The Influential Nonprofit: Episode 115: Mary Hiland: Love Your Board!
Mary Hiland, PhD, is a nonprofit board and leadership development consultant dedicated to assisting nonprofit executives and board members in unleashing their organizational and community impact potential. She has over 40 years of experience in the nonprofit sector — 26 as an executive.
Mary works with nonprofit leaders to strengthen the executive/board partnership and develop the board as a powerful force for organizational and mission results. She is a coach and mentor for boards, individual board leaders, and executive directors.
Mary has been consulting since 2002, working with several hundred nonprofits, including associations and all-volunteer nonprofits. The focus of her consulting is board development and executive leadership. In addition, as a certified Strategic Restructuring Consultant, Mary has trained and consulted with over ninety nonprofits on mergers and strategic alliances, coaching and facilitating nonprofit leaders through all phases of the process.
If you have the luxury of building your board, then the most important thing is to get to know each one. Establish a relationship with each of your board members. Don’t hire based merely on expertise, bring people in who care about the mission.
Embrace each individual from the board as a member of the team. Acknowledge the power dynamics, and recognize that collectively, the board is the boss of the executive director but lean into the fact that you are all one team. You will be united when you emphasize the common passion that you have for what your organization stands for.
Most problems in organizations boil down to these three C’s: Capacity, Connection, and Culture. The first step to amending these problems is by sparking awareness. Awareness allows for change to take place. Mindset is really where you want to start with a lot of things.
Most problems can be solved by starting with your mindset. When it comes to fundraising, shift your mindset from this energy of “asking” to one that’s passionate about the work that you’re doing. Talk to people about the work that your organization is doing but don’t force your message onto people who are not interested.
You don't just grab someone because of the expertise that they have. You first have to assess how passionate they are about your mission. That's the common ground.
If you're going to be an effective board, you got to be an effective team.
You've got to shift your mindset about fundraising. If you're passionate about the mission, go talk to people about it. Don't twist their arms to be interested in it. If they're not, move on to somebody else.
Reach out to Mary Hiland at:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hilandconsulting
Website: https://www.hilandconsulting.org/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maryhiland/
ASK FOR AND RECEIVE ALL YOU WANT NEED AND DESERVE WITHOUT FEELING REJECTED, INEFFECTIVE, OR PUSHY.
Learn to manage your mindset, lead yourself and others more effectively and have the meaningful conversations that drive your most important work.