Nominations Committee

Last week I talked about finding the right person to join the board of a non-profit. This week, as promised, we’ll talk about who does the looking.

The core group to recruit new board members is the nominations committee. To ensure a stream of new board members each year, a nominations committee is created right from the day the non-profit begins and continues throughout the non-profit’s entire life cycle.

The nominations committee’s job is to look for suitable volunteers, to make an invitation to join the board, and to answer questions from potential nominees.

A nominations committee might be armed with a handful of tools to help them do their job.

1. An elevator pitch they can share about the non-profit.
2. A one-pager with a bit more detail about the non-profit. This might be printing a few pages from the web site or even last year’s annual report.
3. A short explanation of the role a board member plays in the organization.
4. Details about the board such as governance style, term length, number of meetings, etc.
5. Finally, the board application.

There are, however, two other key players in the recruitment of potential board members, the rest of the board and the executive director.

The nominations committee is the face of the recruitment process, but that doesn’t mean the rest of the board does nothing. All board members need to contribute to finding potential nominees. I mean, who better to identify volunteers with a passion that aligns with the non-profit and an aptitude to do the work of the board, than board members themselves?

The only difference between the recruitment work being done by the nominations committee and the recruitment work done by the rest of the board is that the nominations committee is the one that approaches the candidate. The rest of the board still provides names and suggestions.

There are two other key players in the recruitment of potential board members, the rest of the board and the executive director.

The executive director has a unique perspective of the non-profit and uses a different lens to identify someone suited to join the board. The executive director has a grassroots level experience with the stakeholders the non-profit serves. From that perspective the executive director can identify a slightly different volunteer, but still, someone with a passion that aligns with the non-profit.

Both the executive director and the rest of the board provide names to the nominations committee, who, armed with their tools, approaches the potential nominee to join the board.

Whether you are a board member or executive director reading this, don’t leave your nominations committee to do the work all alone. Do your part, start looking for great potential board members, and get those names to the committee.

I hope you’ve found these ideas helpful. If you have a question, please leave a comment, or send me a message. I’d love to help you out. Talk to you soon. 😊

-Christie

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New here? I'm Christie Saas. I teach I teach first-time executive directors how to run a non-profit.
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