Volunteer board development begins with governance training

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Cheretta and I discussed the critical role that continuous learning and development plays in enhancing the effectiveness of volunteer boards. Cheretta shares her journey of streamlining the board from over 30 members to a more manageable 11, and discusses the importance of governance training and communication skills.

She also emphasizes the significance of ongoing training and effective onboarding processes to ensure that board members are well-prepared and aligned with the organization's goals.

Stick around to the end to hear Cheretta's top tips for how to keep board members motivated and engaged in their own development.

Resources on board development and training for volunteer boards

• Board training and development for volunteer boards: 4 key focus areas
• Board development & training in mission-driven organizations: Tips from leaders
• Why board development matters: An infographic and guide for nonprofit leaders

Here is an edited transcript of the conversation:

Jill Holtz: So hi everybody today I'm joined by Cheretta Clarkley. Welcome Cheretta. Tell me a little bit about yourself, your organization and your role there.

Cheretta A. Clerkley: Thank you. I am the executive director for the Association for Positive Behavior Support. So I serve as the chief staff person for the organization managing the day-to-day operations and partnering with our board president as well as the entire board to ensure that their strategic vision for the organization aligns with how we're operating on a daily basis.

Jill Holtz: And how many board members do you have, Charita?

Cheretta A. Clerkley: We have 11 currently, but when I started the position there was over 33. So I've been here a year. And so we've done a lot of streamlining to ensure that we have the right individuals and the right seats to be able to help us move the organization forward.

Jill Holtz: Wow. Great, so the reason I invited you to join me is that I'm really interested in the topic of board training and development. So first of all, why do you think board training and development is important for non-profit organizations?

Cheretta A. Clerkley: It's extremely important and I think mainly for continuous and collective learning opportunities that help to deepen board members understanding of the organization, the environment in which your nonprofit operates, their roles and responsibilities, which when you have better understanding of those things, it allows more effectiveness and provides greater value to the organization.

Jill Holtz: And then sort of drilling into that about how important is it for the board to have governance training in particular? What's your perspective?

Cheretta A. Clerkley: So I'm a big believer in board governance training. Having stepped into a role where that was not a primary function, I learned really quickly coming from organizations who have such strong board governance processes and procedures how important that training is because it equips directors with the necessary skills and knowledge to oversee the organization, make informed discussions, when it comes to fulfilling legal responsibilities and contributing significantly to the overall health and success of the organization. And when that does not happen, when you have a board that is not focused on the right things, it answers a lot of questions as to why things are running the way they are within the organization. And so for me, it's really important to improve that decision-making quality, mitigate the risk and so having that training is so important.

Jill Holtz: So you mentioned kind of bringing when you have board members and you're talking to them about how the organization works and what the mission is etc. Obviously they're kind of really crucial. We've talked about governance training, what their responsibilities are. What other topics do you think should be covered in a board training program for non-profits?

Cheretta A. Clerkley: Yeah, besides just strategic planning and governance, I think board training needs to cover areas like risk management, particularly cyber security, change management. One of my favorites is conflict resolution. I think that that's extremely important, particularly from a board perspective, where you have so many different views and opinions and people are very passionate. But when you serve on a board, it's important to understand that it is not about your individual position, it's about the organization. And so sometimes that conflict resolution is not something that people think about.

Then say diversity and inclusion. I know that that's a topic right now that you know people want to steer away from but if we don't reflect the people that we're serving and we don't have that representation on the board it impacts business. I also think ethical decision-making is important so how are we ensuring that we're not blurring the lines from our own individual positions into what the organization is doing.

And then a key for me which I'm discovering and I never had thought about this until I took this particular role is financial literacy in terms of you know, you serve on a board and your primary responsibility is financial oversight, but if you don't know how to read a balance sheet, if you don't understand profit and loss statements, they can impact some of the decisions that are made. And if you are thinking that the only person who should be doing that is the treasurer and the ED, I think that that's a major issue.

I would also say communication skills. When I took over this role in particular, the way the communication styles were from a board perspective were something that we definitely needed to work on. Knowing when to be quiet and to allow other people the opportunity. You had very dominant personalities. And so people who were maybe more introverted did not participate. They would, you know, email people on the side and that's not the purpose of servicing on a board, right? You need to have those discussions in the board meeting. And so helping them to understand that is critical. And then I guess the last two things I would say is definitely succession planning. And how are we going to future proof the organization emerging industry trends? I think we're in a situation in my current organization where, you know, they've done things the same for 21 years and it hadn't been working. There hadn't been a lot of growth. And so now we're in a different political climate as well. So that impacts the business. And these weren't things that were discussed at the board level. And so there's a lot of kind of strategic processing happening now in terms of, probably decisions that they should have laid out three to five years back in order to prepare for where we are today.

Jill Holtz: And it's really interesting you talk about communications there because I think there's two different angles to that as well and maybe more. One is how, as you said, how do you communicate in the board situation? How do you make sure those introverted people get their chance to speak, etc.? But also, how are you communicating as board members, as advocates and as fundraisers and kind of into the community as well? So I think that's an important angle on communication.

Aside from these key topics that you've described so beautifully, what other essential components are needed for a good board development program? What else do leaders need to think about?

Cheretta A. Clerkley: I definitely think, you know, maybe because this is top of mind on where we are as an organization right now, future proofing the organization is definitely something that I don't think is discussed as much as it should be in terms of we get so focused on where we are right now and not thinking about the things that may impact the organization. And that doesn't just mean competitors. It also means the political climate. And I'll give an example of that. Our members are primarily with the Department of Education. They receive grants from higher ed institutions. And so with a lot of the changes under this new administration, it's impacting our membership, our conference participation. And so we need to think about what are other ways that we are going to respond as a business.

I also think the evaluation of the composition of the board is critically important. When I stepped into this role, my first thought is how are we moving forward as a board with 32 people? Like I just could not fathom with an organization of our size, we have about 1,500 members, was that the most effective way for us to be able to do things? And so, you know, we did a skills audit. We, you know, tried to make sure that the board really understood the delineation between what my role is and what their role is because it seemed like a lot of the lines were blurred and they were moving from a volunteer led board that was running the day to day into more of a strategic board. And so that means that not everybody's gonna be able to come with you. So I think that that's really critical. One of the things that the EC, our executive committee and our president had talked about was annual reviews, something that we want to start to implement because we noticed that there were the same maybe, you four or five board members who were working at a high level and then everybody else just kind of added in their commentary, but they weren't really doing anything to help move the organization forward. And then I think, you know, because there's been so much change in short amount of time, having a real board training that everybody goes through yearly, even if it's just a refresher I think is really critical.

Jill Holtz: Well, I was actually going to talk to you next about, you know, obviously onboarding is a crucial time for giving your new board members and having just undergone some change there and maybe some shifts. What in your experience has made for successful onboarding? What do you think? unsuccessful, actually. And then as a kind of a second part, that is you mentioned refresher training. How important is that ongoing training? It's not just an onboarding thing.

Cheretta A. Clerkley: Yeah, I would say for the first year, you know, I've been with the organization since January of 2024 and primarily I would say maybe more than 60 % of my time was working with a board to get them to be in alignment with the operational decisions that needed to be made. But there was a lack of understanding between the role delineation between an ED and what the board's role was. And so supporting that board and the process was really critical for that ongoing evaluation so that we could determine the right individual board members as a whole. So that, I think, was really critical. The next piece to that that I would say is keeping the board informed, because when changes are happening, that was really critical. We didn't have the right infrastructure or technology in place, which is part of the reason why we decided to move forward with a board tool like BoardEffect, so that everything could be in one place. We could streamline things. They could check the dashboard and everybody had the same access to information and our secretary could, you know, upload everything that she needed to put on there so that everybody could. And then when we started doing trainings, we recorded them and also utilized that platform so that people could do that self-paced learning, which I think was really important. But I think just thinking more about how we're creating and implementing board development strategies to help to support the board has been really critical and then also evaluating what are the things that we're missing, where are the gaps, so that we could hire the right expertise to help to fill those.

Jill Holtz: And that's really interesting and I think that's speaking of board effect is where you can use things like your survey feature, can't you? Where you can ask people not only after a training, hey, how did you find that? Did you get what you needed from it? But also as you said to do that kind of skills audit, the gaps kind of analysis, how have you found using that particular feature? Has that been helpful?

Cheretta A. Clerkley: Yeah, it has. I think, you know, we're dealing with a board who's gone from being what I would describe as more passive to shifting to being more active. And so I don't think, you know, I think we have people who are early adopters who are really engaged with the technology. I think that there are people who are still getting used to it. You know, we did a lot of training to get everybody up to speed and I think that they had anxiety around, my goodness, I don't know if I'll be able to manage it, but we've been using it since July of 2024 and it's been really successful for us. We've implemented, like I said, you know, various trainings. We've really tried to do things at the pace of the group that we have now. Of course, I'd love it to be even more, you know, I'd like to move at a faster pace, but I'm understanding that for us right now, them understanding and gaining that knowledge and the upskilling that we have to do is the most critical pieces. And I think things like being able to use the board books and get them involved with reading things prior to the meetings. All of those kind of basic things that sometimes we take for granted. This has really helped to streamline an organization moving from passive board to more active.

Jill Holtz: What have you done in terms of kind of what else I feel, I hear you being very proactive, you're giving training, you're helping to engage them, but in terms of kind of fostering that culture of continuous learning and improvement, given that, you know, you're kind of non-profits in that space as it were, what are some ways that you've been seeing that culture change towards that more continuous learning and improvement?

Cheretta A. Clerkley: You know, I can't ask something of the board that I'm not doing myself. So really trying to lead by example, by actively participating and learning opportunities for me as an executive director. So prior to engaging them in a facilitated training with a nonprofit governance consultant, I did a refresher with some of my association relationships so that I can make sure that we're setting clear expectations for ongoing development, encouraging open dialogue and knowledge sharing. I think, you know, providing access to relevant training. So what I've been doing is if I see something around a board governance article or something that I've read that resonated with me, you know, I'll share it with the president and then she'll share it with the board. So really trying to make sure that, you know, we're celebrating kind of some of the successes in learning improvement initiatives that we have for all of us. One of the things that I think has been the most helpful for this board is that we engaged in a series long four part training with a nonprofit government governance consultant. And she helped the board to develop a kind of board expectations that really outlined, I mean, it's very detailed in terms of what does it look like when we're meeting? How should we respond to each other? I mean, it leaves no questions in terms of the type of engagement that you need to have to be on this board. And it also demonstrates what's not appropriate. And I think that that has helped us with getting more people involved and also opening it up for people who are like, maybe one day I'd like to figure out how to be on this board.

Jill Holtz: Yeah, and the interesting thing is having gone through that process, you now have that available for any future new members that join the board. You have that already or you could like to refresh your annual retreat, for example, just using that material. So it's great that you've done that. So I guess you've touched on it a little bit, I think, in terms of what you do already. But how do you think a non-profit board can go about measuring the effectiveness of its own board development and training efforts? I know that's serious.

Cheretta A. Clerkley: Yeah, I think accountability and that's one of the things that is one of our first expectations of a board member is that we are holding each other accountable and so ensuring that we're doing annual reviews, that we are looking at the composition of our board from a skill set. I think, you know, we're still in the position where I would say we don't have the most diverse composition of the board yet. It's gonna take time, of course, right? Yeah, but I think knowing what the skill sets are that we will need for the future of the board is helping us. But I think one of the intentional decisions that I made was that I did not want to, it was so much change happening with getting a board to be 11 versus 32 that we really wanted to focus on building the infrastructure of the basics first. And I think once we have that all in place, it will be a better experience for new board members coming on board.

Jill Holtz: I love that. So to just finish, I'd love to ask you some quickfire questions if that's okay. It's like a quiz. Okay, what's the number one thing nonprofit leaders should be doing when it comes to board training?

Cheretta A. Clerkley: Okay, hopefully I'll do good. Really think about hiring an outside facilitator who specializes in governance because you will have a voice for you so that it doesn't put you in an awkward position as the ED or the CEO for them to provide critical information to the board.

Jill Holtz: And how can executive leaders ensure that board training is ongoing and not just a one time thing?

Cheretta A. Clerkley: Yeah, I think one, making it accessible. So having some type of software or tool that you're using so that it stays top of mind. And so like I mentioned, Board Effect does that for us. We can create things in the dashboard so that they can always refer to it and go back. I think also when you're creating your board books, providing any type of mapping when it comes to your agenda that goes back to things that happened from a training perspective. So linking those two together is really helpful. And then I guess the last thing I would say is leading by example as a leader. You may not be on the board with voting privileges, but you're a leader within the organization. So what are you doing to continuing to stay up on current trends?

Jill Holtz: Absolutely. And finally, what advice would you give to a leader for how to keep board members motivated and engaged in their own?

Cheretta A. Clerkley: It’s really important to have open discussions and really figure out how you as a leader within an organization can help to align your board to the right projects that are going to enhance their involvement. So, if I have someone who is clearly telling me, I don't like anything to do with finance, I'm not going to put you on the finance committee. I'm going to find the role that is going to be best where you can help the organization to flourish. So really doing that skills assessment, what are you lacking, what do you need, I think really helps to drive engagement and so we're really trying to, you know, build that infrastructure so people feel supported when they come on the board.

Jill Holtz: So they feel they can really add value to the organization and its mission. I love that. Thank you so much for your time today, Cheretta. It's been amazing to talk to you and hear about your experience.

Cheretta A. Clerkley: I really appreciate it. Thank you so much.