Next-Gen Leadership: Evolving Nonprofit Board Governance with Julie Patrick
9/9/2024
““We have this demographic shift and we have younger people coming into the marketplace [and on to nonprofit boards] that work differently. They work digitally. They work remotely. They’re...the highest educated demographic we’ve ever had in our country. They expect a lot more...They’re not as benevolent as they are action oriented...It doesn’t mean that they don’t have a charitable spirit. They do. In fact, in some ways, they have more than the other generations...But they respond and expect different things.””
In episode 106 of Nonprofit Mission: Impact, Carol Hamilton talks with Julia Patrick, a seasoned nonprofit leader and philanthropist. On the episode, Patrick shares her perspectives on the evolving challenges and opportunities in nonprofit board governance, emphasizing the importance of strategic board management, the integration of younger leaders, and the need for continuous training to foster board engagement and effectiveness.
The discussion also covers innovative solutions such as board liaisons and board portals to streamline operations and enhance transparency. Patrick advocates for intergenerational collaboration and the adoption of the 10-10-10 rule for decision-making, which helps leaders prioritize actions based on their impact over time.
Episode Highlights
Challenges in Board Governance
[00:05:45]
The complexities of board service, the importance of mission achievement, and the uniquely American philanthropic spirit.
Generational Shifts and Board Member Engagement
[00:07:54]
The demographic shifts affecting board membership, including the "silver tsunami" and the rise of next-gen leaders. She describes how younger leaders, particularly Millennials and Gen Z, approach board service differently, emphasizing data-driven decision-making and digital proficiency.
The Role of Board Liaisons and Technology in Governance
[00:12:27]
The role of professional board liaisons and the use of board portals to manage documents and ensure transparency. She highlights the importance of these tools for efficient board operations, particularly for younger members.
Effective Board Management Practices
[00:16:29]
The need for effective meeting management, and connecting board members to the organization's mission through ongoing training.
Training and Development for Board Members
[00:19:32]
The importance of training board members not only on governance but also on the specific mission and operations of the organization. She suggests shadowing staff members as a way for board members to gain deeper insights.
Intergenerational Collaboration and Board Dynamics
[00:24:20]
The conversation touches on the benefits of involving C-suite members in board meetings and the importance of intergenerational collaboration for the long-term health of nonprofit organizations.
Recruiting and Retaining Younger Board Members
[00:29:46 ]
Strategies for recruiting and retaining younger board members, including the buddy system, soft skills training, and institutional knowledge transfer.
The 10-10-10 Rule for Decision-Making
[00:34:10]
Patrick shares her "10-10-10" rule, a decision-making framework that considers the impact of actions over 10 weeks, 10 months, and 10 years, helping leaders prioritize and stay strategic.
Guest Bio
Julia C. Patrick is the CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy and trains nonprofit leaders across the globe. At the onset of the global pandemic in 2020, Patrick launched The Nonprofit Show, the nation's only daily live broadcast. She and her team have produced more than 1,000 episodes and have been broadcasting now for 5 years!
Important Links and Resources:
Julia C. Patrick
American Nonprofit Academy
Building Board Champions
Related Episodes
Episode 61: Impactful boards
Episode 81: Being a co-leader with your board
Episode 99: Elevating nonprofit governance and leadership
Episode 102: The Nonprofit board’s duty of foresight
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Carol: Welcome, Julia. Welcome to Mission Impact.
Julia: Thank you. I'm delighted to be with you today, Carol.
Carol: to have you on. I like to start each conversation with a question around what motivated you, what motivates you to do the work that you do? What would you describe as your why?
Julia: You know, I was very fortunate to be a publisher and in media work for more than 30 years. And in that time I had the incredible privilege of seeing so many people involved in philanthropy, people of wealth. Giving and involving themselves in philanthropy as well as folks on the other side of the desk trying to receive philanthropy and navigate our community to a better place.
I've done a lot of board service. My family's been engaged. It's been a part of our lives and I reached a certain age and felt like I didn't need to. be a publisher anymore. I sold my publications and really dedicated this last part of my life to philanthropic education and training and building a better community.
You
Carol: One of the things that you help within that realm of nonprofit organizations and philanthropy is I guess building on, on the board service that you've done is really helping organizations strengthen their board governance. What would you say you find most rewarding in that work?
Julia: Now, I think it's really hard to be a board member. I think it sounds sexy and fun and it's great in the beginning. And then all of a sudden it's really easy to be like, Whoa, This is a heavy lift. But for me, I think the most exciting part is when. A mission is achieved, right? When people come together in a community that might be very different they might have different motivations, they might have different lives but they are able to work together and grow in the same direction to make a community better.
And to me, that's the magic. You know, that's a very uniquely American thing. I work with a lot of people around the world and, This thing that we have, this philanthropic mindset, mindset and spirit is uniquely American. Really is. It's a fascinating thing. Is it flawed? Yes. Is it challenged? Yes. But you know what?
It works most of the time.
Carol: Yeah, there's a lot of good work being done out there. And but one of the challenges that many organizations see is, really attracting younger board members or kind of that next generation. And even with clients that I work with when I'm working with them on strategic planning, I've definitely noticed You know, there can be organizations that are kind of stuck in some older models and you know, haven't implemented you know, board rotation.
And so have people who've been on the board for years and years and years and aren't making space for folks who are younger. But what would you say, you know, kind of, why would you say that's, that's been, that's challenging for organizations and, and well, let's just start there.
Julia: You know, let's start off with that. Magical number 1. 8 million. There are 1. 8 million registered nonprofits in the US. So that's a lot
Carol: Yeah. Mm
Julia: There's a lot of competition and if you think about it, the average of those organizations has only five board members. That's a hell of a lot of people working for free, taking on arduous leadership and stewardship and their fiduciaries.
They have a response, a legal responsibility. At the same time, we have a changing demographic and we have a huge swath of people leaving the marketplace. And this is sometimes referred to as the silver tsunami. It's people that were baby boomers that are quite unquote aging out of the system, Carol.
They are retiring. They're passing away. Maybe they have diminished capacity physically or just in terms of their health and well being. Maybe they're taking on the stewardship internally of their own families. So it's a shift away from what we had relied upon. Right? We always had board members. We, we, that wasn't such a heavy lift.
Now we have this demographic shift and we have younger people coming into the marketplace that work differently. They work digitally. They work remotely. They're much more, the highest educated demographic we've ever had in our country. They expect a lot more. Different things. They're not as benevolent as they are action oriented.
And so when I say that, it doesn't mean that they don't have a charitable spirit. They do. In fact, in some ways, they have more than the other generations and demographics. But they respond and expect different things. For example, Carol, these folks that are coming in, this is what we call next gen leadership, right?
Yeah.
Carol: generations are you talking about when you say next gen?
Julia: So we're talking about millennials right now, followed quickly by Gen Z. These are folks that are used to operating and making decisions with metrics and with data. So it's not good enough for them to say, we shouldn't have poverty. We shouldn't have children hungry at school. Yeah, everybody can agree that that's not right.
But this generation, these next gen leaders are going to say, Okay, how do we know if we've achieved our mission? What does that look like? What are our KPIs? What is our action plan? They're much more precise and strategic. And sometimes, Carol, that's a rub between the generations. It's fascinating to see.
Carol: And one of the things you mentioned at the beginning was that, you know, working digitally or, or being more comfortable with, with all things, digital working remotely, being more comfortable with that. You know, there's, there's, I've seen lots of different articles about whether millennials and Gen Z are actually tech literate, but they certainly are immersed. you know, there's, there's different, different, different, definitions of that. So it isn't a one and done, but there certainly is a big gap. And interestingly, I had a person on a couple, a while back where we talked about the, you know, the skip from talking about baby boomers as, as leaders directly to millennials and skipping right over Gen X, which is hello me. But you know, so I think. There's an opportunity to connect with X as they start going into retirement. But I think that the other thing that's a really big shift in terms of their ways of working is one of them. And so kind of those, you know, how do we do board work? What are the expectations? but also the The changes that have happened in terms of organizational support for people being involved you know, the demands that people have in their jobs, the expectations, how people work and, and the ways in which everybody in the workplace is so stretched that makes it harder to think about committing to, to, to a volunteer role, especially as you say, once you get in it, you figure out, oh my goodness, there's so much more to do.
Julia: Exactly. You know, I think for that very reason, I'm a huge proponent of two things. First and foremost, having a plan. Professional board liaison, a board liaison is a relatively sadly new profession. And that is most often the person that is the executive assistant to the CEO or executive director. And they take on the responsibility and the role of kind of hurting the board, right?
And making sure that everything is growing in the same direction, all the paperwork, the compliance, even just. Putting the meetings on a calendar, they do all that, but the other piece that I'm a huge advocate for is the board portal system. There are several out there and that allows the board to have all their documents in one place.
All of their paperwork and necessary compliance issues are uploaded to one place. A lot of these board portals will even have a video component whereby it's almost like an internal Zoom, where those meetings are then also recorded and all the votes are recorded, so that you have a seamless transparency on what occurred during the session, you know, the meeting session.
So it's these types of things. That is magical for younger board members. They're a little confusing and they're a little direct. They offer to create a little dress for some of the older board members.
Carol: But
Julia: That's just kind of where we are.
Carol: And I'm thinking of other, you know, smaller organizations meant, which may think, Oh, wow, you know, investing in yet another system, like a board might be a lift, but you can create your own through a Google drive or something like that. But I'm also thinking about during the pandemic, I, you know, and, and through I did a lot of strategic planning virtually, and we were working with.
boards who had a wide range of, you know, ages and, and tech capacities. And we had to do the work virtually and, and we figured out ways around so that we could really include everybody from, you know, You would think that it's super simple to put something in the chat in zoom, but no. So I asked the person to email it to me and I would put it into the Google doc that we were all working on, things like that, that you can make the work around, but I love the idea of the board liaison.
Can you say a little bit more about that and you think that's
Julia: You know, Yeah, it's huge. My first board liaison was this lovely woman by the name of Tracy Lathian, and she was executive assistant to the CEO of at the time, the nation's largest domestic violence shelter, and I was on their board. And This woman taught me what it meant to be efficient on the back end so that when we showed up to the meeting, we could, we could really maximize our time, our energy, and our stewardship.
And. I think I measure, all these years later, everything against her and what she did and how she managed it. And she had to create a lot of this work herself because this wasn't a new thing. This wasn't a known thing, I should say. And since then I've gone on to actually, Train on board that the topic of board liaisons and really champion it because the difference between having that leadership and not having it is tremendously significant and I maintain that you need that person that is strong with compliance and stewardship and management to lead the back end of the board so that your CEO and your board chair can be doing your stewardship functions.
And the reason why I say that is that I think there are too many executive directors that get bogged down
Carol: Yes.
Julia: just trying to, you know, get the meetings going.
Carol: the
Julia: And that's, yeah, that's ridiculous, ridiculous. It's such an inefficient thing to worry about. So this board liaison thing. It's a godsend. And I'll tell you, Carol, if you look at well run organizations and, and that means that the board members have a high degree of satisfaction and they stay and they're engaged.
I bet you. 99 percent have, they have a board liaison or they have some structure that's propelling that management as opposed to just trying to add it onto the plate of the executive director because it's a tough, tough thing.
Carol: Right, because the
Julia: And especially
Carol: to be focused on the, the, the vision, the forward looking engaging the board in those strategic conversations and not on whether the minutes got sent out and whether the next meeting has been scheduled and, and yada, yada. So what are some
Julia: right.
Carol: You can, you see organizations being successful organizations who are successful in really engaging newer leaders and newer board members.
What, what, what are they doing? That's different from other organizations.
Julia: I appreciate you asking that. I have a new book coming out actually next week called building board champions. And it's really, thank you. It's really focused on that topic of how do we harness the goodwill and the energy and the enthusiasm of people so that they. They stick with us, right? They keep going and they become champions.
Right now I see, and this is going to sound like a real ridiculous thing, but I see not enough organizations. It's putting their meetings on the calendar for a 15 month period ahead. That means, oh,
Carol: you on that one.
Julia: Thank you. It's such a, it's kind of a dorky thing to say. So simple, so simple, but the reality is we are dealing with busy people.
And busy families and busy companies and lots of responsibility. And so if we can get these meetings scheduled out, might they change? Yeah, but chances are you will put that, you know, flag in the ground and say, this is a protected space. I think that's huge. I think the other thing is, Effective meeting management, that means honoring the process so that when you show up, you know what the agenda is, hopefully you're using a consent agenda, and you've read all the documents, you're ready to do the hard work, not just rubber stamping things.
And I think that's a really important thing. I think another thing, Carol, that I see is I'm not seeing enough time spent on connecting the board to the mission so that you can kind of center everybody and and refocus so that you can really, you know get in front of what's important and move, move beyond the ego.
And I also think we're not doing enough training. And training is not just how to be a board member, but it's training about the mission. Let's say you're in a, maybe you're serving a cultural institution. Say you're serving a ballet. How much does the average board member know about the life of a dancer?
What it costs to be a dancer, what the costs are of the tolls on their body, on their well being, on their mental health, how long it takes to get ready to prepare for a performance. I mean, there are all these things. I think we can do some internal forward facing training that really helps a board member become a board champion.
And then of course, I think training about, you know fundraising, board governance, all these different things. They become valuable in other parts of your life as a board member, not just for that organization. So when you are training, Carol, I think it bleeds out into your community. And that's a good thing,
Carol: For sure. It's interesting that you say, you know, training on both sides, because I feel like what I've seen and I don't, you know, I don't do governance work, but what I've seen with organizations often is when they are preparing board members, it's all about the organization and very little about what it actually means to be a board member.
And so I've often said, you know, make it, make it a, you know, both sides of the equation, make sure that you're covering both. and, you know, But one thing that intrigued me what you were saying is helping boards connect to the mission. And I, I feel like oftentimes when the ways that people have gone about doing that, have invited the board. In ways into the nitty gritty of the organization that isn't helpful. So kind of getting into those operational kinds of bleeding into being a management. of course we're talking about staffed organizations in that case. So I'm curious for you, what are some ways that you've seen have been really effective to help board board members connect to the mission of getting into the staff role?
Julia: right? And I think that's a brilliant question. And, and for that reason, I'm a big proponent of shadowing board members, you know, shadow employees, attending things that are on campus or with employees where they. Where it's appropriate so that they can learn what a staff member does it's it's pretty shocking the number of board meetings that go on in the nonprofit sector that have no representation of the c suite they might have the executive director I mean they should have the executive director but you know they don't have the director of development they don't have the director of programming they don't have you know the director of volunteers they So, it's pretty astonishing how there's a disconnect.
And so it's very easy, and I've been there, to be a board member, to sit back in your chair and say, wha! I think that you should do this
Carol: Right.
Julia: without having any knowledge of what it's like to even get up and go to work for this organization, right? And so that's kind of what I think of those disconnects. And I also believe, Carol, it's really important to know if you go along the premise of an aging board.
You know, membership, which is pretty much consistent across America. It's really an amazing thing to go to work and see how this next generation is working
Carol: hmm. Mm hmm.
Julia: and what they do and how they think. And I think that is a missing ingredient that tragically is missing and it could really solve a lot of problems with the stewardship and leadership of our organizations if we had a closer Alliance.
Carol: Yeah, no, I think it's a good point and, and it's interesting because I think, you know, your point around oftentimes the, the C suite, the rest of the, you know, leadership team is not showing up at board meetings or not involved. It's kind of like folks have heard, you know, the executive director is the only employee of the board to say the executive director is the only person who's allowed to have a relationship with the board. And those are two entirely different things.
Julia: I agree. I agree. And I think also too, and, and Carol, I'd love your feedback because I think that when you do that, I think it makes the board even more mysterious.
Carol: Mm.
Julia: I think it makes them seem more remote and I don't think it's healthy,
Carol: Now,
Julia: right?
Carol: when, when you have a lot of staff members involved. Sometimes I think the flip side is that it ends up being a group of people around a table listening to one staff report after another, after another, after another. How do you flip it so that you actually have meetings that people need to show up for and have a conversation?
Julia: You know, I think that's a great question and I think it's, it happens two ways. I think that there's a committee side, committee level. So hopefully your organization, even if it's small, has some committees that drill down into certain areas. And then that's where they can become more familiar with that staff.
But I also think it's not necessarily everybody who has to talk, right? I think there's a lot of value for staff members to see how the board behaves
Carol: right.
Julia: what they're talking about. And then if you are, you know, strategic in the way you set up your agendas, You can say, okay, in, let's say, late spring, we're going to have development talk because they're going to release what their year end plan is.
No, if, if, if you have certain actions that could be tagged to that period of year, that time of year, then that's the period in which they should be put on the agenda. But I don't think it needs to be that everyone is actively making a presentation. And also, Carol, I don't know about you, but I'm a big believer in consent agendas, so
Carol: a
Julia: That is a system.
Carol: And then.
Julia: Yeah, the consent agenda really was formulated by rural America and American municipalities and governments where they would just have such an Arduous amount of material to get through from contracts to policies to all sorts of things. And so they started creating consent agendas where everything went into an agenda that would need to be approved, legally approved by a board or by a council.
The fiduciary aspect would be, I hate to use this word, but lumped together. It would be pre pre Presented, and you would have to be responsible to navigate, you know, a vote and that vote would be a yay or a nay, and if something didn't seem right, you can move it into the regular agenda, but you could get through a lot of like the rubber stamping paperwork stuff that would then afford you that, that precious time of a board member to have generative discussions as opposed to just.
You know, approving things that are kind of mundane, but yet they need to be approved. Right?
Carol: Like, I mean, I've often seen it's been you know, the minutes from the last meeting or
Julia: Yeah.
Carol: That they'd already been presented from the X, Y, Z committee or a number of, you know, a, a, contract that had already been reviewed and by X, Y, Z committee and, and just needed the vote.
And, and right, as you say, with a consent agenda, Any board member, if they have a problem with one of the things and it feel like it needs further discussion, they can say, you know, I don't, I don't know the Robert's rules, but you know, I moved to, to move that out of the consent agenda so that we're, but it's like a, a slate you're voting yay or nay for the whole thing. then you can move into whatever the meaty topic of the night is or the, you know, weekend, whenever the meeting is.
Julia: Yeah, exactly. It's really efficient. And I think it also gets your board members engaged so that when they're showing up to the meeting, they've already reviewed these documents. And so, as opposed to, and we've all been in board meetings where somebody says. And I probably said this myself. Well, this is the first time I've seen this.
So I need a little bit more information or I need to think about this more, right? That helps us To get, get through, you know, that, that friction. It also works beautifully, beautifully with a board portal because you can upload all that information in a digital format. It's there. It goes automatically, seamlessly into your minutes.
You're reporting out what you need to do, depending on what state you're in for your nonprofit compliance. I just think it's a really efficient way to go.
Carol: Right. Absolutely. Well, as we round out here, any last tips on recruiting younger people onto your board or, and, and, once your recruitment is only the first stage and, you know, getting them engaged, getting them and retaining them, what are some, what are some other things that folks need to be thinking about?
Julia: You know, I appreciate you asking me that, Carol, because I think it's, it's really a shift in mindset and I think one of the things, and I talked about this in my new, new book Building Board Champions, I believe in the old fashioned buddy system, whereby you take maybe somebody that's older or an emeritus board member even, and you pair them with that new board member.
That, that means that. Maybe they're brand new. They're like in their thirties and they've never served on a board or they're in their fifties or sixties and they've just never served on your board, right? But I think, I think there's a way that we can pair up and we can do some soft skills training, meaning what's the nomenclature?
Right. Every sector has their own vocabulary. You know, what's the culture? Who's whom? And who, you know, how does this work? And where do we meet? Right. How long do the board meetings last? I mean, things like that. And you can meet, you know, once a quarter, once a month, whatever you need. But I think it's a great way to help steward in this next wave of leadership.
And I also think, Carol, that it's going to help those people like me. Make it easier to let go because I hear this a lot from older
Carol: hmm.
Julia: members that are like, well, who's gonna step up? There's nobody, you know, there's nobody trained up. Well, it's incumbent upon us to train up the next leaders.
Carol: Well, and be, and, and, and who's going to step up, who's going to train up? Too often, unfortunately, that also means, and do it the way I've always done it. And so, the, the letting go
Julia: Yes,
Carol: is, is, that's, that's a, that's a hard one.
Julia: It is. It is. It involves ego and it involves a sense of history. And if you've fought the good fight and you've, you know, I, I I served on a, on a board once of an organization that started, you know, leftover space in an old church. And then they, You know, by the time I came on, they were in these swanky new buildings on the main avenue.
I mean, it was, and it was like, there were so few people that remembered what it was like to get started. Right. And so how do you share that institutional knowledge, that gravitas, that's that issue of stewardship. It's a human issue, right? You can't just read it in a book or on a website. And so I think when you have that intergenerational compassion and, and consult, right?
I think it's really rewarding and I think it helps protect the long term health of an organization.
Carol: 100%.
Julia: important.
Carol: Yeah. So just to close out on each episode, I ask each guest, permission slip or invitation would they give to nonprofit leaders, board, board members, and, and staff leaders as well? To avoid being a martyr to the cause. So my podcast is about let's avoid that. and, or as they work to build a healthier organizational culture.
And so that's a mouthful. So it's a permission slip or an invitation to build a healthier organizational culture to nonprofit leaders.
Julia: So I love this question, Carol. I think that's super cool. I love that you do this. And I would say my immediate response. And even if I had days to think about it, I think it would be the same response. And that is the 10 10 10 rule. How does your decision, your attitude, your actions that you take reflect in a period of 10 weeks, 10 months, and 10 years?
Carol: Interesting.
Julia: And chances are, the answer's different. It also helps to inform us as to what's an emergency, and what is something we can work on. So, a lot of times, what is so important in such a crisis right now, in ten weeks, You'll be like, yeah, that was tough. Ten months, you'll have forgotten about it. Ten years, you'll be like, what?
I don't remember that, right? So I think I'm not saying to slough off everything. That's not what this is about. It's just a way for you to get out of yourself and that drama of what is immediate so that you can become more strategic. So ten weeks, excuse me, yeah, ten weeks, ten months, and ten years. Thanks.
Carol: it. I love it.
Julia: When you frame a decision, an attitude, a commitment, how hard am I going to work on this for the next 10 weeks, right? For 10 months? It changes. It changes the way you look at things. And I think it is. It, it, it's, it's a masterful way to approach a problem in a very simplistic way. Yeah, the 10 10 10 rule.
Carol: Well, thank you so much. It was great having you on the podcast. I really appreciate it.
Julia: Thank you. I appreciate the work you do for our sector and we need all the help we can get and we need all the great knowledge. So thank you very, very much.
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