Mentoring Your Way To Board Development

Board development, the vehicle of choice for facilitating engagement and education of boards and their board members, is an organic, evolving and proactive process solidly rooted in learning. Mentoring is one of the most powerful means for facilitating board development and learning. Increasingly, nonprofit boards are following the lead of their private sector cousins and utilizing mentoring as a means for orienting new board members, hastening individual and organizational learning and transmitting organizational culture.

Case: Orienting New Board Members

A nonprofit board of busy, competent, committed volunteers finds themselves facing tough decisions in a rapidly changing health care environment. Because of the financial impact of the decisions that need to be made quickly, they turn to mentoring to help shorten the learning curve and maximize precious human and financial resources.

Recognizing the already extended responsibilities of the board, they assign a staff member (outside of the board member's area of expertise and experience) to broaden and educate each new board member over the course of a year. From the very first experience, board members know they are an integral part of a learning organization.

Case: Hastening Individual and Organizational Learning

A nonprofit arts board uses a group mentoring process to continuously educate its board members. Board members receive a board agenda for the entire year and then target areas in which they have expertise and areas in which they may need mentoring to get up to speed on issues. Peer mentoring makes this a powerful learning experience and helps build teams within the board. Board members continuously learn from each other and feel better and more satisfied because they make more informed decisions.

"Mentoring... is serious business. Its benefits have a ripple effect far beyond one individual mentee's learning experience."

Case: Transmitting Organizational Culture

Mentoring is part and parcel of succession planning in a community-based organization. In this model, the board chair. CEO and management team work together with the emerging board leader a year ahead of time, to prepare for the role of board chair The board chair, CEO and management team independently compile a list of skills, abilities and competencies that they project will be needed to lead the organization over the next 3-5 years. The emerging board chair self-assesses his or her strengths and weaknesses relative to each item on the list. The management team then assigns an appropriate staff or board mentor to facilitate the process and fill the necessary knowledge gaps.

Serious Business

Mentoring, in today's nonprofit world, is serious business. Its benefits have a ripple effect far beyond one individual mentee's learning experience.

Mentoring provides a growth experience for the mentor as well as enabling the organization to align values, mission and purpose of the organization.

Ultimately, the most successful board mentoring programs become a seamless part of the board's learning culture, where they are natural, valued and supported. With the right vision and plan, your organization can be on its way to an exciting, enriching and educationally sound mentoring program.