This episode is sponsored by Bontera. Bontera is a social good software company focused on
powering those who power social impact, with best-in-class fundraising engagement,
program management, and CSR solutions. By bringing together intuitive technology and social
impact expertise, Bontera enables unmatched connectivity between organizations and their
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organizations to maximize their impact. To learn more about selecting the right tech for your
nonprofit, go to www.jcesocialmarketing.com slash Bontera. That's jcesocialmarketing.com slash
B-O-N-T-E-R-R-A. Thanks and on to the episode.
Hello and welcome to Nonprofit Nation. I'm your host Julia Campbell and I'm going to sit down
with non-profit industry experts, fundraisers, marketers, and everyone in between to get real
and discuss what it takes to build that movement that you've been dreaming of.
I created the Nonprofit Nation podcast to share practical wisdom and strategies to help you
confidently find your voice, definitively grow your audience, and effectively build your movement.
If you're a nonprofit newbie or an experienced professional who's looking to get more visibility,
reach more people and create even more impact than you're in the right place. Let's get started.
Hi everyone, welcome back to Nonprofit Nation. Happy to have you here today and we're in for a
treat because today is one of my most downloaded guests, most listened to episodes. Our first
conversation was in 2021 and the title of that episode, you want to go look it up, it's called
what the best fundraisers do differently and my guest is Sabrina Walker Hernandez and I'm so
thrilled to have you with me again, Sabrina. Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here. I'm
excited to talk about this topic. It's actually a topic that I love to talk about because I think
boards get a bent ramp. Absolutely. I'm not going to spend a lot of time on Sabrina's bio,
you can look it up in the show notes. She's been on the show. A lot of you know who she is,
but just to give you a little bit of a background, Sabrina helps nonprofits and small businesses
increase revenue and that's really kind of the bottom line and also build better boards that
help build revenue. That is what we're going to talk about today. We're going to focus on
how we can structure maybe our staff, our volunteers and what are some of the things we can put in
place to build better boards and gauge better boards. But before we do that, Sabrina, I'd love to
have you tell us a little bit about what's been going on since you were last on the podcast
since 2021 seems like kind of a lifetime ago and what do you focus on now? It does seem like
a lifetime ago, but you know what? Time goes slow and fast all at the same time and so we're
working on really is just facilitating to a lot of boards and helping a lot of CEOs with their
boards because people always say they have a fundraising problem, but when I start to dig,
it's not a fundraising problem. It's a board problem and they really don't know how to inspire
and manage their boards. And you do have the receipts and what we talked about it before,
one of your greatest successes as listed in your bio is when you increased the operation revenue
from $750,000 to $2.5 million over an eight year period at one of the organizations that you
worked at, as well as being responsible for the planning, operations and completion of a 12 million
comprehensive capital campaign, establishing a $500,000 half a million dollar endowment
in the third poorest county in the United States. So you've overcome some obstacles. When
people say they can't fundraise, what do you tell them? I said you can fundraise. It takes effort,
but it also takes a team and your board is your team and you need to look at them as a team and
you need to go into board meetings. Serving as a cheerleader, really, and it can't be that
conversation or that dread of, oh my god, my board doesn't do anything or, oh my god, I can't get
them to respond to my emails. You know, those things that we tell ourselves, so you have to just ask
yourself, okay, maybe they don't communicate by email. Everybody is different. Some people are
email, some people are text, some people are WhatsApp. You have to figure out how to communicate with
that individual board member and you're treating them as a collective and you have to build a
relationship with individuals. You answer my question. My first question is, what are we getting
wrong about boards? Like, what are some of the myths and misconceptions? And I think you address
that you said, we need to look at them as team members and we need to look at them as we're
all in this together and not this sort of, you know, a group of people in an ivory tower that are
untouched of all that we can't talk to. Exactly. You have to talk to them and you have to build
relationships with them, individual relationships. You have to, you know, there's a strategy to it.
I say, you have to get to know each of your board members. Now, some of them you might get to know
a little bit better than others, right? And I call them ones that you get to know a little bit
better. I call them your board champions, right? They are the board members that you want to get
something done and you need to have a board voice. Then they will champion your message for you.
Those are your board champions. You spend a bit more time with your board champions. You also
need to spend time with your board chair once a month. You should be meeting with your board chair.
Everybody has to eat. So go to lunch once a month. Share the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Share it all because you're a tomb and you're in it together. What I notice is a lot of executive
directors, they only talk to their board at the board meeting or right before something, the agenda
or something. And then you're the one creating the agenda. They have no process in the agenda.
I'm like, how is that a board meeting? The CEO is creating the agenda. The CEO is talking
throughout the whole board meeting. How is that a board meeting? It's a presentation. And so they
come to that presentation and say in person talking, it becomes monotonous. And who wants to go to
a meeting like that? And so you have to become a cheerleader for your board members. Create
opportunities of engagement. When you're doing the agenda, have a draft of the agenda.
In you and the board chair, some say board chair, you could put the agenda together. For me,
I did it with my executive committee. We met at I'm not a morning person, Julia. I'll tell you
that street. I'm not a morning person either. I hate it. But this group, if I wanted to engage them,
they worked. And I worked, but not like that. Not like it. Yeah. A strenuous strategy meeting.
Exactly. So at 7 a.m. in the morning, this group met my executive committee. I walked in with a
draft agenda, gave everybody a copy. The resource development chair said, you know, let's add this to
the agenda, the nomination committee. So everybody got to add pieces to the agenda. And we all
worked on the agenda together. And then that's the agenda and the packet that we sent out.
Now, as I as the CEO, could I have just done the agenda myself? Yes. Very capable of doing that.
But that does not create moments of engagement for your board. And sometimes we get so caught up
in the doing that we forget to create moments of engagement. I love that. I want to get more
into moments of engagement. But I think what you said is so impactful because my biggest experience
being on a board is I'm on the school board. And it's different than being on a board of a
nonprofit. But the rules of engagement, I think, still apply because we are making policy and
setting financial direction. And for us, the CEO is a superintendent. But we all work on the
agenda together. The board chair and the superintendent create the agenda, but they send it to us.
And they say, what are topics for future meetings? What else would you like to see on it? We're
forced to have, you know, open meeting laws. So we can't talk in private. But at the board meetings,
when we talk, everyone has their own opinion. They can weigh in on the agenda. And they can
say, I would like to talk about this. This is something I'm concerned about. I would like to learn
more about this. Can we bring some more research on this? I remember during COVID, we frequently
were saying, can we bring in the, you know, health nurses from the schools? Can we bring in a
teacher to weigh in on this? So we could make these requests. And it makes you feel empowered.
If you just are handed an agenda and you say, okay, you have to vote on this. You have to do
this. You have to look at this. You've got to read these documents and these exhibits before
the meeting and be prepared. But you don't have any actual agency in the agenda. I think it's
just empowering. So what you're saying is so powerful. Yeah. You need to empower your people and
create those moments of engagement because that gives them ownership. That gives them voice. And so
that's the first thing. Create those moments of engagement and it starts with the agenda.
May I be a part to very much to what you just described is a great way to go about doing it. And
then from there, you know, they are in the agenda. When you are planning the agenda as well,
who's going to talk about what topic? It should always be just one person. Right. It should not be
one person. And if you are, in my case of the organization, we had a first vice president,
second vice president, third vice president. So third vice president was program and so forth,
the resource development nominee. So if that topic was on the agenda and you ask for it to be
there, then you were going to be the one to lead that discussion. And so everybody had an opportunity
to speak other moments of engagement that we intentionally put in the agenda for board members.
Remember, you are the cheerleader. This should be a cheerleading session for your board.
Start your board meetings off with mission moments. So those mission moments, I don't care what
kind of organization you are. You can always have a mission moment, whether that's a client talking
or you can have a video. If you're animal shelter, some animals, you can if you're a zoo bringing a
snake. Oh, I don't care. That would be amazing. I want to be in the board of a zoo. It wouldn't be,
right? Because then they can come here with a little snake or the chimpanzee. I'm afraid of snakes,
right? So I would be leaving that meeting, talking about that experience. And that's what you want.
You want to create armies of ambassadors, talk to me about your meeting, not dreading the meeting.
Like we're going to talk about the same thing we talked about the last time, what am I
hearing while my mates wasting my time? They know that they're going to get introduced to something.
So have those mission moments right at the top of your board meeting. And not only that,
here's the assumption that I make. Put your mission statement at the top of your agenda.
It's an assumption that I make that everyone is doing that. I don't think that's the case.
So put it in writing right at the top of your agenda.
Kick your board meeting off with a mission moment, right? And then some people, and I serve on
this museum board and I think he does this fabulously. He creates mingle moments because he has to do
a CEO report. I was like, I didn't have to do a CEO report. But he does. It's a part of their
history. It's a part of what they do. But what he's done, that's very good with the CEO report. He
uses that as mingle moments for the board. So basically, he'll ask a question like,
he'll pair us up and he'll ask us a question like, talk about why you joined this board.
And then you have those conversations. And then you'll come back into like a little reflective
moment about, you know, did anything resonate for anyone. And you always pick up a nugget always.
So that's what you're trying to create. And I say, it's a good thing because what I realize is
not a lot of board members know each other. That's true. You basically, you don't know these people.
You're serving on this board because you both care about the mission or so when asked you,
but you don't know each other. And so you have to create moments where they get to know each
other because as a team, you're trying to go in the same direction. But in order to have a
true team that's going in the same direction, you got to build trust. And so creating those
opportunities where trust can be built is key. Giving your board members an opportunity to engage
with each other and talk with each other. Right. It's key. I agree. Because they, we always assume
they might just know each other moving the same circles, but they don't necessarily. Not
necessarily. I've I serve all this board is like 24 of us. And I knew maybe maybe 10 people in a
room. So I mean, I didn't know a majority of the people. And so the fact that he creates these
moments for us to get to know each other and figure out why you're serving on this board. Or
what do you think you bring to the board? One of the best things that I've done with that
organization is they had three tables up. And they had a staff person at each table like cocktail
tables. And then he divided us into groups that gave us five minutes with each staff person,
talking about the strategic plan and what their role was in the strategic plan and how they need
board support. And then the timer went off and we rotated to the next one. And it was three
groups. And I thought genius, that's a great way to bring the strategic plan alive and allow
board members to know firsthand from the staff and what board members need to do in order to make
it happen. So traditionally, we just sit and tell board members, you know, we need to fundraise.
We don't have enough money. We need to fundraise. We don't have no money. But we don't explain
the why. We don't get to see the staff. And so the staff can tell us, you know, yeah, we're behind
on this because ABC. And we need this so that we can move forward. We don't get to hear it from
anybody else. So I thought that was genius. I think that's a great point. And I also want to ask you
what is the board's role in fundraising and resource developments? I think a lot of organizations
are conflicted on this. So what do you think? So this is what I the board has three roles, period.
Trusted ship. That's the planning, the strategic planning, you know, looking at the mission
and the vision and making sure that that's happening or developing it in some cases oversight
or governance. Some prefer to use the word governance because if you use the word oversight,
then some people take it as they need to be in the business of any operations. And that's
to be in the weeds. Yeah. Yeah. Board members should not be in the weeds. I will say this very
clearly that the CEO or executive director is the gatekeeper for the staff. And the board chair
is the gatekeeper for the board. So if you are a board member and you're getting into the day to day
operations, you are overstepping your boundaries. There's no nice way to say it. You have to be
direct, period. And then third is to ensure necessary resources. So when we're talking about
ensuring necessary resources, it's not just the fundraising, but it's also ensuring that you
have a qualified executive director that comes with ensuring necessary resources. And so when you
are ensuring necessary resources, do you have a budget? There's so many boards that I'm so surprised
when people tell me they don't have a board approved budget operating budget. And they don't look
at the finances on a monthly basis. So those are the things under ensuring necessary resources.
That's a part of what you do. And not only under ensuring necessary resources, a part of what you do,
I put that as well as if you are a board member of an organization, it's your time, your talent,
and your treasure. I don't understand the debate, is it a give or get? Because it's a give and a
get. You are the highest member of the family. If you look at it in that way. And so it should be
time, talent, and treasure. So you should be giving personally to the organization because it's
hypocritical for you to go out and ask others to give whether that other is a grant. I don't give
it as a federal grant, whether that others are individual, it is hypocritical for you to go out and
ask others to give when you're not investing yourself. So if you just want to give your time,
we have a great committee for you. If you want to give your talent, then you can make a great
presenter at the next board meeting or the next event. If you just want to give your treasure,
then you'll make a great dollar. And that's good. None of those are wrong within itself. But to be a
board member, you need to give your time, your talent, and your treasure because you are the highest
governing entity, the highest member of that family. And so you need to come with all the other.
Oh, I know. Trust me, I've worked with organizations and they have said one of those three is fine.
And I agree with you. I think there are roles and there are ways that you can do all three separately.
But if you want to say that you are a governing board member, there has to be a way,
whether it's five dollars, like whatever it is. And I always feel like I can't be asking my friends
and my network and my family to give to an organization unless I have also given something.
You know, it doesn't have to be a thousand dollars. It doesn't even have to be a hundred dollars.
But so I can't say, like I'm just thinking, you know, my sister is running the boss of marathon.
So I'm sending her link out, her fundraising link. And my husband was going to send it out. And I was
like, no, we both need to like make a donation. You can't just ask people to give me something
that you haven't given to. Exactly. I would personally feel like you just said hypocritical about that.
Yeah. And it's such a powerful statement when you say, join me and donating what you can.
Right. It's power in that statement. And so I want to be very clear about that. And the other
thing, here's the other thing, says I got this platform and you have all these people listening,
I'm so happy. Here's the other thing. When you are talking to potential board members,
please don't skip the conversation about fundraising. Don't skip it. Don't gloss over it. Don't say,
oh, it's just, you know, 45 minutes a month. It's no time. It's nothing. Don't set people up
for failure. Be honest with them. I used this document called 120 hours. It's about 120 hours to
serve on a board of directors. And that 120 hours can be your board meeting, your, you know,
planning, your retreat, your fundraising, all of that. It comes out to about 120 hours. So talk
about the time. But talk about the financial commitment. Here's the thing on the financial commitment.
People would glaze over the fundraising. No, we don't want to talk about fundraising because
that's going to scare them off. And I'm amazed by that because I'm like, yes, if they get scared
off by the fundraising, then they're not meant to be on the board. But what you're going to do if you
don't talk about fundraising is they come on the board and then the first meeting, what do you do?
You talk about fundraising. Yeah, they feel like the rug has been, you know, a little bit lifted
under them. Yes. And the conversation around fundraising is a clear conversation. And that's
where I, if I can get people to understand the clear conversation, board members need pathways.
So if you are coming on this board, the conversation would be each board member is responsible
for raising $3,000. But here's the pathway. You would join the, let's say the Heritage Associate
in order to join the Heritage Associate's, the minimum is $1,500. You will sell one table at
our special event. That table is $1,000. And you will sell five rack will ticket at $100 each.
So that's your pathway to the $3,000. Lay out a clear pathway for people. And let's look at
menu. Yeah, he has to menu. And we support you. This is the pathway. But we talk about fundraising
in his generalities with board people. And we don't tell them what the pathways.
That's true, because we think somehow everyone knows what fundraising is. And a lot of people do
not really know. And they have never asked someone else for money. They've never raised money.
They've never worked in development or in nonprofit. So you're right. Let's all have this shared
vocabulary of what we mean. And I completely agree with the expectations. I want to shift gears
a little bit, because I do want to talk to you about diversity on boards. Board source found
that 84% of board members identify as white. And that nonprofit employees are approximately 82%
and they're 10% African American, 5% Hispanic or Latino, 3% identifies other 1% Asian or
Pacific Islander. As we know, in the US population, 30% of the US population are people of color.
And that figure is expected to grow to 50% by 2042. So what steps can we take to recruit a board
that looks more like our community and the country in general?
I think that the steps that we can take is really laying out doing a board matrix and knowing what
your gaps are. First of all, what are your skill gaps? Let's talk about that. What are your skill gaps
and not only your skill gaps? What are your industry gaps? So if you know what your skill gaps are,
you're looking for perhaps someone that is a visionary or someone in this industry, whatever
that is, know what you're looking for. And then when you know what you're looking for,
you can actually try to identify people who have those skillset that are minorities. What I know
is that it looks the way it looks because people will recommend or work with people that they
associate with. So most of the time we stay in our silos, right? And what I mean by silos is I work
with a lot of black nonprofits, a lot of Hispanic nonprofits, or it's our Hispanic or their boards
are black because we look to our own circle. And what we have to challenge ourselves to do,
everybody is to look outside of their circle. But don't look outside of their circle just for
you know racial identity. You need to look outside of your circle and understand that
they have to have this skill set that you need or represent this industry that you need.
Because no one, and I'm going to say this with all heart, no one wants to be the token black
person on a board. And so you have to make sure that you're not doing that or the token minority
on the board. That's not the environment you want to create. And so if you are recruiting me
as a black person, but you are telling me, this is the skill set that we need and you have that
skill set. And this is what the industry that we're short on and you in that industry,
then I know I'm coming because I bring value, I'm bringing value to the organization.
And my value is not tokenized. And so I think you have to be very clear about that.
So I always say regardless, start off with the matrix. What ages do you have? What
genders do you have? What skills are all those things? And then be very intentional about who
you recruit that can feel those gaps? That's why I think. No, I think that makes a lot of sense
because oftentimes when we talk about diversity and I'm sure you get this a lot, people immediately
think about just race. But diversity involves, like you just said, gender, it involves gender identity,
it involves sexual orientation, it involves disability, it involves college educated, maybe not
college educated. There's so much that is in diversity, equity and inclusion. But I do think that
organizations do just turn to race and think, oh, right, we need to, you know, we need to get
a person on our board. There is nothing worse than being the token person of color on the board.
Nothing worse. And I think that that is disrespectful. So be careful of that and make sure again
that you know where gaps you have. So that when you speak to someone, you can speak to them about
the gaps. Exactly. And when you're talking to board members and saying, look, you know, we need to
maybe get some of the dead weight off this board or maybe we need to change things up and refresh it.
But be specific. Yeah. Don't just say we need young people. Like we need this. We need that.
Be more specific about the skill sets that you're missing and then be more intentional. And I think
what really, and I know that you've seen us all the time, that's a lot of work. Okay. And I don't
think a lot of people really want to do that work. They don't want to be at work, but it's worth it.
It's worth it. You start mapping out what you have. You can see what you need. And it goes to
even like how do people think are they strategic thinkers? Are they consensus builder? Are they
visionary? You need all of those different things to make it work because imagine if you didn't
do that and you got a bunch of consensus builders on your board, you would never get anything done
because they want everybody to have buy in all that they need to build this consensus. So you
need to have a diversity of approaches around that too. So it's about all of those things.
What about difficult or toxic board members? Now I think that actually that's kind of a loaded
question because you you can have the board member that doesn't do anything, but they're not
difficult or toxic. Then you could have the challenging board member but then you can actually
toxic board member. How can we maybe ask them to re-evaluate their priorities or leave gracefully
to make room for other people? Well, there is a couple of things. If you have term limits,
last one, right? If you have those term limits and you're actually following your term limit
and they're close to the end of their term limit, then you like, okay, let them term out.
I've done that before. If you don't have term limits, what that suggests that you do get
term limits. If you don't have term limits, here's here's what I have done. I'm just going to be
very honest with you. First of all, you get you have to decide are they toxic board members or they
just devil advocates, right? Because sometimes we confuse the two. It's okay for board members to
ask questions. You want them to ask questions. And so you need to be very clear and understanding
that they are toxic board members, that they are not fundraising or they bring drama,
they're getting over into managing day-to-day operation of staff, those kinds of things.
If that's the case, here's what I've learned a little trick along the way. You and your board
share have to be on the same page. You have to be on the same page and you meet and you discuss
where you want to go. And then from there, you have to be on the same page with the
Domination Committee in charge of, you know, how the board looks. And I've done this, so bear with me.
So then once everybody's on the same page, then you traditionally come up with a topic or
policy that the toxic board member is on the other side of, if that makes sense. So let's say if you
were saying, you know, 100% of the board has to give. And they are on the opposite end of that,
but you vote that policy in. That toxic board member will oftentimes remove themselves.
That's how I've dealt with that situation before. Get a policy approved that they're on the
opposite end of and they will walk away. And do you want them to walk away disgruntled? No, not
necessarily. But they will walk away. And when they walk away, I always say, try as much as you
can to have them exit with grace. And how do you have them exit with grace? We always did a little,
we caught it, plaque them. So we would give them a little plaque, thank them for their service,
make a big, you know, something for them, not a party, but you know, an adabore amendment
thinking for their service or at the Christmas banquet or whatever you have,
think them for their service publicly and then have them exit out. So that's the way I've handled
that situation in the past. So you're not burning bridges. You're making it so that they have decided
that this is just maybe not the place they need to be. And that's fine. And that you know,
it's so funny. The complete analogies to the school committee because that's happened where
we've had meetings. And if there's a vote, there's a vote. Sorry if you don't agree with it,
but majority rules. And if you decide you can go forward and move on and support the vote.
And I think it's so important that you're all in consensus. Like once there's a vote and we decide
on something, you have to be a team member or just don't speak out publicly against it.
Or you can recuse yourself. I mean, there's choices that we all have. So I know that we're coming
up to the end of our time. Sabrina, we could talk for literal days about boards. So where can
people learn about you work with you, get some good resources from you? Yes. So they always say
just do one call to action. So here's my call to action. This is my website, which is www.supportingworldtope.com.
Now from there, you can link to me on all of my social media channels. You can watch my blogs,
my YouTube. I'm, you know, I follow you, Julia. I got blog YouTube. I got all this stuff.
And so you can link from there. But yes, www.supportingworldtope.com is where you can find me.
Thank you. Okay. Supporting World Hope. I will put all of that in the show notes so that
everyone can just quickly link to it. And thank you for sharing your expertise. And just all of your
generous wisdom. I know that we need it. And I know that people out there are, they're searching for
it. And they really need it. So thanks Sabrina. Thanks for coming on again. Thank you. And guys,
sorry about the voice. It's the allergy season.
Well, hey there. I wanted to say thank you for tuning into my show and for listening
all the way to the end. If you really enjoyed today's conversation, make sure to subscribe to
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impact. So that's pretty much it. I'll be back soon with a brand new episode. But until then,
you can find me on Instagram at Julia Campbell77. Keep changing the world. You non-profit unicorn.