Responsibilites

I truthfully enjoyed hearing from Cheryl and Dr. Gilbride-Brown a few weeks ago. It's definitely great to hear what goes on the board (more than meets an outsider's eye) before going and seeing for ourselves. I like to know what to somewhat expect! They mentioned that the Board's main responsibility is to maintain the organization financially. The board's goal is not to do programming but more to work on sustaining the organization, which as previously stated, is mainly through keeping the organization financially stable. They both mentioned that on every board there are people who contribute to this more than others. She said it was crucial to keep board members focused on the task at hand. This can become difficult because since boards meet rarely, there isn't a relationship defined within these boards.

These ladies also discussed some legal duties as well. Duty of care means that every member on the board must be actively involved and understanding what's going on. The duty of loyalty consists more of being committed to the interest of the organization. Duty of compliance means the member must be faithful to the mission and must be familiar with federal and local regulations. The duty to manage accounts means members are responsible for the organization's financial ability and accountability. Legally, nonprofits cannot do much advocating while still having a tax exemt status. They can't back a candidate or make a gift. The only way to advocate is to create a political arm of the organization. These duties seem completely reasonable to me. The only thing is that I wish it was easier for nonprofits to advocate. I agree that they shouldn't be able to back a candidate. I also think they should be able to advocate without having to pay taxes.

What rang with me most were the qualities board members had to have in order to be considered to be on the board. First of all, the ladies mentioned that a board member must be willing to give their time, which makes perfect sense. The other qualities board members are recruited for are their particular talents (such as accounting, etc) or the amount of treasure they can bring to the organization. Since the role of the board is raising money, it makes sense that board members are people in the community that have connections to a lot of money. This is how the organization considers them useful. I am not surprised by this. But it is kind of sad that someone who just has a lot of passion for the mission wouldn't be able to be on the board if they didn't bring any particular set of skills or money to the table. However, as Cheryl and Dr. Gilbride-Brown drilled in to our heads a few weeks back, "raise the money, feed more, higher impact." That's the most important thing.