 Welcome and thank you to everyone that has joined us on this Monday. We have Gregory Nielsen with us, so excited to have you with us, Greg. And Greg will be talking with us a little bit or a lot of it about cultivating board champions. And I am thrilled to hear more about this because one of the key points over the last year has really been the focus on boards. So before we get into the conversation with Greg, we of course want to make sure that you remember who we are. If we haven't met yet, Julia Patrick is the CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy. I'm Jarrett Ransom, the nonprofit nerd CEO of the Raven Group. We are so excited to have the continuation and the investment of our presenting sponsors. You can see their logos right in front of you on the screen. I like to remind you that these companies exist for you truly. They are here to help you move your mission driven goals forward. They are all online. The majority of them have a huge tech base. So if you have not checked out any of these presenting sponsors, please make sure you do. They are fantastic. Many of them are tech agnostic and really are here to help you again with your number one goal of serving your community. So please join me in saying thank you to our sponsors. And again, thrilled to have today's guest, Gregory Nielsen, President and CEO with Nielsen Training and Consulting. Now Gregory, you're in Kentucky, is that right? I am. I'm based in Louisville, Kentucky, born and raised in New York, but now based in Louisville. We are so thrilled to have you. So welcome, and we would love to have you tell us a little bit more about your consulting firm. Absolutely. Thank you, Jarrett. Thank you, Julia. It's great to be with both of you today. And as you mentioned, my name is Greg Nielsen. I am actually an attorney by background. So I have taken a really circuitous route to where I am today. I started my career as an officer in the Army Jag Corps, and I was stationed at Fort Knox, which is what brought me to Kentucky. And I was trying court martial cases around the country as a litigator. In 2008, I made the transition to nonprofit leadership and served as a nonprofit CEO of two different organizations for a little over a decade. One was a pediatric healthcare nonprofit and later the Center for Nonprofit Excellence. I launched Nielsen Training and Consulting in 2018, and now I'm a privileged guy. I get to work with nonprofits across the country, mostly in the areas of board governance, our topic today, strategic planning and organizational development. Wow, what a background. I did not know that background. So for those of you transparently, Greg and I have been connected through social media and many nonprofit forums that are online. So we've kind of maintained this colleague, you know, partnership. What a story, Greg, that is fantastic. And I launched the Raven Group in 2009. So I know in 2008, when you really made this shift in your career, that was not an easy time. My goodness, it was, it was crazy. As you know, I had no nonprofit experience at the time. It was 2008, taking over as a first time executive director. I had three board members in that organization and the board met quarterly. So if you want, if you're thinking about a segue to our topic today, let's try and go fundraise with a lawyer at the helm who has never raised a dollar in his life. And three board members. That was the, that was the mission that we had back in 2008. So it was a trial by fire. And you could not charge billable hours because that's not the model of nonprofits, but I love that segue. So talking about cultivating board champions again, you know, the board members have, you know, made or break us throughout this last year. Many organizations have been very successful in the nimbleness and how their board has, has really leaned in to the opportunities or challenges. But we are thrilled. And I know that our guests today as well as watching the recording want to hear more about, okay, how do we do this? How do we create board champions? So I think the where I usually start with a group is, and particularly if you're doing this in a board meeting or at a board retreat is close your eyes and think about the best team that you've ever been a part of. Maybe it was a sport. Maybe it was a club. Maybe it was a professional, you know, a corporate group that you've been a part of what were the characteristics of that team. And I suggest if you ask your board members that question, you'll hear we all understood our role. There was a place for everyone. I felt like my talents were utilized. I knew what was expected of me. I had the support to succeed. There was accountability. So when we think about how to create board champions, what we're trying to replicate for our board members with our board members is that experience of being part of the most successful, most empowering and inspirational team they've been a part of in their past. You know, I love that approach because it could be your church choir. It could, like you said, it could be a sports team. It could be a neighborhood association. That is a really great idea because so many folks come to nonprofit board service. They haven't had any board service, or they've had a lot of it, but it hasn't really been that great. Right. What do you bring to the table? You know, I also like it because it gives you it gives you an opportunity to refer back to that image days, weeks, months later, right when the board inevitably hits difficult patches because all of our boards do. It gives us a chance to refer and reflect back by going down this path. Are we creating the type of team that we want to be a part of? Are we subconsciously promoting any dysfunctions that are going to inhibit our ability to meet the mission down the road? So I have a question and Julie and I are notorious for what we what we call as curveball questions. So boards tend to have a term limit. Some organizations adhere to this and some do not. You know, if we've been around the block enough, we know this to be true. How do you bring that same example of close your eyes? What was the most successful group that you were a part of into recruiting additional board champions? So either we're looking to grow or we're looking to kind of replace those term limits. How do you use that in that scenario, Greg? I think that it's twofold. So first it's about being honest with the prospective board member about where is your board today, right? So if your board is not in that ideal state, right, you haven't achieved that ideal team atmosphere, it's important to be honest with prospective board members and say this is where we are today. These are the challenges that we're experiencing. These are some of the issues that we're wrestling with and trying to solve. But our board members have talked passionately about this is where we want to go. These are the characteristics that we want to nurture and cultivate in our board. And for the following reasons, we think that you can be a part of helping us get one step closer to that. When I'm approached about serving on a nonprofit board, I want to know why me, right? I want to know you're not just seeking to fill a seat or get to an arbitrary number of board members, but there's something unique that I can bring to the table that I can bring to the team that helps you get one step closer to what you're trying to build. That's great. Now, when it comes to really, you know, building this when it comes to healthy habits, I'm sure there's ways where, you know, some board members may take over in a unhealthy manner. I'm not, you know, I'm sure that happens. But talk to me about, you know, how do we really move the board champions to be healthy? So, Jared, there are really, I talk about five key habits of healthy boards. And I use that term habits intentionally, because we all have habits, right? The key for our board is understanding what are the habits that we have that we want to memorialize, that we want to be part of the culture of our board. And then what are the habits that are not serving us well that we want to break. And so that metaphor of habits resonates with board teams. But it's about understanding how do we intentionally step through this in a way that makes sense for our board, because there's not one singular, I can't pick up a textbook and say, if I do these five things and just these five things, magically, it's all going to work out. I have to do it in a way that's comfortable and makes sense for my individual board. So it starts with the first habit and Julia articulated it beautifully before, which is expectations, right? Healthy boards define the expectations they have of each other collaboratively. So it's not me as the executive director or the board chair saying, okay, every board member is going to do these 10 things, sign on the dotted line, and we're good to go. Healthy boards develop the expectations that they have of the team collaboratively, right? So think about a board retreat. Think about in a board meeting posing the question, what do we expect of each other? We expect a certain level of attendance. We expect a certain financial commitment or participation in fundraising. To me, it starts with that expectations piece as the as the critical first habit of a healthy board. One of the quotes I've heard is people support that in which they help create, right? And so if the board is closing their eyes at the very beginning and saying this, this is what I recall to be the most successful, most productive, most efficient, effective organization or group in which I played a part of and now what were those healthy habits and having those expectations and being able, I don't know, accountability, right? Hold each other accountable in those expectations is critical as well. Board members need three things in order to be successful. They need expectations. They need support because as Julia mentioned a few minutes ago, board members don't come to our board necessarily with prior positive experience, training as far as their roles and responsibilities. And then the third thing that board members need and they crave it is accountability, meaning what does accountability look like on this team? You know, I often think that, you know, when you go into a board, you're excited, you're flattered, you're called to a mission, you want to stretch all these things. I really do believe, and maybe it's a Pollyanna approach, but that people want to succeed, that they want to do well. But where we miss is that expectation in that tracking of what it means to be good. And then pretty soon, if they're not performing or the board's not performing, it's very easy to disengage because there's so many other things going on in life. And rather than keep up, you know, keep in the fight, so to speak, it's just so easy to pull away. And so for me, if you don't start out with that expectation setting and measuring, you just are going to get so far behind. It's going to be really hard to pivot, it seems like. Unless there's a total crisis, and oftentimes when I've been on boards when that's occurred, you have a sloughing off, you automatically have people that leave and say, yeah, you know, I can't do it. Julia, that's a great point. And it leads right into the second habit of healthy boards, which is recruiting meticulously. Right, we alluded to it a few minutes ago and we said, we don't want to just fill seats on the board. And thinking through healthy boards are able to articulate who's on the team. What are the skills talents perspectives that we have represented today, where might we have gaps, and then have a specific intentional recruiting plan to fill some of those gaps. And that includes everything from skills and talents, all the way to diversity of thought diversity defined as broadly as the team chooses to. Okay, so now you've really gotten me thinking here. What are what's the next healthy habit that we need to have orientation. Right, if you look at the data and it's backed up by by talking to board members, the single most important attribute that a lot of our organizations overlook is a really thoughtful orientation process. How many times do we see the binder approach right here is our new board member hand them the binder with the bylaws and the the last 12 board meeting minutes and expect them to be great. Right, what we know from talking to board members is that without a thoughtful orientation, it takes the average board member nine to 12 months before they feel comfortable making a contribution to the board. Right, a thoughtful orientation program can cut that amount of time by 75%. Right, because if I know what's expected of me if I've had a thoughtful orientation, where I've had an opportunity to sit down with the executive director. I've had an opportunity to sit down with the board chair. I've had an opportunity to meet the staff and see the programs for myself. I immediately feel like I'm part of the team. I feel like I know how I can make a contribution. And you can you can engage. Yes. Yes, 9 to 12 months that was a that was a shock to me. But it makes sense. And again, I've been with too many organizations that don't have an orientation, and they do the binder approach. Here you go. Go get them. It's intuitive. Right. If we were to start, you know, think about for our board members there, nine to five Monday to Friday job. Right. If they started that job, and no one gave them any orientation, they didn't have expectations, they didn't have support. They didn't have a thoughtful orientation. How long do we think it would take them to excel as a lawyer as a doctor as an engineer, whatever career path they were in. It really is no different when we think about our board members. Yeah. Okay, so now, healthy habit number four, number four as we get down to this is where the rubber meets the road right healthy habits need to be able to govern effectively. And this is where we can see a lot of customization and individuality. How often does the board meet what's a comfortable meeting frequency. What about the board meeting length. That were super effective at an hour other board meetings that go longer or shorter. What about the use of committees. Is that going to be an effective tool for governance. This is where we have to customize as a board and talk about how are we most effective governing this organization. Let's resist the black and white approach of we have to have committees or we have to meet this often or this frequently or for this length of time. And let's talk as a team about in order to get the job done in order to be effective and be a great team together. What does that look like for us. Now Greg does that stay the same. Are we also amenable to seeing how that might change over time depending on what is, you know, in in our atmosphere. I'm a huge proponent for having that be changeable right composition of our boards change. It's reasonable and unrealistic to think that the exact same way that we govern with our board five years ago is the exact same way to govern today. We have a different list of challenges we have a different mixture of personalities and leadership and communication styles, and the world is changing. Right. The past two years have taught us nothing else. Think about if we tried to govern our nonprofits, the exact same way now, as we did, you know, three years ago, right. Things have just changed a lot of us are on zoom a lot of us are meeting virtually. It has altered the way we can govern our organizations the way we put our teams together really. Well, and I'm Jared and I talked about this all the time but you know we are huge fan girls of board portals. And for so many organizations, just that technological engagement has been new and was probably pushed by the pandemic. Because it was such an innovative and evolving thing. So that I've got to believe you're seeing more and more of that in the government's issue. Absolutely and a lot of it has been triggered by how to manage the virtual meeting, but you're right there's also other opportunities for board portals and how do we share documents, how do we share information, how do we protect our data some key data that we want to keep confidential how do we protect that so technology definitely plays a huge role in conversations around that fourth habit of governance. So okay drum roll number five. The final one is the one that is most overlooked by nonprofit organizations so really hit the drum roll right now, and it's evaluation. Good team. What do healthy teams do think about a sports team, we're in the middle of football season right now, what do coaches do at the end of every game. They watch film, they evaluate, what did we do that went well, what did we do that we want to improve next time out boards are the exact same thing. It is so healthy and such a great habit for boards to hold a mirror up to themselves and their own performance and reflect and say, where have we succeeded as a board team, where do we still have challenges, and perhaps most importantly, one of the my favorite aspects of evaluation is it allows boards to set priorities. When I ask boards, what do you want to do in the coming year or what do you want to improve. I always worry when I hear a lot of general answers we want to be more engaged we want to raise more money we want to be a better team. It's hard to know what that means, if I'm a board member. Instead evaluation helps us know, okay, our three priorities for the next six months nine months 12 months are X, Y and Z, and this is what we think we can accomplish in that timeframe. So again, evaluation and being able to course correct is a is a wonderful habit for healthy boards. Huge nugget I love that fifth one it was well worth the drum roll. Because I know there's been, you know, again, and everyone said it but over these last 18 months. There's been a lot of changes there continue to be a lot of changes so being able to course correct, having to refocus or shift really like what is it that we want to do in the next six nine 12 months, and how do we get the buy in to be as effective as we possibly can. That is a wonderful, wonderful healthy habit tip. And you're going to talk to us about you know when these champions do get together, and they're healthy and there's they're hitting these healthy habits. And maybe they're ready to really look at, you know, translating bold visions into reality. What does that look like in a in a healthy organization with a healthy board. It starts with having a strategy that we all believe in that we can be a part of and that we can envision for the future. As a board member, I have to have a piece of ownership in that I want to be, you know, play that critical role in strategic planning to identify what is our vision for the future one year two years three years whatever your time period is, and then how do we all fit together where do the puzzle pieces fit together. What resources do we need what challenges do we anticipate, and how can I, as a board member, play the most possible to help advance that vision, right so it's about understanding what is our strategy, ensuring the organization has a bold strategic plan in place. That's realistic. That's feasible that takes into account challenges and resources needed, and then understand how do we take that plan. And how do we flip the switch into implementation, because what we know is we see a lot of nonprofit organizations, I was certainly part of sub in the past right that have great strategic plans, but we don't know what do we do on day one, how do we begin how do we take those first initial steps to translate that that strategy into action into implementation. And that's like your, you know, your welcome board book. So many organizations I see they work on these strategic plans that are just tomes, you know, and then it goes into a book and here it is. And then it sits on that shelf until it's like, Oh, no, the year's coming to an end we better get out that book and see where we are. How do you take that hard work and all that thought leadership and keep it front of mind. So the strategic plan document just like board development is a living breathing document. Right. There's a lot of great parallels between strategic plans and board development. And what we know is that just like strategic plans need to be kept a part of every single board meeting. So why are we having this report on this particular topic taking board time on this discussion, because it applies to pillar number one of our strategic plan. Board development is the same thing. Sometimes the temptation in developing board champions is to do it once a year, the checklist approach, right. Let's have a board retreat, we'll do a presentation about roles and responsibilities, and then we'll check the box that we have developed our board team for the year. What we know from healthy nonprofits is that board professional development is the same as our staff professional development. I used to love as a nonprofit executive that in that role that critical role that I played in making sure that our staff had the training and support and development resources necessary. It's the same with our board members. What are we doing at this meeting this month to improve the skills talents make our board members one step more comfortable in their role right so rather than thinking of it as a one time event. Think about board professional develop as an as an ongoing process. I love that you said that I couldn't agree more. And one of the things I cannot help to hear Greg is potentially how transferable these healthy habits, creating these board champions transfer into the committee work into staff into maybe a young nonprofit professionals group. So it seems to me that many of these wonderful nuggets and ah ha's that you've shared with us today about cultivating his board champions is really transferable throughout the culture of the organization. Am I, am I seeing that right and you just use the critical word of culture. Okay, it's so important that these habits become part of the culture of our organization. So it's not shocking for our board members when we talk about conducting a board self assessment. This is not a remediation or a punishment for our board members. It's simply part of the fact that as an organization, we believe in continuous improvement. We believe in holding a mirror up to our own performance and making regular corrections along the way and celebrating what we do really really well. So it's all about building that culture and there's not a huge difference between our board and our staff. Right. It's not like our staff has one culture and our board has a brand as a totally different culture. It's about what do we want the culture of this organization to be and then each of those different groups plays a critical role in developing that enhancing that and then owning and sustaining it as well. We don't want to just be the caretaker of the culture as the executive director as the board chair. We want champions at every level of the organization. Yeah, it really needs to be woven into the fiber and the fabric of the organization. And I'm thinking to even bringing that into the orientation this this is my binder if I were a mind this means binder, like bringing it into the orientation so that even that piece of it is saying, how might we improve upon the orientation and being open as you said Greg to constant improvement or at least the openness the willingness to consider how we might continue to improve our processes and our systems. I think that is so fantastic. And culture and strategy are, you know, just like Julia mentioned a few minutes ago, you know, keeping them alive, your culture and your strategy are continuously changing and evolving, whether you like it or not. So you might as well be intentional and embrace it and ask the tough questions that it necessitates, because it's always going to be evolving. And the more you can be proactive and be intentional about the culture you are fostering and creating. I think the more successful you can be. You know it's so fascinating. It's hard to believe our time is almost up today but I would say in almost 400 episodes. You're one of the very few thought leaders we've had on that has drawn a direct parallel between the culture of your staff and the culture of your board. So often we separate those two, and we get all focused on one or the other, and we don't pull them across. And so I love that you said this, because I think to Jared, you made this comment you know if you have that healthy habit. Those habits moving across both to both sides, the organizations can be better for it. It's not an either or. And I also love and maybe this was unintended by you Greg but I love that you just gave permission for people to ask the tough questions, and I would love to to echo that and say and please don't wait nine to 12 months if you're a new board member. The presentation will help, but I love that, because I do think that often those tough questions. They, they're tough that it's exactly what they are, and as a fiduciary agent of the organization. Right, it is, it is your duty it is your obligation, it is your right. I've heard it now from perhaps a non practicing attorney but one that is definitely serve, serve that role, I don't want to endorse that as a as a legal statement, but well hey this has been amazing and it sounds to me like we can all use some of Gregory Nielsen's information and wisdom. And this is information check out Nielsen consultants really important. You know, Jared and I from day one we've been all about training we really believe this, and it's been so fabulous Greg to have you on talking about that that you come from this really a guest institution of Jack. It was Jack right. Yes. Yeah, I mean it's just really impressive and so we are just so thrilled to have had you in your wisdom on I have to tell you I did not know all this before you came on I just thought you were another great consultant. So that's even better huh. Yeah. I've been joined by my sidekick the nonprofit nerd herself to ransom CEO the Raven group again we want to thank all of our presenting sponsors about you. We would not be here. Wow. Another great way to get off the week and thank you. I love it I mean no pressure Greg but you definitely had a home run. Our room, our virtual room was packed because clearly this is a topic that our, you know, sector friends really need to to focus on they want to learn more about so thank you to you Greg and thank you to our sponsors that have allowed us this conversation today. It's been wonderful. Hey everybody as we end this day, and we launch into a new week. We want to remind everyone to stay well, so you can do well. We'll see you back here tomorrow. Thanks Greg.