Step 1: Board Assessment and Visioning

We start by interviewing all board members and making an honest assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the board, and talking together about what need to change. We challenge the current board to describe in detail what their ideal team would look like and what it would accomplish, and we keep that dream vision in front of us throughout the process. While a few board members begin working on our Search Committee, the Executive Committee take responsibility for making other necessary adjustments so that the new board members will come into a healthier environment when they are eventually brought on.

 

Step 2: Defining the Opportunity

Together with the Search Committee, we use the assessment results to determine the most important skills and qualities we wanted to see in board candidates, as well as exactly what we are asking all board members to do. We also articulate what we could offer board members and why they might want to get engaged. From this we created a Board Opportunity document – NOT a board job description, but rather an attractive announcement of an exciting opportunity all designed to say: this deserves your attention!

 

Step 3: Spreading the Word

Circulate the Board Opportunity document just as you would any job announcement: we will utilize social media and personal networks to get the word out. We spend time at a board meeting brainstorming a list of “fantasy candidates” of highly connected and experienced people, and then assigned board members who knew them to reach out and ask if they would consider the opportunity and/or just circulate it to friends. We set up an email alias and respond to inquiries with additional information including a detailed board job description and written application with a firm deadline. We also offer “get to know us” coffees and tours for candidates who might be new to the organization. When colleagues begin to tell us they’d received the Opportunity document from multiple sources, we know that we've been successful at getting the word out.  

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Step 4: Screening and Selection

We end up with multiple inquiries, those of whom ultimately submitted an application and will be interviewed by members of the Search Committee. Search Committee members also checked references and used a screening tool we created to help compare the strengths of the candidates that we had identified in the Opportunity document as being the most important to us. When all this work is done they come together to make decisions about the final slate they would nominate to serve on the board.