How to Build a Collaborative Nonprofit Board Team

For nonprofit organizations to effectively achieve their objectives, it takes a strong collaboration among board members. But for a lot of boards collaboration can be a online board meetings daunting obstacle to overcome. This article outlines some key guidelines for creating and cultivating an effective nonprofit collaborative board.

Communicate clearly with new members about their responsibilities and roles. It is vital to clearly define each partner’s role in the relationship and clear any confusion. This will ensure that all members participate in meetings and are well-prepared for discussions, and endorse the organization’s vision and goals. Additionally, it is important to define the expectations regarding financial contributions for both current and new members. This will help to foster a healthy discussion and help to manage expectations.

Nonprofits have a small resources, staff and skills to accomplish all that they would like to achieve. Collaboration with other nonprofits allows them to reach a greater population and make a bigger impact. However, they must carefully evaluate the projects they select to collaborate on and ensure that all parties benefit. This will result in win-win scenarios and lead to more efficient outcomes.

In the example above, Family Focus and CYC were able to leverage their individual resources to offer more services. This enabled both organizations to expand their reach and assist more families without increasing their budgets. This also allowed CYC to send new clients to Family Focus and vice versa. This partnership resulted an increase in the number of families served and a bigger social change than either of the organizations could have achieved on its own.

Posted by André Araújo