By Katelyn Wilson on
March 4, 2010 10:58 AM
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In August 2009, the
Stanford Social Innovation Review published the article "
Catalytic Philanthropy,"
describing the approach one entrepreneur took to reduce methamphetamine
abuse in Montana. By researching the entry point into drug usage (teens
who were unaware of the dangers of using meth), and implementing a
strategic, well-resourced, targeted crusade to intervene at that level (a multi-million dollar,
Hollywood produced, award-winning ad campaign which brutally depicts
the downward spiral of a meth user), Thomas
Siebel was able to make an almost immediate impact on reducing meth
abuse in the state by more than 50%.
Since Siebel's campaign,
the words "catalytic" and "philanthropy" have become favored buzzwords
of social entrepreneurs. Never ones to be late to a social innovation
party, the (non-meth-addicted) Pro Bono Junkies at Taproot Foundation
were eager to see how this new movement could be augmented with pro
bono service, and set to work on a Catalytic Pro Bono Cause: Foster
Care.
Having polished their logo, web presence and marketing
collateral through three previous Service Grants with Taproot
Foundation, Youth Law Center (YLC) was well-versed in pro bono service.
As a public interest advocacy group whose mission is to end abuse and
maltreatment of children in the nation's foster care and justice
systems and to ensure that these children are connected to families and
communities, they were also also a major resource and expert in the foster
care system. When YLC approached Taproot requesting help with messaging
to "encourage the right families to foster," with hopes of rebranding
foster care systematically, and not simply for their own organization,
Taproot Foundation jumped on the opportunity.
Following the
four steps outlined in the August 2009 Stanford Social Innovation
Review article for successful Catalytic Philanthropy, Taproot
Foundation and YLC set to work.
1. Take Responsibility for Achieving Results
By
following the basic guidelines of the Key Messages & Brand Strategy
Service Grant (Taproot's got about 250 of these projects under our belt
already), we went into the project with a clear project scope and
defined expectations on all sides of the pro bono consulting engagement
- from the time commitment of YLC staff as well as the consultants, to
a timeline for the execution of the project. We also began the project with confirmation that
the end would be implemented not only by YLC but by a variety of
government and nonprofit agencies working in the field.
2. Mobilize a Campaign for Change
In
order to confirm that the new messages and brand position delivered by
the Service Grant would resonate with the right audiences, Taproot
Foundation's pro bono consulting team worked carefully with YLC to
ensure that all benefiting organizations had channels to provide their
input and feedback on the team's work. By making sure that the
California Social Work Education Consortium, California Department of
Social Services, County Welfare Directors, the Foster Parent
Association and other agencies supporting the foster care system across
the state were aware of the progress the Service Grant was making and
able to discuss their thoughts and concerns directly with YLC, we were
able to effectively manage the consulting team's bandwidth. This
effective management enabled the Key Messages & Brand Strategy
Service Grant to be completed on time.
3. Use All Available Tools
The
collaborative nature of the Service Grant program lends itself to an
"all hands on deck" approach - the consultants drew upon their
expertise in marketing, branding, design, management, and other key
areas to build professional-quality messaging about foster care. On the
flip side, YLC and the other participating agencies brought their
perspectives from decades of experience working in the field to help
identify a target audience and the attributes of that audience to
ensure that the new branding was focused and pointed them in the right
direction.
4. Create Actionable Knowledge
The pro
bono consulting team created vignettes to personify the new brand
attributes they discovered. "I am up for the challenge," was personified
through a brief story about a child who refused to eat anything his
foster mother brought him. Through the foster mom's detective work -
checking in with his teacher to see if and what he ate at lunchtime- she
was able to find a solution get the child to eat dinner with his foster
family. The vignette demonstrated the key principle identified by the
consulting team: " Being a foster parent is definitely a challenge,
but it's so rewarding to see your child thrive." The ideas were
reinforced by this new tagline, "I am someone's hero. I am a foster
parent."
The professional-quality
deliverables created by this Service Grant are already being adopted eagerly by the groups involved. This compelling message will enable foster
care agencies to better demonstrate the value that volunteering as a
foster family presents - and by putting these new ideas into the form
of an anecdote, the consultants have made these attributes accessible,
communicable and memorable for a variety of audiences.
Because
this Key Messages & Brand Strategy project is geared towards
reworking the perception of foster care as a whole rather than focusing
on one particular agency, the resulting impact of the Service Grant
will be catalytic in rebranding the issue area and enhancing public
perception of the importance of foster parenting. By improving their
ability to match foster youth with compassionate, flexible families
that are up to the challenge of being someone's hero, these agencies
are positioned to provide foster children with the love and support
they need to thrive.
By Laura Weiss on
March 1, 2010 2:15 PM
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Recently
I was working with my colleagues on some organizational design issues.
We were grappling with the classic question of how to scale an
organization so that it's optimized for impact. As we explored ways in
which other types of enterprises have dealt with this kind of growth
challenge, I realized how easy it would be for the discussion to remain
fixed on an analysis of traditional organizational models -
functional, divisional matrix - in the quest to find one that suited us
best.
Such organizational models emerged in the early part of the
twentieth century to prevent chaos and to promote efficiency in growing
businesses. Unfortunately, management theory today confirms that these
very structures can become so rigid that they often prevent creativity
even as they preserve order.
This all got me thinking - how much structure does a small
organization really need? In mulling over this question, I found myself
thinking about the work of the famous Swiss architect LeCorbusier
(1887-1965) and his equally famous plan
libre. Allow me to explain.
During the early days of LeCorbusier's career, buildings were designed
to reflect traditional bearing wall construction, which often limited
the placement of interior walls. But LeCorbusier changed all that with
his most iconic design and lasting legacy to the architecture
profession - the "Domino" house. Conceived in the 1920's, it promoted a
simple grid of structural columns supporting horizontal concrete slabs.
This organizing armature, if you will, allowed for a more important
innovation to be realized - a "free plan" of undulating walls that
could be placed in a variety of configurations to achieve spatial
ingenuity. This was achievable because the walls were not limited by
the structural grid but rather were enabled by it - the grid was "the
function that gives the form to the interior space"
1.
To bring the conversation back to that other kind of organizational
structure - can we design nonprofits for efficiency as well as
creativity? Can there be just enough structure in the right places to
not only support but also enable the kinds of human interactions that
will help them operate as creative entities? In an ever-changing world,
organizations of all kinds must be both strategically adaptable as well
as operationally efficient. To paraphrase management guru Gary Hamel,
we must "build organizations where discipline and freedom aren't
mutually exclusive
"2.
Organizations that enable some freedom of activity are naturally
structured for creativity. They are often characterized less by
prescribed roles, functions or departments and more by the types of
human interactions their culture desires. Typically these are reflected
in such things as a strong sense of community, interdisciplinary
collaborations, a "one-team" mentality, and an open environment (both
literally and figuratively).
So when thinking about what kind of structure is the right kind of
structure, we need to ask ourselves what kins of behaviors are we
trying to encourage so that our relationships - both internally and
externally - deliver unique value and have real impact. Too much
structure can mean too little freedom to explore and adapt. We need to
prevent that from happening.
1 Le Corbusier, Towards a New Architecture, 1960
2 Gary Hamel, The Future of Management, 2007
Laura Weiss is the Vice President of Service Innovation at the Taproot
Foundation. Laura comes to the Taproot Foundation after nine years as
Associate Partner and Practice Director with the world-renowned design
consultancy, IDEO, where she was an advocate for bringing a business
perspective to the design process. A former licensed architect and
educator, Laura holds and MBA from MIT Sloan School of Management, an
MArch from Yale University and a BArch with honors from Cornell
University.
By Jaime Hiraishi on
February 26, 2010 1:47 PM
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A vast majority of students want to make a positive impact on society and are seeking new ways to leverage their expertise to help their communities throughout their academic careers. Across the country, professional students are joining and starting pro bono consulting programs and clubs as a means of immersing themselves within their local communities to create a lasting impact on worthy organizations.
Many schools are starting to take notice of this trend and are dedicating precious resources and staff to support these efforts-- a crucial step in creating sustainable programs. We've created an
online showcase of some of the top pro bono programs in professional schools across the country to share best practices, foster learning, and promote collaboration across fields and schools.
One of these programs is the
IDEAcorps™ Challenge which partners MBA students from schools like Northwestern Kellogg, Chicago Booth, Berkeley Haas School of Business, DePaul University, and Stanford GBS, with business professionals from companies like Google and Salesforce.com to solve business challenges for participating organizations. For the final two weeks of this program, students traveled to New Orleans to complete their projects and present the findings in a case competition setting. To take a deeper look at this program, or to create a Program Profile of your own program, check out our
Professional School Program Profiles.
These student consultants are not only taking part in the pro bono movement, they are also paving the way for future generations. I have no doubt many participants in university pro bono will lead the way for corporate pro bono and philanthropy, and challenge the culture of the professional world. They are truly pro bono junkies in training!
Jaime Hiraishi is a Recruitment Coordinator at the Taproot Foundation. She also leads the Taproot Foundation's efforts to promote the pro bono ethic in professional schools.
By Anne Diaz on
February 22, 2010 8:00 AM
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This month Taproot announced an exciting milestone- the completion of our 1000th Service Grant! Consider this post an interactive thank you card from all of us at Taproot Foundation!
Please take a moment to reflect on all that we have accomplished together. Join us in celebrating by posting your most memorable Taproot moment, sharing what pro bono service means to you, or thanking your fellow members of the Taproot Foundation family! You have proven that we can accomplish more by working together and sharing our talents and passions across sectors. Thank you!
Taproot Program Manager Anne Diaz shares what this milestone means to her:
As a Program Manager at Taproot Foundation, I have the great honor and privilege of overseeing our Service Grant projects from start to finish. A fellow Program Manager put it well when she recently remarked to me, "the emotional rewards at this job are amazing. We spend a lot of time at our desks, but we somehow get to witness and facilitate great change at the same time."
Over the course of the100 projects I've managed, I have witnessed amazing results. I have seen nonprofits whose work is completely transformed for the better by stellar deliverables; pro bono consultants who, inspired by their clients, change their careers by switching sectors (some even joining their client's staff, full time!); and nonprofit board members who decide to become pro bono consultants after they witness the professionalism of the Taproot teams working for their organization.
The road to 1000 projects hasn't always been smooth. Each one of our projects demands the utmost dedication and expertise from our pro bono consultants as well as professionalism and candor from our clients. There have been moments of frustration, disappointment, confusion, and hilarity. Yet these moments make the final deliverables and the overall experience that much sweeter for everyone involved.
When chosen to write this post in celebration of our 1000th project milestone, I tried to think of one moment that would encapsulate the deep gratitude I feel around each and every project we support - projects that expose the absolute best of the corporate and nonprofit worlds.
I thought about what to write as I ate lunch with a three-time Account Director who told me, "Anne, I will always be an Account Director for Taproot. This is work just too meaningful to stop." I kept thinking as I brainstormed with a pro bono consultant who had offered to help Taproot create different pro bono service options. I continued thinking as I spoke to representatives from a nonprofit and heard their deep appreciation for their team and the lessons they had learned about their infrastructure through creating a new logo.
What I realized is that this milestone can't be summed up in one moment. This milestone is the culmination of thousands of little "aha!" moments collectively proving that pro bono can be high quality, reliable, and accessible. Perhaps one of our clients summed it up best, in an email to me this morning: "This work has been an exciting and stimulating adventure!!!"
An adventure it is. Here's to the next 1000!
By Aaron Zueck on
February 19, 2010 9:05 AM
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For over a year now, Taproot Foundation has been asking its Service Grant applicants whether or not they have a written Environmental Policy, with only 26 percent answering yes. As an AmeriCorps VISTA Program Fellow here for the past 10 months, I have read many of the responses, and I am not impressed.
If nonprofits aren't making the changes within their organizations necessary to truly be society's ethical innovators, who is going to do it?
Relying on governments to make the necessary changes is painfully slow and wrought with risks and dangers, as we saw in the Copenhagen Quagmire earlier this year. And while corporations have made some small steps in the recent green revolution, they won't start acting sustainably at the necessary scale until consumers decide to make radical lifestyle changes.
While it is true that the direct economic impact of nonprofits is small, their societal impact can not be understated, especially in the United States. As has been the case here for generations, nonprofits have a key role in
showing, not just telling, what is necessary for society to move forward. It is paramount that they do more to work towards the goal of sustainability as we as a society attempt to avoid catastrophic climate change.
So how do nonprofits do more?
Drafting environmental policies, subjecting them to board and executive review, and implementing them at every level of their organization's operations is a good start. This is a systemic way for nonprofits to lead by example. Nonprofit Organizations are chronically strapped for resources, but if we can show that we are able to operate effectively and sustainably, it will be that much more difficult for our corporations and households to claim that they can't do the same.
There are some resources available to help nonprofits towards greening their operations. Check out one of
TechSoup's helpful articles. Fast Company writer Alice Korngold also mentions a few others in this
recent blog entry (in which she gives Taproot a shout out). Taproot president, Aaron Hurst, also gives some of his ideas in this
blog post and identifies some best practices in this
post.
Grant-makers also have a very important role to play. Grant-making and capacity-building institutions have the task of providing the tools and funds for nonprofits to operate sustainably. We need to transition from merely raising the issue of sustainability in nonprofits, to encouraging, supporting, and expecting the creation and implementation of effective environmental policies at nonprofits of all stripes. Without our support, this effort will flounder.
Taproot can even do more to make its current commitment a more visible part of our culture. Let's unearth our
environmental policy from the investor relations page of our website, and display it prominently (print it, frame it!) in our offices. We have various quarterly awards - a new one could be created for the "Root" (staff member) most dedicated to environmental stewardship. To this end, there are many things that every nonprofit could include in their processes with relative ease.
Every member of the nonprofit community needs to be taking deliberate, daily steps toward social progress and our future environmental well-being.
Aaron Zueck is a New York City Program Fellow at the Taproot Foundation. This summer, Aaron plans to embark on his own venture "Bikeloc"- a cross-country bike trip to learn and share stories of the Local Food Movement through potlucks.
By Kate Gazzaniga on
February 12, 2010 1:45 PM
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Corporate social responsibility plays an important role in the pro bono
movement. To discuss CSR and pro bono, here's an interview with
Kara
Hartnett Hurst.
Kara Hartnett Hurst is the East Coast Managing Director BSR, a leading
corporate responsibility organization with a global network of over 250
member companies. Kara specializes in facilitation of collaborative
industry efforts, stakeholder engagement, corporate transparency,
responsible supply chain management, and strategic CSR policy setting.
She is also a founding member of the groundbreaking Electronic Industry
Citizen Coalition. Let's start you off with a softball
to ease you in to this interview- who is the best looking guy in the
field of pro bono service?Oh- let me think about that one
(laughs). Yeah- it'd have to be my husband [Taproot President, Founder,
and Esteemed Interview-Question-Writer Aaron Hurst]. Shocking (laughs).
You co-authored the children's book "Mommy and Daddy Do It Pro Bono" with your husband this year- how did that come about?As
parents there really wasn't a way to talk to our kids about what we do.
We're not in professions that are really straight forward like doctors
or lawyers or something that you can kind of point to- firemen or
ballerinas. With both of our jobs and the fields that we're in, things
can tend to get a little bit dry and serious. I spend a lot of my time
talking about the doomsday scenario around the environment, human
rights, labor violations, and corporate misdoings- and I think with
volunteering and pro bono it can be the same. Combining all of our
interests as parents as well as career-wise, it really pointed towards
a kids' book. We also don't have any time in our lives (laughs)- so
the shorter the better!
When you were a kid, did you want CSR guru when you grew up? You mentioned not being a ballerina, but what did you want to be?(Laughs.)
You know, I always thought I would be a senator. The first job I had in
college, I worked for Senator Moynihan in the Chrysler Building here in
New York, and I loved it, but I also saw how much of that job was about
fundraising and how much of that job didn't actually entail the
substantive policy work that I was interested in. That started my-
disillusionment (laughs) with politics. I tried a couple of different
positions and decided to work more directly in policy.
A lot
of people talk about CSR, volunteering, corporate philanthropy, and pro
bono interchangeably- what do you see as the difference?The
most simplistic way that I can put it is that with CSR, it's not about
what you do with the money that you make- it's about how you make the
money in the first place. I'm less interested in how a corporation is
spending money in a community- I expect them to do that; that's great;
it's definitely something we need. I'm interested in how they made that
money. If they made all of the money they're giving away by mistreating
their workers, sourcing irresponsibly, and creating products we don't
need, that is the core issue. It's not just about giving to
organizations that work in the community.
What are some examples of breakthroughs that you've seen in the field of CSR?One
of the big breakthroughs for companies- and I see this in a number of
different corporations across the industries that we work in- is
conceptualizing corporate social responsibility not just as something
that they must do but as something that really can bring a tremendous
amount of value to the business. You can create a better bottom line by
operating responsibly. Operating responsibly can bring new thinking; it
can bring new perspectives. It's not just about saying, 'ok we're doing
what we want to do, and nobody's going to campaign against us'- it's
also about bringing in innovation.
You have started on a
number of innovative industry collaborations. Why were these
competitors willing to collaborate in this setting and around these
issues?The do it because they're much better going at it
together than they are alone. One example of collaboration is the
Electronic Industry Citizenship Coalition. That group now is a group of
43 electronics companies and electronics supply chains that have
addressed environmental and labor issues together. No one company is
going to solve human rights issues in the electronics supply chain
alone no matter how good their code of conduct is, how good their
auditing is, how good their supplier relationship is- the issues are
just too big.
Companies understand that even though they may
compete against each other in the marketplace, these issues are about
leveling the playing field for workers, for communities- they're about
bettering practice overall within a supply chain where there are
multiple companies working with the same suppliers.
How has the field of CSR change in the last ten years since you got in the game?There's
been a big change in terms of the level of integration we see. In the
last economic downturn we've been experiencing, people always ask me-
have companies been cutting their CSR programs? What we've seen is that
in companies that really understand CSR and do it well, there's not a
whole function you can just lop off. It would be like me saying they
have to cut their sales function or their HR. Operating responsibly is
good for business and we've definitely seen greater levels of
integration.
So, where is the field of CSR going in the next 10 years?I
think one key is companies understanding more about aligning their
public policy positions with their citizenship agendas- those two
things can't remain as disconnected as they have been. Another issue is
around board governance- aligning sustainability with board governance,
getting boards to ask better questions about company operations.
Another is integration of CSR with enterprise risk management-
companies looking across the whole organization in terms of how they
manage risk, looking to be more global and anticipatory and
incorporating sustainability issues into risk management.
Where do you see pro bono service fitting in with CSR?Well
I think the idea that companies are getting smarter about how they run,
smarter about how they incorporate CSR into their operations, really
translates to how companies are approaching pro bono and volunteering.
People have their own agendas; they have lives outside of their work
places, however there's a tremendous need to recognize our professional
skills and understand the value those skills might have in the
nonprofit sector. Nonprofits also need professional level skills, and
they're incredibly hard to access. I think that realization is becoming
a lot more main-stream.
A lot of business professionals are
seeking to get into CSR- what are a few things all professionals can do
to be CSR change agents?Start small- start within the
company you're at and connect to the larger conversation. Start looking
what changes you can make; be a maverick internally; advocate for
change. Look to what other businesses are doing and think about how you
company can do things differently- where can you innovate to lessen
your environmental footprint? Where can the policies you advocate for
align with corporate citizenship? There's a lot of information out
there and a lot of people who have great ideas, so I would just say get
involved.
By Laura Weiss on
February 1, 2010 4:01 PM
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Innovation is a very large ten-letter word. It usually conjures
images of vast sums of money invested over lengthy periods of time
resulting in significant change in products, services, processes or
entire organizations. Anything small or incremental runs contrary to
achieving success.
Or does it?
I've recently encountered two works that promote
seemingly contrarian approaches to solving the types of problems that
can lead to lasting change. These same techniques can help offset the
"analysis paralysis" that often blocks the innovation process.
In their new book
Switch,
Chip and Dan Heath suggest that the key to solving big problems can be
found by looking at similar situations where things are actually
working well - in other words, by focusing on the bright spots. Instead
of tackling an entire system at once, the idea is to investigate
easy-to-observe elements of the system; instead of trying to fix what's
broken, try to emulate what's working instead. The authors illustrate
this point with an exploration of malnutrition in rural Vietnam.
Instead of relying on heaps of socioeconomic data about poverty and
education, for example, a research team went out into the field to
understand what was actually going on in the villages, and even made
villagers part of the investigative team. Taking this approach had
remarkable results in the discovery of dietary habits with surprising
nutritional value.
Robert Maurer's 2004 book
One Small Step Can Change Your Life discusses the concept of
kaizen,
the Japanese philosophy of continuous improvement. Similar to the Heath
brothers, Maurer promotes a focus on breaking a systemic issue down
into smaller pieces (specifically, "small problems") as a more
manageable way to deal with an overwhelming crisis. He suggests that
asking small questions and taking small steps can dispel fear of
failure, inspire greater creativity, and generally stave off inertia.
Maurer, a clinical psychologist at UCLA, illustrates this concept
through the successful efforts of individuals seeking to improve their
health, financial stability, or personal productivity. As with the
stories told in
Switch, these too have positive outcomes.
The
guidance offered by these two books is characteristic of design
thinking - itself a contrarian concept that showcases inspiration,
intuition, and experience as key elements of the innovation process.
The Heaths' "seeking the bright spot" is a human-centered approach to
insight gathering that is based on observing how people actually behave
in a specific context in order to design solutions with broad impact.
Maurer's "taking small steps" is suggestive of rapid prototyping where
pursuing a series of low investment experiments can increase the pace
of learning towards reaching more significant outcomes. Both of these
techniques have application to innovating in the nonprofit sector, a
sector that passionately tackles society's biggest challenges utilizing
minimal resources. Contrary to the complexity of these efforts, a focus
on small steps and bright spots can actually help lay the groundwork
for transforming our world.
Laura Weiss is the Vice
President of Service Innovation at the Taproot Foundation. The newest
member of the Taproot team, Laura comes to the Taproot Foundation after
nine years as Associate Partner and Practice Director with the
world-renowned design consultancy IDEO, where she was an advocate for
bringing a business perspective to the design process. A former
licensed architect and educator, Laura holds an MBA from the MIT Sloan
School of Management, an MArch from Yale University and a BArch with
honors from Cornell University.
By Aaron Hurst on
January 29, 2010 9:30 AM
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Josh Rai, our fearless web developer, is already the third casualty of
jury duty on our team this year. (We're not even a month into 2010!) In
the hope that it would get him out of jury duty, Josh developed a
program that could reliably return verdicts that would replicate actual
human jury verdicts.
Here it is-
if (trial.getDistrict().getUntrustedRaces().includes(defendant.getRace()) and
defendant.getAnnualIncome() < LocationService.lookup("90210").getAverageIncome() and
MagazineService.lookup("Us").countOccurrencesInPastYear(defendant.getName()) < 10) {
return "Guilty";
}
else {
return "Not Guilty";
}
We
think he did a great job. Imagine how many hours of wasted time and
government costs Josh just saved the country. Nobel Prize? He has my
vote.
By Aaron Hurst on
January 20, 2010 2:38 PM
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With an upcoming Taproot board meeting, the recent release of our
Board Recruitment Service Grant,
and our participation in the San Francisco board matching event
referenced in my last post, this week we have been thinking a lot about
board service.
As a result, an article that referenced a
board made up mainly of lawyers caught my attention. My experience is
largely in working with social entrepreneurs. To most social
entrepreneurs, a board of lawyers feels like an innovation death
warrant.
Instead, social entrepreneurs tend to design boards
they believe will support their own entrepreneurial drive. These boards
tend to come in one of five flavors-
1)
The Passive Board- The goal is to have a board that doesn't get in your way. It is small and populated by friends.
2)
The Succession Board-
The goal is to ensure the organization will continue after you leave.
This board tries to help the organization 'grow up' as fast as possible
and put systems in place.
3)
The Capital Board- The goal here is to raise $500k+ per year in unrestricted funds to pay for innovation and growth.
4)
The Mentor Board-
The goal is to support you as an inexperienced entrepreneur by
partnering with veterans who can play a very active role in the
leadership of the organization.
5)
The Credibility Board- The goal is to show foundations and others that you are legit by populating the board with experts in the field.
Are these the best five models? How can social entrepreneurs create better boards?
---
As mentioned last week- for my thoughts on the future of nonprofit board service, check out my keynote address from the recent BoardSource Leadership Forum. You can also check out BoardSource for additional tools and events.
By Katelyn Wilson on
January 15, 2010 1:56 PM
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On January 12, the
Volunteer Center Serving San Francisco and San Mateo Counties presented their annual Board Match Event at the Moscone Center in San Francisco.
The event is essentially a job fair for potential board members. More than 120 nonprofits set up booths and wooed potential board members from all walks of life - there were young professionals that would likely be carded at rated R movies mingling with folks who could have ordered off the back of the Denny's menu while Clinton was President.
One woman attended because after a 20-year "stint" on the board at a local hospital, she had reached her term limit and was looking for a new organization to serve. Some younger professionals were attracted no doubt by the sassy, "come one, come all" attitude conveyed by the tattooed, orange legwarmer-wearing board member portrayed on the event's collateral.
In the first hour - when most of us were still at work - more than 700 potential board candidates arrived. That's how many attended in total last year. As co-host, Taproot Foundation would love to take credit for this amazing turnout (we did
tweet about it ...), but it would seem that the booming interest in board service might surpass even our reach.
The volunteering and service movement seems to have found another growth opportunity, and people are clamoring for a way to engage on a deeper level with the nonprofits serving our communities. Events like the Board Match provide nonprofits with an opportunity to meet a diverse pool of talent, and therefore be positioned to be strategic in their selection processes. By capitalizing on the vast and growing interest, nonprofits are able to build their leadership and management capacity. And isn't that what it's all about?
On a side note, Taproot Foundation's network showed up in droves - several nonprofit clients busily recruited, dozens of pro bono consultants attended, and a few of our friends from Service Grant Tokyo stopped by our host's table to say hello.
---
For even more about the future of nonprofit board governance, about check out Aaron Hurst's recent keynote address from the BoardSource Leadership Forum.
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