 Thanks to everyone who has joined us today. I like to say good morning, good afternoon, or good night, depending on what time zone that you might be in, and of course, watching the recording, which will be available for those of you watching live at this moment. We are thrilled to have Julia sitting in the hot seat and providing with us today this masterclass on ways to energize your board of directors as you move into the new year. So every so often, Julia and I open up our own brain and we share from our years of expertise with each of you. Yes, thank you for knocking that brain out and providing your expertise to us. Thrilled to have this as our episode today. And of course, Julia Patrick remains as the CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy and I'm Jarrett Ransom, your nonprofit nerd, CEO of the Raven Group. And again, we are both so excited to have the continued support and investment of these sponsors that you see in front of you. Please do check them out. I also like to remind you, not quite yet, not until the show's over. But of course, please do check out these companies because they are here to help you finish your year in the way that you want to finish it and start your new year in a way that will be best and supportive to help you move them, those mission-driven goals forward. So thank you again to all of our sponsors. And Julia, you are in the hot seat. You have served on so many boards and have really been such a very large community champion. So to have you talk about ways to engage your board is really such a great opportunity because you have this experience year in and year out. You've served again on numerous boards across the state, across the region, across the nation, even some international organizations. So this is really a great opportunity for us to learn from you. So thank you for being a service on today's conversation. And I think you have five tips, is that right? So we're gonna really make this streamlined. So if you have a pen, paper, make sure you have that handy because these are actionable steps that you can take. And we are again, going to dive right into it, Julia, and we are so glad to have you share this with us. Hey, well, thanks, Jared. You know, the board in the US nonprofit system, which again, just to remind everybody, actually is an IRS designation. And so it comes from that point of structure, meaning we have as boards a fiduciary responsibility to do things that don't really exist or attract in the for-profit sector. And at the same time, we're asking people who are very successful generally in their work a day world lies to come in, to manage a business that a lot of times, they don't really know a lot about, they might have an emotional connection and hopefully they do, but they don't necessarily have all those tools in place to be the great leaders that they are in other places of their life. And so we get some problems and we have some issues. So I've boiled down to five steps or tips and hint, this is just for December. So these are just things to do right now before the year ends so that you can launch in to the new year, strong and ready to go. Because if you don't do these things, you are going to lose 30, 45, maybe even as many as 60 days into the new year. So now you have literally 15 days left at the end of the year to jump on this. So number one, it sounds really hokey, but for busy people, busy board members, and this is one of the things that gets my goats, every board I've ever served on or served with or served for, get the full compliment of next year's events, calendarized. Not on a piece of paper that says, oh yeah, we're going to try and meet, like you said, Jared earlier, the second Tuesday of every month. No, it needs to go into a calendar portal. If your board members use a portal like that, great, if they don't, well, they're probably not super efficient board members in my book, but the bottom line is you've got to get on busy people's calendars. And this is one of those things that should be done now for next year. Now, do you recommend that we also send a calendar invite and what does that look like? Because do we, like, does the CEO send it? Does the board chair send it? Who's the person that needs to make sure this is calendarized? So very good, very, very, very good question. Really, it should come from the organization and hopefully your organization has a board liaison. It's really an administrative function and we have courses on that for free on the American Nonprofit Academy. It is a best practice. Nonprofits need to have a board liaison. Generally, that work is performed by the CEO's admin or somebody in that C-suite position. For continuity purposes and for just the management, you know, if you really look at it carefully, it probably should come from the board chair, but the reality is it's probably more of an administrative thing that can be dealt with more easily from that admin within the organization. But yeah, good question. Where does this information come? Also, those admins are going to generally be the person that tracks quorum policies. And so using that calendar function, you will know who's responding, who's accepting or who's declining. Very important. And I think you had mentioned too, you know, it's really about let's put the location in there and if the location and or the date changes at some point, that's okay, we can go back and change it, but let's at least get this on our calendar so that we can schedule family vacations or other events around this commitment because there is an engagement, you know, policy, there is a commitment that we expect our board members to have and that's something that, you know, might need to be reviewed on an annual basis, which I know we're going to talk about. What else needs to be reviewed on an annual basis? So that was a great tip you started off with is it seems simple, you're right, you know, maybe a bit hokey, but it is so important to get these on your calendars. So that's one of five. So what's your second tip that you have for us here? Tip number two. Now, this is kind of a really interesting thing. I have never done this because I have a two A and a two B. Okay. And two B. So really it's kind of, again, it's a little bit of a duh, but this is what I want you to do. I want you to communicate. And you can do this in an email. You could do it. I mean, ideally if you're the CEO, you do this on the phone or your board chair. Talk to your individual board members about what the big achievements were for 2021. Impact update. Now, it doesn't always have to be rainbows and unicorns. It can be like, yeah, this was a huge problem and we still need your help to solve it or we need your leadership to help us come up with a new strategy, but it needs to connect what is going on or what has gone on from the organization to the board member. And this is a little bit of an emotional appeal in some ways that a lot of times we think our board members know everything that's gone on and they don't, especially if they're not that engaged. So this is where you need to step up. I would suggest you do no more, you do between three and five main points of achievement or concern, three to five. And you can say these are my top three concerns or my top five narrow it down so that the board member can digest it, can retain it and hopefully make a commitment to working on it. So then 2B is a simplified reminder of what those goals are gonna be for the next year. And it can be things that are part of your strategic plan, but it can be a refinement of a journey such as we're still in this capital campaign or we still haven't been able to figure out how to manage our census better or we still are not serving enough clients. You know, I love this because there are so many organizations I hear from Julia that the board members have not stepped foot in the offices or on campus or within the programs to see firsthand. And especially over these last two years that have been so uncertain, you know, many of us still working from home, many of us working in this remote space. And if you have a national board, it may not be conducive to truly have all of your board members inside the building or the campus. The really connecting to that impact is so critical. I think that it was in one of your other masterclasses, Julia, where you shared really about these, it was like an FAQ sheet and it was really all about, these are the top 10 bullet points, yes, that we wanna share, we wanna make sure that our key leadership is knowledgeable of. Now, is that something that kind of dovetails into this impact update? Yeah, absolutely. You know, originally when we talked about that, a lot of times we're dovetailing that action to media relationships. Yes. The top 10 facts that you would want somebody to know about your organization. This needs, you know how I always say, never make one meal, always make sure that you have something else not leftovers, but you can take something and repurpose it, same thing. You know, that should be going on your website, it should be going in your media kit, it should be going to your board members, your stakeholders, parts of it can go to your donors. I mean, yeah, absolutely, Jared. Because at the end of the day, your board members are your champions. So you're not just talking to them, but you're talking to their circle, right? So the more you can arm them with this type of information about what it is you're working on, what it is you've achieved, where you need to go, those board members, champions, if you will reframe that in your mind, they can be taking that out to the community. So think about it, Jared. Instead of just having maybe 10, 20 board members, you can have a multiplier of 10, 20, 30, 40, 50. Who knows how many? Those people are going out and sharing these messages. And that's what you need as a nonprofit organization. Yes, the board is ambassadors and advocates. And we talk so much about this power of December, and it's not over. We still have two more weeks in December. This is a great opportunity where perhaps in the safer environments, many of our board members are attending events, either in a remote space or in person, great opportunity to share the mission of a board that they serve on, and who knows the power of that advocacy and the role that they serve. So I like your 2A and 2B. I don't think I've ever seen a 2B having two layers. No, it's kind of a cheater kind of move, but I had to do it because when I looked at them, Jared, I'm like, you know, these two really go together, but to be effective, there's a part A and a part B. So start here and then move to this. So anyway, you know, it's really like you're getting five and a half tips today, but let's get on to tip number three. So this is kind of one of those pro forma things. And by the way, it's not just 2021 that we're talking about. These are things that your organization should be doing every December moving forward. Because again, you don't wanna start out the beginning of January when a lot of things are starting out because your board work, your organizational work with your board members, is gonna probably fall down a little bit. So you wanna get ahead of the curve. Tip number three is this, you as an organization, as a nonprofit, you're gonna have certain policies and requirements that need to be executed. So the COI policy, conflict of interest, certain policies, you might have privacy standards or security standards. You might even have, I was on a board once where the beginning of every year, maybe every two years, we had a high security area. So we had to go through a background check, refile, fingerprints and security information to law enforcement, right? So these things are pro forma issues. Don't wait until the beginning of January to then send these out and get these things back. Do it now. So that then you can spend January tracking to make sure that everybody returned their information. This might look like errors in omissions, we call them D&O, directors and officers insurance information. It might be your give or get policy if you have one. It might be policies that relate to, as a board member, what you're gonna do, everything from your voting standards to your meeting requirements, again, to fundraising. Get these things ready to go so that your board members launch on January, this year at January 3rd, because that's the Monday. That's right. And many people are celebrating that Monday as a holiday. So it might be January the 4th, but thinking this also falls within that board portal and the board liaison role. So if you are one of these organizations that has a portal, many of these documents, I'm assuming Julia are uploaded into the portal. So many of us now use the electronic signature. So that's a great opportunity to stay in compliance. Now I had mentioned earlier in the episode, perhaps it's that board recommitment and engagement document. And perhaps that's one of these forms that you have and share. I have a question because today I actually am going to a board meeting. And instead of it being a full agenda, it's really more of a festive gathering. So how might we take those festive gatherings within these next two weeks and make them productive using some of these five and a half tips that you're sharing with us today? Like, how can we integrate them? And so this is a great, great question. I love that you said this. I think this is like where the power of being direct and narrowed down comes in. The average board meeting, you have so much information coming at you. It's just overwhelming. But in this type of a case where it's going to be very, very synthesized or narrowed down, this can be something that the board chair, the CEO stands up and says, hey everybody, we wanna finish the year in strong. Here are a couple of points. And by the way, you're gonna be receiving this packet or you go to the portal, however you administrate it, we wanna get this done and finished up everybody by January 15th. And you know, so I wouldn't go through all the things that you wanna get done with them, but to put that out there to say, look, this is our year in action. And this is what we need to achieve so we can start the ground running. Again, I think you need to be very clear and very transparent of why you're doing these things. Yes, I love that. Because again, many of us have opportunities to meet with our boards and many of us also use our December board meeting as a little loose. And so how is that to plant the seed, let them know what to expect and the timeline, as you said that January 15th because we don't have 30, 45, 60 days to play with. No, we don't and especially given, I mean, every year is tough, but especially given this year, I think a lot of us if we had said, oh, you know, by the beginning of 2022, we'll be all back to normal, we'll be moving along. It is clear, clear, clear. We are not. We still have a lot of challenges moving ahead and that's going to require us to be creative and nimble and responsive and dedicated. And so we've got to, you know, plant those seeds. And I think this is kind of a raw, raw moment. I think for that leader to say, yeah, this is exciting. We get all this done, we can launch into the work that we need to do, but we have to get this foundational work done. You know, this is part of how we run our organizations. This is what it means to be a fiduciary. This is what it means to be prepared and ready to go. Great advice. All right, hit us with another one. What do you have next as your tip? Tip number four. Okay, you ready? This is kind of an interesting thing. We've been talking a lot about this. We had a fabulous guest on earlier, Boris Kievsky. He was talking about this earlier in the week. And this is kind of like that mission moment, but I'm asking you to reach out to the board members and get them to share their mission moment. Not the mission moment of the organization, not the mission statement, which by the way, they should know by heart. It should be good enough for everyone to know by heart. But to say why it is, why it is that they are there. And oftentimes it's incredibly personal and powerful. And sometimes, I mean, I've been on boards where I worked with people for a long time before I ever knew why they really served. And then when I learned it was jaw dropping. And this has happened many times, but it's a private issue for a lot of people. But I think it's one that's worthy of discovering, discussing and sharing. I think it makes things very compelling. And it can be as simple as this. The reason why I serve is because, and then I love this like little tool, I'll never forget the time. And that's a great way to lead in to why you serve. I'll never forget the time. I saw a child who hadn't eaten breakfast for an entire week. And yet they were expected to be attentive in class or whatever it might be. And I'm not saying manufactured. I'm saying articulated. And you as a leader within the organization might have to help draw that out. It's not gonna be easy for everyone. So my creative mind just went to this festive board meeting that I'm attending later today. And I even see this as a great opportunity. Perhaps it's a piece of paper. Perhaps it's, I think you know, perhaps, I don't know what it is. And you ask the board members to simply fill those answers in kind of as a writing prompt. And you have those questions, why I serve or I remember when. And then have the board members simply write that out. I think that'd be so powerful. And then perhaps ask them if anyone's comfortable sharing out loud and in the board, you know, why they serve and what they remember and how it made that truly impactful memory that was so pivotal that they chose that recollection to write down. I really love that one, Julia. Well, thanks, Jared. You know, I think it's an interesting thing because it's, we think we know. We think we know our other board members and we think we know why people are there and what's happening and how this all plays out. But I think that a lot of times we don't know. And while there are certainly there are people that are like, yeah, my corporation placed me on this board and this is, you know, where I live or this is how I serve. But I would venture to say the majority of the folks that we spend time with, they're there because of something in their heart. Right. And it's so powerful, it's so compelling. And I think it's an engagement piece. I really, really do. Okay, so back to that relatability, right? And what you really want to share. This is the villain of our community, you know, perhaps it's the homelessness and then this is the hero moment and to be able to define that, communicate that is so powerful. So I love that relatability moment. Obviously what Boris shared with us earlier this week has stuck around. So we've gone through tip one, tip two A and B because there was a two-part tip in that one, three and four. So wrapping up with this tip number five, I'm curious what you have for us next as we are looking to engage our board and finalize the year and start next year strong. So I would say, and between you and I, we know we've done this for almost two years and almost 500 shows. And honest to goodness, I have an epic fail because my control on the screen has just gone. Ewww. Kerplui. So we're gonna have to wing this because I am not able to move forward, advance any of our show today, which is just fine. But I know five by heart. And this is how we're gonna finish up strong. This is the point that we don't do a good enough job with shamefully and it's gratitude. We talk about gratitude with our donors and with our staff but we don't talk enough about gratitude to our board members who are putting themselves on the line. They're putting their reputations, their money, their fiduciary powers. There is a legal aspect to participating in a board and it can be really frightening and it can have things that go terribly wrong. If you've ever served on a board like I have where you had clients pass away while they were in your charge, these things happen, it's grim, it's dangerous and it's really important. And I love this simple thing, the B-O-Y, because of you. So it's a two-parter, it's not quite an A and a B but it's the point where you say because of you board member, we are able to do this or we are able to go forward. And I have gratitude for that because without you, we wouldn't be able to be doing this work or because of you, we can do this work, right? And so I think we have to be doing that not just in December as a year-end pro forma. Oh yeah, thank you so much, you're great. We need to have this be part of our culture where we are displaying gratitude so that our board champions can then go out and be doing the same in the community but the reality is we're not doing this enough. And so this is one of those points where I think if you do it at this time of the year you're launching better six results for success in the new year because you're drawing back to your board members of why you're counting on them because sometimes it's a pretty thankless job. And it's a lot and as you said these are busy individuals, they're community champions they are running businesses and then they're volunteering on top of that to serve in this governance role which is a huge responsibility hence the reason for D&O or directors and officers insurance and that because of you and if we had the slide it would show B-O-Y because of you and that is so important and I think to really set the stage of that gratitude and then to carry that out throughout the rest of the year and then again move into the new year with that because of you mentality is so important and I would venture to say why not every month, right? Well, exactly, I mean it should be it's a leadership behavior, you know I mean you think about your own teams that you run even within your family you know, you start off the day telling people that they're great they're gonna do great, you appreciate them you get more out of them you get a better experience it is a healthier environment versus the negative where, you know you haven't done enough and it's, you know all it's going to hell I mean, this is one of those things it's a motivational aspect but I also think it's a good way of being a strong leader Well, it's not positive reinforcement and that is, you know we all want to feel that we're doing a good job we want to have that reward in some way shape or form, right? We all are motivated by different ways so that because of you is a great opportunity Julia, these were five and a half fantastic tips, thank you for this I know that again, this is busy we talk about the power of December we talk about ways to engage our board because truth is so many organizations you know, will say, oh, my board doesn't do enough Yeah I can't get my board motivated or I don't have the right board members but I think it's also important that we look back at ourselves to see how we are providing and supporting and servicing these governing board members because they are doing a fantastic job and oftentimes because I know this to be true as well oftentimes the board members will say I want to do more tell me what you need guide me and invite me to do something and so I think that is a big piece of you know, what we can do to move forward in this partnership with them so thank you so much for your sage sage advice and your years of experience serving on many boards again, throughout our globe because you have really been such a great civic engagement person, leader and so grateful to have your wisdom with us today thanks to everyone that has joined us again, it was a masterclass with Julia Patrick CEO of the American nonprofit academy I'm Jarrett Ransom, your nonprofit nerd as we end every episode we mean this please stay well so you can do well thanks to all of you for joining us and we'll see you tomorrow