As the year comes to an end, there are a few tasks nonprofit board members can complete to wrap the year up successfully. These short but powerful tasks can help you get a head start on the new year and be prepared for your board responsibilities in 2024.
Transcript:
“Welcome to I 501(c) You the podcast for nonprofit board members.
I’m Michael Corley.
And we’re coming to the end of the year, the end of 2023. This will be released on Tuesday, December 19th of 2023. And as we think about what can we what can we talk about for we as board members can do over the next few weeks, I’ll tell you, the end of the year is always a really good time for reflection and just a pause.
Things usually slow down a little bit, not necessarily for the development departments at your nonprofits, but for most of us, they slow down. People take off. The office is quiet. Every you board members, same thing. There’s really not necessarily too much to do by year end, but I’ve got some suggestions. Five things the nonprofit board members can do by year’s end.
Five Things. Here are five suggestions.
Hey, I want to jump in real quick. Somebody asked me the other day, what does the Corley Company do? Well, we do three things for non-profits. One, we facilitate meetings. Yes, like board retreats where we discuss governance and strategy with all the members of the board. Number two, advise CEOs and help them as they make decisions and implement actions to drive their mission.
And then finally, we produce podcasts such as this one, but also for a number of nonprofits to help you get the word out, get your message out. So if you’re interested in any of these services, please feel free to reach out to michael@thecorleycompany.com. Now back to the podcast.
One Read your bylaws. Yes, I’m being serious. It’s always good to refresh your memory on what your bylaws say. So why not just take the time to sit back? This really shouldn’t take more than 15 or 30 minutes if your bylaws are longer than that. Yikes. Really? Just to refresh your memory on what your bylaws say.
Different committee structures, different roles, responsibilities, board members, those types of things. Good time to probably take a step back and just just digest that and maybe take you one cup of coffee to do that. Catch up on meeting minutes in committee meeting minutes. Yes, we all say we were eating before every meeting with the reality. That’s not always the case.
Hopefully, you’ve got a resource, you’ve got all the meeting minutes and maybe just go back through 2023 and review all of those and see what was accomplished. Things that you all talked about both at the full board level, but even at the committee level, which is a little bit more granular, a little bit more detail, just to allow you to have a comprehensive overview of the organization as you go into 2024.
So just might be a really good time to. That may take you two cups of coffee because it’s probably a little bit more information than your bylaws. But just I think, you know, if you do that, you’ll remember a number of things that happened this year and give you some good guidance going into 2024. All right. You’re probably around family and friends over the next 12, 13 days before the beginning of the year.
You might be going to some cocktail parties. Tell somebody, tell everybody that you’re a member of this organization. Remember, one of the responsibilities of being a board member and we’ve talked about this is you’re an ambassador, so share with your friends what your volunteer role is. You’re on a board, why you support that organization, the benefits it brings to the community, the impact it’s making, because who knows?
Maybe that friend of yours may want to become a board member. May one become a donor. You just never know. But you’re always should always be out promoting that organization. And so over the next 12, 13 days might be a great opportunity to do that. Make a donation. Remember, we’ve talked about this on a number of podcasts. The board that you sit on should be your primary funding obligation.
And therefore, if you’ve not made a financial commitment in this calendar year, it might be a good time to do that. Certainly from a tax perspective, but also from the perspective of your organization, maybe going for some grants early next year. And one of the questions a lot of grantors ask is, does your board fully contribute to the organization financially?
They already know time wise you do, but financially do you? So don’t be that board member that hasn’t donated impacts a potential grant Make a contribution. Every organization is different. Some have minimums. Others and most that I work with. It’s a meaningful amount, something that’s meaningful to you as an individual. But go ahead and make that donation to the organization.
And finally, as we come on year end, maybe one of the least appreciated or thankful positions is the executive director position might be a really good time just to send him or her a note of appreciation for what they’ve done leading the organization in 2023. You know, we’d hope 2023 might be a little bit easier, and perhaps it was relative to three years ago when we’re in the heat of the pandemic.
But it’s still times are challenging. It’s it’s stressful. It’s tough at the top, you know, being pulled, pushed in by all kinds of different stakeholders. And so just to take a step back and send a note to your executive saying, hey, appreciate what you’re doing, and I think that will go a long way to helping that individual, knowing that the board members do do care and hopefully done an evaluation.
But you may do that on your fiscal year. So five things that you as a board member, a nonprofit board member, can do by the end of the year, Read your bylaws, read the committee meeting minutes in the board meeting minutes for the past year just to catch up. Tell a friend or family member about your involvement in the organization, make a donation and send a note of appreciation to your executive director.
There you go. Things you could do over the next week and a half, 12 days, whatever it is, and next week we’ll be coming to you would be another short like this one, because we’ve got a number of guests lined up, interviews we’re doing, and we wanted to wait till the first of the year to launch those when more people are listening because we’re going to have some great content.
So this is Michael Corley, the i501(c) You – the podcast for nonprofit board members. Thank you for everybody who’s serving on a nonprofit board and serving in nonprofits and I will 501 see you next week.”
Timestamps:
00:00 What can you do as a board member before the end of the year?
01:20 #1 – Read your bylaws
01:50 #2 – Catch up on meeting minutes
02:40 #3 – Tell someone about your involvement with the organization
03:28 #4 – Make a donation
04:20 #5 – Send your executive director a note of appreciation
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