Empowering Your Board of Governors

Case Study:  Empowering Your Board of Governors

Challenge:

A common challenge faced by nonprofit boards comprised of volunteers who share a passion for the mission but have other demands on their time and attention is how to make it as easy as possible for them to engage – sharing their time, insights and talents in a way that is effective and efficient.

The Arc NY engaged Globe North to help with this challenge as part of their multi-year strategic visioning process.  Their board is made up of over 100 members and alternates – family members and others who have overall responsibility for leading the statewide organization.  The Arc NY was looking for ways to help new board members get oriented, provide the board with key metrics reflecting overall performance, and provide committees with training to enhance their ability to plan and collaborate.

Approach:

Our process was to engage through a series of structured workshops with Board members, State Office employees and Chapter Executives to best understand the current situation and what improvements were needed.  Questions we asked to determine requirements:

• What capabilities do we wish to build or enhance?​ The ability of the board to operate as effectively as possible within a complex and demanding environment.  Provide new members with orientation and support needed.
• What should be considered as important inputs into the design? Keep in mind board members are volunteers with other demands on their time and attention.  Ensure all training and content delivered is concise, simple and clear.​
• What is the best way to create/frame/deliver content?  Provide easily accessible information online with drill-down capability. Ensure impactful information that is accurate and up to date.

Content development was done in collaboration with the state office, board members and chapter executives – providing access to existing training, reports and communications capabilities and feedback on content/training design.

Value Delivered:

Working in collaboration with the Arc NY team, Globe North developed a Guide to Excellence, a new Dashboard, and Committee Training.  These were designed to help them come up to speed quickly with easy access to information on how the organization operates, engage more strategically in board meetings with data needed to assess financial, staffing, quality and advocacy performance, and work more effectively in their committees.

BOG Guide To Excellence:

The Guide to Excellence provides a “one stop shop”  for new and existing board members that provides:  Background on the organizations’ origins and its great legacy of accomplishment in the field of intellectual disabilities as an advocate, a change agent and a service provider; how the Ac NY is governed, expectations of board members; quick reference for key contacts, and tools for committees.

Feedback: 

“This is simply an outstanding effort on all fronts.  From content and information to design and layout.  A super achievement.  73 years in the making.”

Dashboard:

The Board of Governors Dashboard simplifies the reporting process providing a consolidated view featuring trend data in four key areas – Financial, Quality, Staffing and Advocacy.

Globe North collaborated with the Arc NY team to engage board members to determine what was important to measure, developed a tool enabling the state office to populate the dashboard with data from existing reports and engaged leaders from the state office and key committees to prepare summaries for the board with key insights.

Feedback: 

“Best way to make informed decisions.” “Very simple – laid out well.”   “Very helpful from an organizational perspective as well as chapter perspective.” ” Concise and very informative.”

Committee Training:

Our approach to committee training was to develop an interactive workshop providing an opportunity for members to clarify their objectives, reflect on their recent experience, and plan the year ahead.

Feedback: 

“Great session.”  “Important to plan ahead.”  “Opportunity to improve how we communicate what we’re doing and engage new members.”

Together these new tools and training provide the Arc NY board with the capability needed to engage members much more effectively to fully realize their potential to lead the organization now and into the future.