat for a member of the clergy from outside your center. As a peer to your own clergy, that person brings both directly relevant experience and accountability to your board. He or she can understand the everyday realities clergy face in a way that no other board member can, and can use that understanding in thoughtful advocacy. He or she also represents the larger clerical community, helping make sure that decisions are made and things are done in a way that meets generally accepted ethical and professional guidelines. Reserving a board seat for visiting clergy gives you access to the viewpoint, experience and contacts of another person trained and ordained in this tradition.
Your bylaws will specify the length of a board member’s term. Many centers find it helpful to organizational stability to stagger the directors’ terms so that only a few folks are up for election or appointment each year. In the case of a start-up board, for instance, some directors may be appointed to one-year terms, some for two years, and some for three. Thereafter, each new director would serve a three-year term. This approach also allows the center to thoughtfully discuss board service with only a few potential new directors at a time, rather than scrambling to replace all the directors at once—resulting in better candidates and a higher-performing board.
It’s a good idea to maintain some diversity on your board. Consider age, gender, race and decisionmaking style. Do you have a balance between introverted and extroverted directors? Are there both big-picture conceptual folks and folks who concentrate on the tangible details? Does everyone make decisions based on their emotions, or do some use logic? Are there people who come to conclusions fairly quickly as well as those who like to leave things open-ended? If your sangha will encompass a broad geographic area, think also about representation from the various communities or states you will serve.
As Japanese temples do, you may want to consider reserving one board seat for a member of the clergy from outside your center. As a peer to your own clergy, that person brings both directly relevant experience and accountability to your board. He or she can understand the everyday realities clergy face in a way that no other board member can, and can use that understanding in thoughtful advocacy. He or she also represents the larger clerical community, helping make sure that decisions are made and things are done in a way that meets generally accepted ethical and professional guidelines. Reserving a board seat for visiting clergy gives you access to the viewpoint, experience and contacts of another person trained and ordained in this tradition.
Personal qualities of a good board candidate
- belief in the mission and vision
- eagerness and readiness to participate by showing up for meetings, speaking up in discussions, offering new ideas
- willingness to prepare for meetings and help with research
- willingness to listen and learn about the center and about board service
- has the best interest of the center in mind – does the right thing (duty of loyalty)
- communicates well in all forms – speaking, writing, reading and listening (which are also the ways we interact with the dharma)
The skills your center needs
No matter how small or large your center is, there's a set of skills that need to exist somewhere within it, whether offered by directors, staff, or volunteers.
Not all directors need to be experts in everything. It’s fine to know a lot about relationship building and less about the other areas – as long as someone knows a lot about those areas. Some of your directors may not have a lot of the skills on the list, but they have tons of networks in places you need to reach. They’re in a position to help you do promotion and get your name or your programs in front of people. Maybe they can get you stuff – in-kind donations, pro bono work, financial support. Maybe they can connect you with major donors or with partner organizations. Those connections become their contribution on the board; they have to be willing to reach out and ask for things that you identify as priorities.
It’s OK if not all directors are sangha members or practitioners or have ever been to your temple. Some people simply want to do something meaningful for others and want to help small nonprofits that need them. These folks need to understand enough about what you do to believe in the mission and be able to explain your strategic plan, but it’s fine to borrow expertise. It doesn’t all have to be home grown and originate in your own immediate sangha. (How many midsize or small sanghas could say they include experts in all of these dozen areas?)
- Strategic planning
- Financial management
- Fundraising
- Marketing and communication
- Board management and evaluation
- Program management and evaluation
- Human resources management: staff and volunteers, including board
- Training at all levels
- The state of our field of endeavor: Buddhism and Zen, but also the general religious landscape
- Leadership and decision-making
- Organizational development
- Building strong relationships – internally and externally
Not all directors need to be experts in everything. It’s fine to know a lot about relationship building and less about the other areas – as long as someone knows a lot about those areas. Some of your directors may not have a lot of the skills on the list, but they have tons of networks in places you need to reach. They’re in a position to help you do promotion and get your name or your programs in front of people. Maybe they can get you stuff – in-kind donations, pro bono work, financial support. Maybe they can connect you with major donors or with partner organizations. Those connections become their contribution on the board; they have to be willing to reach out and ask for things that you identify as priorities.
It’s OK if not all directors are sangha members or practitioners or have ever been to your temple. Some people simply want to do something meaningful for others and want to help small nonprofits that need them. These folks need to understand enough about what you do to believe in the mission and be able to explain your strategic plan, but it’s fine to borrow expertise. It doesn’t all have to be home grown and originate in your own immediate sangha. (How many midsize or small sanghas could say they include experts in all of these dozen areas?)
Board officers
In order to incorporate, your board will need a president or chair, a treasurer and a secretary, at minimum. Many states won’t allow a board member to hold more than one office at a time, which is why you’ll need at least three directors to start with.
The president or chair partners with the chief administrator to achieve the mission of the organization. He or she chairs meetings, leads the board in setting policy, and oversees strategic planning and evaluation efforts as well as working to resolve issues of governance. Playing a key role in fundraising activities, the president stays informed about the financial plans and condition of the organization.
The treasurer manages the organization’s finances, heading up the creation of an annual budget for board approval and overseeing development and adoption of financial policies and procedures. He or she is critical to the board’s stewardship function. Actual bookkeeping tasks need not necessarily be done by the treasurer; he or she is only charged with making sure that they are done properly.
The secretary maintains the board’s records, including meeting minutes, and oversees effective management of the organization’s records as a whole. (Note that actually taking the minutes may or may not fall to the secretary him- or herself; this task can be delegated to anyone. The secretary is merely responsible for seeing that good minutes are taken, approved and filed.) The secretary is the leadership center for the organization’s memory. Just as Ananda filed away the Buddha’s teachings in his memory and safeguarded them until such time as they were written down and preserved, the board looks to its secretary to safeguard its history and be ready to make it available whenever it’s needed. He or she maintains enough familiarity with the corporation’s legal documents (articles of incorporation, bylaws, IRS forms, etc.), its previous official actions, and its existing policies to know when they’re relevant to board discussion. For instance, when it becomes clear that a proposed board action would require a bylaws change, the secretary can help by reminding directors that the bylaws state that such a change requires 14 days’ notice to the membership, and suggesting the item be put on the agenda for the next meeting. Similarly, if the board seems unsure about how to make a decision about a proposed action, the secretary can point directors toward relevant policies it already has on the books.
You may wish to appoint a vice-president or vice-chair in addition to the three officers above. He or she may be asked to serve as the board’s liaison with its committees, making sure that necessary information flows between the groups, that the committees have what they need to do the work assigned to them, and that timely updates are delivered to the board. The vice-president reports to the president and stands ready to take over presidential tasks, such as chairing meetings, when the president is unavailable. He or she may also be closely involved with organizing and carrying out the board’s strategic planning and evaluation efforts.
The president or chair partners with the chief administrator to achieve the mission of the organization. He or she chairs meetings, leads the board in setting policy, and oversees strategic planning and evaluation efforts as well as working to resolve issues of governance. Playing a key role in fundraising activities, the president stays informed about the financial plans and condition of the organization.
The treasurer manages the organization’s finances, heading up the creation of an annual budget for board approval and overseeing development and adoption of financial policies and procedures. He or she is critical to the board’s stewardship function. Actual bookkeeping tasks need not necessarily be done by the treasurer; he or she is only charged with making sure that they are done properly.
The secretary maintains the board’s records, including meeting minutes, and oversees effective management of the organization’s records as a whole. (Note that actually taking the minutes may or may not fall to the secretary him- or herself; this task can be delegated to anyone. The secretary is merely responsible for seeing that good minutes are taken, approved and filed.) The secretary is the leadership center for the organization’s memory. Just as Ananda filed away the Buddha’s teachings in his memory and safeguarded them until such time as they were written down and preserved, the board looks to its secretary to safeguard its history and be ready to make it available whenever it’s needed. He or she maintains enough familiarity with the corporation’s legal documents (articles of incorporation, bylaws, IRS forms, etc.), its previous official actions, and its existing policies to know when they’re relevant to board discussion. For instance, when it becomes clear that a proposed board action would require a bylaws change, the secretary can help by reminding directors that the bylaws state that such a change requires 14 days’ notice to the membership, and suggesting the item be put on the agenda for the next meeting. Similarly, if the board seems unsure about how to make a decision about a proposed action, the secretary can point directors toward relevant policies it already has on the books.
You may wish to appoint a vice-president or vice-chair in addition to the three officers above. He or she may be asked to serve as the board’s liaison with its committees, making sure that necessary information flows between the groups, that the committees have what they need to do the work assigned to them, and that timely updates are delivered to the board. The vice-president reports to the president and stands ready to take over presidential tasks, such as chairing meetings, when the president is unavailable. He or she may also be closely involved with organizing and carrying out the board’s strategic planning and evaluation efforts.
Board cultivation
All too often, the search for new board members is left to the week or two before the annual membership meeting. Someone suddenly realizes that the terms of several incumbent directors are about to expire, and the president and head teacher start thrashing around, trying to come up with the requisite number of nominees. There’s an old and desperate joke about the only necessary qualifications for board service being breath and a pulse. This is not the most effective approach to board development. The time to begin cultivating new board members is right now. It doesn’t matter how far away your next annual meeting is, because board cultivation is an activity that never stops. The good news is that you already know a lot about what sort of directors you’re looking for. Armed with your mission, vision and strategic plan, you already know what skills will be particularly necessary for the next one to two years. Brief consideration of the directors who will be leaving the board next will tell you what qualities or skills will need to be replaced. You have some idea what personal qualities you want in your board members. You know from your program plans what groups you want to serve and where they are, so you have some idea what kind of board representation is needed. Put all these things together and brainstorm about who you know, inside or outside the center, that would be a good fit.
It’s also very possible that your next director is someone you haven’t met yet. When a newcomer arrives at your center, don’t miss the opportunity to have a friendly conversation with her that draws her out about her interests and experience. It may be six months until the next board vacancy, but it’s not too early to begin testing the water. Might she be interested in board service at some time in the future? Is there a relevant committee that would welcome her skills today? Committees are the ideal introduction to center leadership; they give their members a chance to meet and work with others, establish and develop their practice, build and solidify relationships, and learn about the mission and priorities of the center. They’re a great training ground for board service, and they keep their members involved and informed until a director position becomes available.
Forming a small nominating committee is a great way to make board recruitment more effective. These folks are charged with keeping an eye on the center’s plans and needs mentioned above and being constantly on the lookout for good potential board members. They have informal conversations with those who may be interested in serving, answering their questions about qualifications and the role and activities of the board. When it’s time to make up the slate of nominations for the annual meeting, there is no mad scramble to fill the seats—instead, there is an identified group of skilled and informed nominees who have already agreed to serve if elected or appointed.
Of course, if yours is a membership organization and elects its directors, your bylaws may allow for taking nominations from the floor and you may end up with surprise candidates at the meeting. You may also have cultivated more nominees than you have open seats. A competitive race simply means you have a lot of viable potential directors, and it’s a great message to the sangha that board service is a meaningful and sought-after leadership opportunity. Those not elected or appointed can be invited to serve on committees, or your bylaws may provide for adding seats to the board.
By the way, getting your ducks in a row now with regard to the governance and operational items discussed in this Bodhisattva Leadership section of the website makes it much easier to sell potential directors on joining your board. When invited to serve, a savvy candidate starts asking questions. Is there a budget? A strategic plan? Where do my skills fit in? Are structures in place, or are you asking me to help build them? Good, experienced board members want to step into a sustainable, high-performing organization.
All too often, the search for new board members is left to the week or two before the annual membership meeting. Someone suddenly realizes that the terms of several incumbent directors are about to expire, and the president and head teacher start thrashing around, trying to come up with the requisite number of nominees. There’s an old and desperate joke about the only necessary qualifications for board service being breath and a pulse. This is not the most effective approach to board development. The time to begin cultivating new board members is right now. It doesn’t matter how far away your next annual meeting is, because board cultivation is an activity that never stops. The good news is that you already know a lot about what sort of directors you’re looking for. Armed with your mission, vision and strategic plan, you already know what skills will be particularly necessary for the next one to two years. Brief consideration of the directors who will be leaving the board next will tell you what qualities or skills will need to be replaced. You have some idea what personal qualities you want in your board members. You know from your program plans what groups you want to serve and where they are, so you have some idea what kind of board representation is needed. Put all these things together and brainstorm about who you know, inside or outside the center, that would be a good fit.
It’s also very possible that your next director is someone you haven’t met yet. When a newcomer arrives at your center, don’t miss the opportunity to have a friendly conversation with her that draws her out about her interests and experience. It may be six months until the next board vacancy, but it’s not too early to begin testing the water. Might she be interested in board service at some time in the future? Is there a relevant committee that would welcome her skills today? Committees are the ideal introduction to center leadership; they give their members a chance to meet and work with others, establish and develop their practice, build and solidify relationships, and learn about the mission and priorities of the center. They’re a great training ground for board service, and they keep their members involved and informed until a director position becomes available.
Forming a small nominating committee is a great way to make board recruitment more effective. These folks are charged with keeping an eye on the center’s plans and needs mentioned above and being constantly on the lookout for good potential board members. They have informal conversations with those who may be interested in serving, answering their questions about qualifications and the role and activities of the board. When it’s time to make up the slate of nominations for the annual meeting, there is no mad scramble to fill the seats—instead, there is an identified group of skilled and informed nominees who have already agreed to serve if elected or appointed.
Of course, if yours is a membership organization and elects its directors, your bylaws may allow for taking nominations from the floor and you may end up with surprise candidates at the meeting. You may also have cultivated more nominees than you have open seats. A competitive race simply means you have a lot of viable potential directors, and it’s a great message to the sangha that board service is a meaningful and sought-after leadership opportunity. Those not elected or appointed can be invited to serve on committees, or your bylaws may provide for adding seats to the board.
By the way, getting your ducks in a row now with regard to the governance and operational items discussed in this Bodhisattva Leadership section of the website makes it much easier to sell potential directors on joining your board. When invited to serve, a savvy candidate starts asking questions. Is there a budget? A strategic plan? Where do my skills fit in? Are structures in place, or are you asking me to help build them? Good, experienced board members want to step into a sustainable, high-performing organization.
Who you may not want as directors
Your head teacher may or may not serve as a voting director. If he or she is an employee of the corporation, care must be taken not to create a conflict of interest when financial decisions are made. Some centers find it cleaner to make their employed clergy/teachers non-voting members of the board, giving them the opportunity or responsibility to make recommendations and participate in discussion, but not to engage in the final decisionmaking. In any event, the relationship between the board and the clergy must be clearly spelled out in governance documents and contracts, indicating the lines of reporting and authority, the decisionmaking structure, any veto or override privileges that may exist for either party, and how any person is to be removed from office or replaced.
If novices are a part of the dharma center, they too need special consideration with regard to board service. The water can get awfully muddy when the head teacher is employed by the board and one or more of the directors are the teacher’s disciples. While novices are often among the most committed, knowledgeable and hardworking members of the sangha, it can create discomfort in the training relationship when they are asked to become their teachers’ supervisors for the purposes of board work. If instead the board reports to the head teacher and serves him or her in an advisory capacity, installing novices as directors can look like the board is being stacked. In any event, it’s likely that novices have already taken on a significant amount of activity related to their training as clergy, and asking them to assume this additional role may be detrimental to their well-being.
It’s also wise to be careful about inviting dependent family members of employees to serve as directors. They may be strong supporters of the sangha and the center, becoming heavily involved and sometimes taking on leadership roles on a volunteer basis, but they benefit financially from the paychecks and benefits their spouses or parents receive from the center. That means they’ll be unable to vote on personnel, financial or other issues that affect them directly, perhaps diminishing their usefulness as board members.
Both novices and family members can be seen as powerful, if unofficial, influences on policy—novices because of their commitment to training and the attention they receive from their teachers, and family members simply because of their relationship with employees. Adding board service to that mix may create some imbalance in the dynamics of the sangha by concentrating a lot of power in the hands of a few people. It may be more effective to ask these folks to serve in an advisory capacity or on a committee than as voting members of the board.
If novices are a part of the dharma center, they too need special consideration with regard to board service. The water can get awfully muddy when the head teacher is employed by the board and one or more of the directors are the teacher’s disciples. While novices are often among the most committed, knowledgeable and hardworking members of the sangha, it can create discomfort in the training relationship when they are asked to become their teachers’ supervisors for the purposes of board work. If instead the board reports to the head teacher and serves him or her in an advisory capacity, installing novices as directors can look like the board is being stacked. In any event, it’s likely that novices have already taken on a significant amount of activity related to their training as clergy, and asking them to assume this additional role may be detrimental to their well-being.
It’s also wise to be careful about inviting dependent family members of employees to serve as directors. They may be strong supporters of the sangha and the center, becoming heavily involved and sometimes taking on leadership roles on a volunteer basis, but they benefit financially from the paychecks and benefits their spouses or parents receive from the center. That means they’ll be unable to vote on personnel, financial or other issues that affect them directly, perhaps diminishing their usefulness as board members.
Both novices and family members can be seen as powerful, if unofficial, influences on policy—novices because of their commitment to training and the attention they receive from their teachers, and family members simply because of their relationship with employees. Adding board service to that mix may create some imbalance in the dynamics of the sangha by concentrating a lot of power in the hands of a few people. It may be more effective to ask these folks to serve in an advisory capacity or on a committee than as voting members of the board.
What directors need in order to be effective: tools and training
information
Directors need two kinds of information: timely and background. Timely information includes board packets that are received well ahead of meetings (and actually read). The packet typically includes the agenda, minutes, financial report, teacher’s report, team reports, proposals/action items, discussion items, and any general communications that have gone out to the sangha. It can also be useful to provide key performance indicators. KPI are things we can measure related to effectiveness in carrying out the mission, a small set of numbers that directors see every month and watch over time. These generally fall into four areas that align with the board's four areas of responsibility: financial, marketing, personnel, and outreach. Reports might include a financial summary, donations/fundraising, participation/visitors, engagement (website traffic, newsletter readers, Facebook likes, contact us mails) – you decide what you need to look at. You may have to figure out how to collect or extract these data if you haven’t done so before.
Background information includes governance documents like the articles of incorporation and bylaws, role descriptions, historical or archival information, etc. All of that information goes into a board manual, and all new directors get a copy so they can hit the ground running. Even if they’ve been practicing in your dharma center for 20 years, there will be things about its history and operation that they don’t know. The manual keeps a new director from being an outsider who waits around to be taught things or get them from context, and other directors don’t have to keep repeating this background for them.
Background information includes governance documents like the articles of incorporation and bylaws, role descriptions, historical or archival information, etc. All of that information goes into a board manual, and all new directors get a copy so they can hit the ground running. Even if they’ve been practicing in your dharma center for 20 years, there will be things about its history and operation that they don’t know. The manual keeps a new director from being an outsider who waits around to be taught things or get them from context, and other directors don’t have to keep repeating this background for them.
Centralized document storage
It's all too easy for dharma center directors and volunteers to write and distribute documents over time, keep the original files on their own computers, and then eventually disappear, taking their organizational knowledge with them. Additionally, when multiple versions of a document are floating around in people's inboxes as email attachments, it's not clear which is the official or current one. Centralized document storage alleviates these problems, and these days it's more likely to take the form of a shared drive than a file cabinet in the office. Gather up all of the important records and other documents, upload them to an organized file structure, and give access to directors, staff and those volunteers who need it. Going forward, the board secretary ensures that new documents are added, and this shared drive becomes the official internal information resource. No longer do you need to determine who has ownership of a particular document and ask that it be emailed to you; you can get to necessary documents yourself anytime.
Scheduling
Related to centralized information is centralized scheduling and calendars. An online master calendar can include layers that show practice events, meetings, vacations, deadlines and volunteer commitments, and makes these available to all directors at any time. Upcoming meetings cease to be a surprise, and double-booking due to lack of information goes away.
training
Board training is not an indictment of anyone’s effectiveness; nor is it a punishment. It should be happening at least annually regardless of who’s on the board. If failure to evolve is the kiss of death for nonprofits, that means continuous training is essential. Free training is actually a thank you gift for your service; you can take that training with you into your paid work or your other volunteer activities as part of your personal growth.
One relatively painless way to offer regular training is to make it part of your annual meeting. Maybe you do your planning, evaluation and other business in the morning, break for lunch, and then do a workshop in the afternoon. It could be led by one of your expert directors on their particular topic, or you could bring in a trainer. In any event, identify areas in which the board feels it's a bit weak, compare those with the skills you'll need in the next year to carry out your strategic plan, and make the space for some training time.
One relatively painless way to offer regular training is to make it part of your annual meeting. Maybe you do your planning, evaluation and other business in the morning, break for lunch, and then do a workshop in the afternoon. It could be led by one of your expert directors on their particular topic, or you could bring in a trainer. In any event, identify areas in which the board feels it's a bit weak, compare those with the skills you'll need in the next year to carry out your strategic plan, and make the space for some training time.