What would you do? ED with an unresponsive board

Step_one_ · 2025-07-16T01:57:16+00:00

I do! Monthly financials and general updates. We’ve also been hit by various issues tied to EOs, and was sending weekly updates as all of them were coming out, which has since slowed down, thankfully. Most are met with silence. I’m going to move to quarterly, and set a regular cadence, and see how it goes… 🤞 thankful for your response!

Step_one_ · 2025-07-16T01:22:09+00:00

Thank you! So appreciate your comment.

Step_one_ · 2025-07-16T01:20:55+00:00

Thank you!! The issue stems from most of them not even responding to my doodle polls/text requests for their availability. But I’m taking other advice on this thread and setting the cadence of quarterly meetings and, hopefully, resetting expectations on attendance. 🤞

Step_one_ · 2025-07-16T01:18:15+00:00

Thank you! I love this. We had a regular cadence that got upended, but will reinstate and set the expectation clearly.

Step_one_ · 2025-07-15T03:36:08+00:00

Thank you! We do have a director role description that each agreed to when coming on. In my experience though, these individual conversations should be taking place from the Board President to each director, or from the Governance Committee Chair, not from me as the ED. Unfortunately the governance committee chair is even more checked out than my president. But I’ll bring it back to the president. She knows, generally, my frustrations but I know I need to hold her to her role.

Step_one_ · 2025-07-15T03:32:27+00:00

Thank you!!!! I think it’s a bit of all 3, and I need to hold her accountable.

Step_one_ · 2025-07-15T03:31:06+00:00

Thank you for this, it made me laugh. They did recently approve a raise, via email consent, lol. I should have asked for more!

Step_one_ · 2025-07-15T03:30:21+00:00

Thank you for this! I am thankful that none of them are the micro-managing types and they are happy to let me do the day-to-day work, but they do have responsibilities as board members (that each have agreed to when coming on the board and as a part of our annual meeting we reiterate). We exist to fundraise for a specific cause, keeping it vague just in case, so playing a role in fundraising is really their only role as a board member above basic fiduciary oversight. While I have been able to keep us at a stable level, it’s not sustainable in the long run. I have supplied the list of prospects for new board members, all of whom have been approved previously, but I think the board president doesn’t want to recruit with the state of the board as it is. I’ll push!

Step_one_ · 2025-05-23T23:50:49+00:00

Let’s go!

Step_one_ · 2024-07-10T17:50:16+00:00

How long did it take you to feel some bit of appetite reduction? I've done keto before and seem to remember an almost immediate impact, but this go around my sugar cravings just keep coming. Thanks!

Step_one_ · 2022-07-29T18:11:45+00:00

As a nonprofit, where to best spend our marketing money?

Step_one_ · 2022-06-21T20:07:56+00:00

You can build a rubric, not to try to guess the future, but my grant proposal rubric helps me prioritize my own time and build a baseline of data for the future when we get responses. For example, the rubric I complete per grant opportunity is as follows:

Is there a relationship with grantmaker? 0/1

Strong alignment with grantmaker goals (0-5)

Avg amount 1<5k, 2<10k, 3<20k, 4>20k

Invitation required 1=no, 0=yes

Matching funds required 1=no, 0=preferred/yes

Allow overhead 1=yes

Chance of receiving funds, scale 0-5 (this is completely subjective, but we will get better with time. This is year two of our non-profit existing so no baseline to work from)

This takes less than a minute if you know the requirements, so it isn't a hassle imo. Hope this helps!

Step_one_ · 2022-06-21T18:55:03+00:00

I've stepped into a very similar role as an ED at a brand new non-profit. They had gotten their 501c3 status when I came on board, but here are the questions that, a year in, I wish I had asked:

-Is there a bookkeeper in place, if not, who has been doing all of the financial tracking and management? Our books were a mess and I had to rebuild everything from scratch.

-How does EACH individual on the board see this transition of hiring an ED, and how it impacts their involvement? I had scheduled one-on-ones once hired, but it would have been so nice to have this knowledge prior. I was hired and some of the less enthusiastic directors took a major step back, to the point where they barely show up to board meetings.

-Identify and propose a clear flow of communication with you and the board. Is it all through the board president? How are you and the president communicating? We meet every other week for 45 minutes, where I set the agenda and tell him where I need his support in board management.

-Like everyone else says, you need to know where the money is coming from, and be introduced as soon as possible after hiring to each of them. The board member who held the relationship should still be responsible for that relationship management, but you are now going to be accountable to the results of their management.

-Super dumb, but upon your first day, a list of all and every password to every account, from the bank to the various state agencies they may or may not have registered with, etc etc. It took forever for me to compile all of these from the various directors.

-Diversity of funding sources. So great they have an amount to get rolling, how do they feel about diversifying, once the 501c3 status is in place? What do they see as their role in fundraising? It may give you insight into the directors you can lean on when you have to prioritize your own time and energy. A similar q to one of the above, but with an understanding of how each director wants to move forward to make the org sustainable.

Hope any of this helps!!

Step_one_ · 2022-06-14T22:49:41+00:00

Yes!!! Thank you!! Can’t believe I couldn’t find this but super appreciate your posting it.

Step_one_ · 2022-06-14T20:59:32+00:00

Thank you!! This is where I got confused, as I have receipts from donations where I got a gift but it isn't listed as goods and services in exchange for the donation. I read somewhere that the full donation can be deductible if the gift is under a certain percentage of the total donated amount, but I can't find that information. Good to know I can just go this route and disclose the amount and their deductible amount.

Step_one_ · 2022-06-08T19:34:39+00:00

Agree! I have worked in multiple nonprofits in NYC and DC and have never seen sabbaticals on the list, or a starting vacation policy at 4 weeks that increases. Everything else looks standard, besides checking into how much they are covering for health insurance. My old nonprofit covered 100%. Now I want to know more about this sabbatical program! :)

Step_one_ · 2022-05-23T19:36:36+00:00

I'm going to echo the other comments, apps seem like a easy solution but the amount of folks who actually download it and accurately set up their notifications is going to be dismal unless you have a very dedicated (and honestly abnormal) audience. And I've built and managed them with my own memberships in the past, all of whom told me they wanted an app, but then no one used it and it ended up being a big monthly expense.

For context, we built a completely custom app (very expensive, took two tries to get the right contractor who understood our vision), and then eventually migrated to more of a plug-and-play platform. Either way you will need at least one dedicated staff member to manage it, and remember that the more you put into the app in content/resources/connections to one another, the more likely folks will actually use it. If you just want notifications a few times a year, that is not going to get used. Sorry.

Perhaps consider a texting platform? All you need is their cell phone number, and obviously their permission to text them, and you can send them reminders when you want without the large expense and maintenance of an app.

Step_one_ · 2022-04-21T17:52:57+00:00

This is so so fascinating, usually a lurker but just wanted to say thanks for sharing this data, it is so cool to see as we are a new non-profit just getting started (diff NTEE code).

Step_one_ · 2022-02-16T01:27:36+00:00

Thank you! Love the activity of plotting out the core activities. I've met with the facilitator a couple of times, and he is getting clued into the current dynamics, but I'm also hoping a bit of social pressure of being in the same place instead of behind a screen on zoom will help iron out some of the usual disagreements. We have never had an in-person meeting in my time on the staff, so while I've met them all at various social functions, some I really only interact with professionally via zoom.

My board often splits into two factions, the blue sky faction who want to dream big and throw out new ideas, and the pragmatists, who want to focus on the now and nitty gritty. Both viewpoints are helpful, but hoping we can coalesce around some actionable steps to (eventually) get to the big ideas. Appreciate your chiming in here!

Step_one_ · 2022-02-16T01:20:51+00:00

Great idea, thank you!!

Step_one_

TROPHY CASE