Two Calls a Year: The Simplest Way to Strengthen Board Commitment

Nonprofit development is often described as a relationship business. Board leadership should be thought about similarly. Alongside attending to its fiduciary and strategic responsibilities, a board succeeds based on the quality of its relationships. People join boards because they want to give back, meet others, and feel like their contributions are meaningful. A board that doesn't invest in its relationships with its own members will struggle to keep them engaged.

One of the most important things a board president, or the chair of the governance committee, can do is make connecting with fellow board members a priority. Set a floor of two calls or meetings a year with each director. Two touchpoints shouldn't be the ceiling of a relationship, but they are a good baseline to make sure every board member feels seen and

engaged.

Call One: Thank You and Check In

This call is a purely relationship-building touchpoint — a chance to say thank you and see how a director is feeling about their board service, with no other agenda attached. When thanking the board member, be specific. If there’s a particular role they’ve played on the board or idea they’ve shared, share your specific appreciation.

If it feels right, you can check-in on opportunities for how they’d like to be engaged (see guidance below), but the primary objective is to have each board member feel recognized for their work and for board leadership to hear the board member’s feedback about their service.

Call Two: The Commitment Conversation

This conversation should also be appreciative, but it focuses on the board member's commitment, and that question is broader than it first appears.

• Money. Financial commitment is a necessary part of this conversation, and one that many boards overlook. It’s common for boards to rely on the chief professional to ask board members for a gift, or to assume that because a give-or-get policy exists, it’s not necessary to formally request a gift from each director one-on-one. It is.

  
  

  Not asking means a director may not give, leaving the Governance Committee in the awkward place of having to determine next steps. And by not formally asking, or in the case of potential major donors, not asking for a specific amount, means that the organization isn’t optimizing its board fundraising.

  
  

• Beyond money. Inquire about what strengths a director has that they feel they aren't currently bringing to the board. Are there opportunities, tied to the board's actual priorities, where they could play a more targeted role?

  
  

  This isn't an invitation to create new initiatives or cater to a board member's pet project — though it's worth surfacing what opportunities a director sees, even ones that aren't current priorities, because they may spark ideas for future initiatives. What a board member does for the organization ultimately needs to align with its strategy. But expertise and connections go underutilized more often than they should, and simply asking the question helps board leadership plug directors in more effectively to advance the organization. It also gets the board member thinking about what would make their own service more valuable to the board and more meaningful to them — which is the first step toward making that happen.

Hopefully a board becomes a body where each member finds their service satisfying because it advances the organization and they enjoy the personal relationships they form during their tenure. Building a board culture that supports that can start with as little as these two phone calls.