Ep. 101: Revolutionizing Board Engagement and Fundraising with The Nonprofit Fixer, Sean Kosofsky
EPISODE 101
Revolutionizing Board Engagement and Fundraising with The Nonprofit Fixer, Sean Kosofsky
About the Episode:
In this episode, I’m excited to welcome Sean Kosofsky, known as "The Nonprofit Fixer," to discuss the crucial aspects of nonprofit board management. With over 30 years of experience in various nonprofit roles, Sean shares his insights on improving board engagement and fundraising efforts. The conversation covers the importance of having all board members involved in fundraising and donating, strategies for recruiting and retaining effective board members, and the significance of setting clear expectations through board agreements. Sean also provides practical advice on revitalizing disengaged boards, emphasizing the need for training, clear communication, and accountability. The episode is a valuable resource for nonprofit leaders looking to enhance their board's performance and achieve their organization's mission.
Topics:
Answering the questions of weather or not all board members should be a part of raising donations as well as investing their own money
How to find good board members that are fully engaged in the cause of your organization and why you should raise the standard of your board
The single, most powerful tool that you can use in your nonprofit organization to make sure you’re onboarding engaged members and the 3 Ms of board work
The path to take if you need to have a hard conversation with a disengaged board member, especially if you’ve already followed up
Where Sean lands on what the board should be approving for different types of support, continuing, coaching, and other expenses
Think you’ve reached out to “everyone” in your network? Out of ideas to get noticed and get funded? Generate leads for your nonprofit or social impact business: https://www.splendidcourses.com/prospect
Christina’s Favorite Takeaways:
“90% of the time, 99% of the board members should be there to resource the budget. When a board passes a budget, they can't just be there for the spending of the money, they have to be there for the raising of the money, it's part of their duty of care.” – Sean
“If you are going to be put in a governing role, you need to be investing… every board member needs to give something meaningful to them.” – Sean
“To find good board members, you aren't always going to find someone who's immediately ready for board leadership, you do need to train people.” – Sean
“The way I believe to increase board agreement is to hold them to high standards, get them to sign a document in front of their peers, and turn it into the chair promising that they're going to be a good player.” – Sean
“You're just moving wealth from where it lives to where it changes lives, that’s all fundraising is.” – Sean
“You don't just have to be soliciting; part of a board member's job is to create the conditions for fundraising success.” – Sean
“We are in this role because we have to get results, executive directors, managers, we are hired to get results not to be liked. We have to figure out mission attainment.” – Sean
“See abundance, not scarcity, see all the things you can be doing to contribute.” – Sean
“90% of our suffering in this world is us resisting what’s happening to us… decide to engage the work with abundance, decide to engage with joy, or else you’re going to get burnt out.”
About Sean:
Sean Kosofsky is The Nonprofit Fixer. He's a coach, consultant, trainer, and strategic advisor. For the past 30+ years, he's helped causes, campaigns, and candidates raise millions of dollars and transformed nonprofit organizations and leaders. I’ve served in a wide variety of roles in nonprofits, including policy, communications, development, grassroots organizing, direct service, board leadership, and five stints as an executive director. I’ve worked on a wide range of issues including LGBTQ equality, reproductive justice, voting access, bullying prevention, climate change, and more.
Connect with Sean:
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Christina Edwards 00:00
Welcome, Shawn kosofsky The nonprofit fix pick Villa start Oliver. Welcome Shawn kosofsky to the podcast. We've got the nonprofit fixer in the house. I'm so happy to see you, and connect with you today. So we're gonna dig into boards today, we're gonna dig into all things boards. And that's one of the things sometimes people will come to me and say, How do I get my board to fundraise? How do I get my board more engaged? How? And also just like, let's go ahead and set the baseline of those questions being having some frustration with their boards. So I'm going to start off by like, let's let you introduce yourself and your work. And then we're going to dig into all of my board questions.
Sean Kosofsky 00:44
Excellent. Yeah. Sean kosofsky, originally from Detroit. I've lived in a bunch of places Raleigh, San Francisco, New York. Now I'm in New York, where I call home now. And I've been working in nonprofits for a little over 30 years and wide range of issues, LGBTQ issues, choice, climate change, voting rights, bullying, prevention, youth safety, lots of different things. And I've done every kind of role in a nonprofit communications, direct service, fundraising, management, operations, all of it. So about six years ago, I started my own consulting business called Mind the Gap consulting, we recently have changed names to just the nonprofit fixer, which matches my moniker. And I'm really a generalist in some ways, but I focus in three areas, fundraising boards, and executive director of training and coaching. And so I think a lot, not a lot of folks are providing that kind of support for executive directors. But that's a little bit about me, and I love talking about all things boards.
Christina Edwards 01:39
Perfect. Alright, so the first big question this set this set, the tone is, should all board members fundraise.
Sean Kosofsky 01:48
If you are the board of a public charity, which is the vast majority of nonprofits, not a private foundation, if you're on the board of a public charity, you should be fundraising. Now, there are exceptions to this, if you are, if the whole point of your nonprofit is that the whole organization is poor, or immigrants or, or completely resource strapped, or you're just forming an organization, because you're surviving a crisis, right? There are situations or if you are the family of someone who passed away, like I was part of an organization whose son had died, and they started a foundation, a public charity around that. And everyone just said, the family is doing this wonderful thing, we shouldn't expect them to have to fundraise. Also, there are exceptions, but 90% of the time, 99% of the board members should be there for the resource, the resourcing of the budget, when a board passes a budget, they can't just be there for the spending of the money, they have to be there for the raising of the money. And it's part of their duty of care. Part of every state law in the United States says that board members own the nonprofit, and all owners of all nonprofits are responsible for revenue, all owners of all corporations are responsible for revenue. And that means when you pass that budget, you have to be there to resource that budget and pay your bills, it's actually against the law to not so most board members don't get in trouble for that. But it's part of our collective responsibility. And you can't compensate board members, if you are fundraising also, it'll look like a conflict of interest. So it's a really tricky thing. But you are volunteers and you have to fundraise. I know it's a lot of that's what you get when you're asking the corporation. Listen,
Christina Edwards 03:20
I love it. I wasn't sure what you would say to that. So that's a fun way to start. And we will dig into, okay, I hear you and I want my board to fundraise. But how do we get them to do that we're going to talk about today. The next question that I just weren't setting the stage is, should all board members donate? should they all be donors, I
Sean Kosofsky 03:37
am a huge believer that in order to have skin in the game, which is an overused expression, but still totally right on, in order to have skin in the game, I think that a financial commitment should be made by every single person. I've been in every kind of organization again, tragedy, small, scrappy, whatever. But if you are going to be put in a role of governing, you need to be invested. This can be $25, this can be $5, I believe every board member needs to give something quote unquote, meaningful to them, that if you are on the board of an organization, it might even be the charity you'd give the most money to all year. Right? So unless it's really well resourced, or it's a short term project, I think everyone should be giving. There are funders who are going to ask you whether your board has donated and you don't want to be in that situation having to explain it so 100% board participation, you can even count in kind support for this but everyone needs to be giving something for most public charities. Totally your I agree.
Christina Edwards 04:41
I love that you also had the distinction and set the stage of like, your most meaningful gift is going to be different depending on your income and other factors so everyone can give. Not everyone has to give that same a five figure gift right? We're giving a different levels. Okay. Before we go into board engagement I want to talk about whether it's a newer organization or just an organization going through what I would say is like a season of transition, how do they find these ideal board members? How do they find great board members? That's something that people will come to me with. And I'm like, Oh, I don't know. Hello, nonprofit fixed our help. So I like find good board members,
Sean Kosofsky 05:21
this is the one thing that I'd love to help fix. So okay, this isn't rocket science. I think for a long time, we settled for low standards, I just need 12 carbon based mortals who will make 12 meetings a year and stay off my back. And those are the people I pick. And people that look like us who are in our same community and people we just happen to interact with. And what happens is you get a lot of groupthink, and you get a lot of loyalty to the person who brought them on the board. But in general, what happens is the low standards for boards ends up trickling out, we ended up not holding boards to high standards, that is really bad. We only really need a couple of things from our boards, pass a budget, have good attendance, do due diligence, raise some money and supervise the IDI. This is not this is not rocket science, it's about for three to five hours a month, it's really not that much work. And I do believe that to find good board members, you aren't always going to find someone who's immediately ready for board leadership, you do need to train people. So the number the number one thing that board members complain about is they say they never got an orientation. So some of the times you might have a bad board member because they were never given an orientation. I don't know the culture here. Am I allowed to ask questions? I don't know our history, what are the programs? So you might find board members underperforming because you didn't onboard them correctly. But for those that are not performing? Well, you might want to coach them out, coach them into some other role, have them join a committee hasn't joined the advisory board, but move them into some other volunteer role. The owners of the corporation, the board need to be excellent. They need to be stellar. So where do you find these people? I would say if you're willing to train them and develop them, but they have the right passion, if they have the right commitment, if they have told you upfront, I'm willing to put in the time, I will answer your emails Executive Director, I will do the reading before the board meetings, and I will attend meetings and raise money, you can train almost anyone. What you need are some fundamental ethics, you can't bring someone on who's there for self dealing, or for self profit, or just to put on the resume. And all you need to do is show them the road. It's not rocket science, I train board members how to tell stories, therefore, they're excellent fundraisers, and how to make meetings, we have some systems in place for communication. But I will say that you can look in your existing network, you can literally open up your contact list, figure out the people that you're interacting with every single day. Oh, there's this really wonderful lady who works at the laundromat, you may not know that she's personally impacted by autism, if you're running an autism organization, you may not know that she has a personal connection in her past to the environment. We make these assumptions that board members have to be rich, or they have to kind of be familiar to us. But you really are surrounded by people in listservs. And in your community every day that if you just walked over to them and said, Here's the problem I'm working to solve. Would you be interested in being a leader, you'd be surprised the rich network of people being willing to be asked and eager to be asked to help? So
Christina Edwards 08:19
good. Okay, so I'm hearing work your network there around you, you literally have to start looking, which I totally agree with. I also hear a flavor of you don't want this all the same type of person, whether that's socio economically, whether that's race, whether that's a lot of different things. So that's important. Important. I would imagine you would agree that the people you serve should also have a seat at the board, maybe? Where do you fall there? Yeah,
Sean Kosofsky 08:43
if that's a value for your organization, being from the grassroots, there, not all organizations are going to be like that. Sometimes your organization needs subject matter experts and PhDs and founders and grads, sometimes your organization, especially if it's local or grassroots, you're gonna want people from the community you serve. Some organizations say we're fighting. We're not doing charity, we're doing advocacy, we're trying to change the law and change society. So we need to, we need people who can help us with huge broad scale change. I was on the board of one organization that we made a decision that the way we're going to build our board is not just 12 Rich people or 12 people that can make the meetings, we're going to find a board that will help us reach our mission. Which means if we're trying to get this intervention into every single school in America, we're gonna go ask the head of the ft and the NEA the big teacher unions to join our board, they can get us into every classroom in America and one of them agreed to join our board. So when you start athletically saying, Are we just here to build a board to raise money and do due diligence or are we going to build a board that will help us achieve our mission and shut us down and put us out of business you will build a different kind of board. So you just set your laser focus on the ideal board and you want a diverse based on geography diverse based on race and diverse based on skills set. And then you just kind of go and find some of these folks. But yeah, it'll depend on what organization and whether your stakeholders are going to hold you to a certain standard, will it be obvious that you don't have people from the service population, then you want those on the board. And you do need if you want people, young people, or if you want people with disabilities on your board, just make accommodations so that you can have that representation. So
Christina Edwards 10:21
good. Okay, so we're going to move to the big question, which is really board engagement. So imagine an organization they've been rockin and rollin for a while, and their board is very much stuck in the cycle of some people fundraise, some people don't some people respond to emails, some people say they're gonna do a thing. They never do this thing. The meetings have a lot of group thinking, what do we do? What do we do? I know, I mentioned several different problems. But what are some? How do we start to help kind of turn that around?
Sean Kosofsky 10:53
Around meetings, specifically, around the idea
Christina Edwards 10:56
of like a disengaged board where there are a lot make, it's almost like 20%, or doing 80% of the work, right. So how do we get the 80% engaged, whether it's at meetings, whether it's in between meetings, whether it's fundraising doing the things, they said, oh, we'll do that, and then they don't.
Sean Kosofsky 11:12
So I have a framework that I use in a course that we'll talk about later, which is like I break down 90% of board work into three M's. It's the members, the money and the meetings, right. So the members are the human carbon based creatures that are on the board, that the people that make up your board are the members, right. And you have to recruit, retain and remove those members throughout the year. The second part of it is the meetings, boards don't operate without meetings, they gather, they call the meeting to order, they discuss and do due diligence, and they vote and then they adjourn. Meetings are where boards shine. And then the third part of board services, the money, money going in and money going out, just monitoring that and passing a budget. And so of those three things. Board engagement is consistently what everyone complains about. It is this weird structure we have in nonprofits, in corporate boards, people are paid nonprofit boards, they are not paid, you can get reimbursed for meetings, you can get reimbursed for expenses, you can even be paid for certain things, but you cannot be compensated simply for your board service. This weird structure has lent itself to boards that are distracted over involved and generally checked out. And so the way to get board members to engage, I have found for me, that a board agreement is the single most powerful tool you can use in an organization. And this is a mini contract. It's not legally binding, it's more like an MOU. When you anyone joins the board, you use the board agreement to say here's your job description, this before you join our board, I'm going to be very clear about what's expected of you no surprises. If you say yes to this, then there's no hurt feelings. When you if you don't honor this, you need to go right to the board agreement is basically laying out what's what's expected of them. In that board agreement, they basically say, I'm going to avoid conflicts of interest, I will have strong board attendance, I will honor my gift, get policy, I will raise money. And I will, you know, do the due diligence and read the documents that are asked of me in exchange because it is an agreement, the organization needs to be transparent with the books, it needs to provide staff support to me when I need it. And it needs to give me insurance. So I'm not sued for my votes. That's what a board agreement is. So it's a give and take. So if I ask a board member, here's your board agreement, right, again, every month you bring up during the board meeting, Are we all in compliance with the board agreement? are we all doing the things we said we're going to do? So part of the way you keep board members engaged is by having them sign an agreement. The beautiful part about this is that they self select off, you don't have to have these difficult conversations about removing them when they're disengaged. They know they're not honoring the board agreement, because you're you've brought it into the culture, it's brought up in every meeting, people know that they promised four things. Are they doing the four things or are they not? And so that is the way I believe to increase board agreement is to hold them to high standards, which we talked about earlier, and get them to sign a document in front of their peers and turn it into the chair promising that they're going to be a good player.
Christina Edwards 14:08
Now, can we introduce a board agreement to a board that is exists right now here and doesn't have a board agreement? Right? Can we introduce? Okay, absolutely.
Sean Kosofsky 14:20
So most organizations that implement a board agreement, don't do it on day one, they do it. The boards are already elected, and half of them are in staggered terms. That could be in June, it could be in January. In general, every board member should sign it at the beginning of the year or at the beginning of their term. So if they have a two year term, I signed it every time I have a new term for everyone just signs it fresh every calendar year. But you can implement it literally tomorrow. Have everyone just look at it and say yep, these are all pretty basic terms. No conflicts of interest. I'm going to make the meetings I'm going to read documents I'm going to raise two grand a year sign and then they were so easy and then BAM that's policy. Oh, that's
Christina Edwards 14:57
okay. Okay, so for everyone listening They don't get to say it's too late because it's not the beginning of the year. It's too late because they can introduce this in the next meeting, they can introduce this anytime faster is better? Yeah, faster is better. And then when then when it hits January, then we can sign it again or something like that, or? Okay, perfect. I love that. So let's move into the idea of fundraising. So as you're thinking of boards, specifically, are there some methods or strategies that you feel like when I'm trying to get a board to fundraise these tend to work better for them. And these tend to be a little bit more advanced or I don't get a lot of buy in? What are some like lower hanging fruit methods, you feel like work for boards?
Sean Kosofsky 15:40
So here, I think boards, one of the things we need to do is help boards meet them where they're at. The first thing boards need is training. Once board members get training on mindset and tactics, they're like, Oh, I didn't really like Yeah. I used to think that when I asked someone for money, I was asking for a favor. And I don't want to ask my friends for a favor. I'd rather ask strangers, okay, well, if you ask your friends, you're gonna hit your goal in like a day, if you ask strangers, you're gonna have to ask three times as many and you're probably not going to hit your goal. So let's just unpack this fear of asking our friends, you're not asking for a favor. You're doing them a favor by offering them an opportunity to save the world and change the world. You're just moving wealth from where it lives to where it changes lives. It's all fundraising is it's from that bank account to this bank account. So you're not once you unpack the mindset stuff around people's money issues and their fears, then people are like, okay, you know what, I'm actually feeling so empowered right now, I will go fundraise. So part of board fundraising is mindset. And then you show them the tactics. Now to unpack the specific tactics that boards can use my most popular tool that people request, and you can get it for free. On my website, there's my board fundraising worksheet, the board agreement alone begins the process of getting board members to commit. The board fundraising worksheet is a literal, two page written plan that says, Here are 10 ways you can go get your money. Now, you pick three. So let's say you have to raise 2000 A year or 10,000 a year, you literally in a board meeting, either in person or live on Zoom, everyone fills it out, shows it up on the screen, there's like some group like norms and peer pressure and accountability that happens when everyone does it at the same time. Hey, everyone, and our February board meeting, we're all going to fill out the board fundraising worksheet. And Sally says I'm going to do two Facebook fundraisers this year, I'm going to have 10 friends to my house. And I'm going to ask 13 friends for $50 each, and then they that's going to total $2,000. And everyone else does their own thing. But you give them a menu first, instead of having them just make up stuff. But when you put it to paper, when you write a plan, when you give it a date, and you set a goal, you are far more likely to hit your goal. So if you put the board agreement, the training and the board fundraising worksheet together, you're going to get huge, huge traction to are getting your board to raise money. And those are just three of the tools. I also have a blog post I wrote called The big list of board fundraising tasks. And what it is, is over 100 tasks that board members can do that do not involve solicitation, I literally put together a list of over 100 Things compiling a list of foundations, calling newsrooms to pitch stories to get you guys into the press. There's like a number of things board members can do. And here's the key language, you don't just have to be soliciting part of a board members job is to create the conditions for fundraising success. You were there to create the conditions. So tee up six meetings for me as the IDI to come in and make the ask if you just make introductions to people who know they're going to be solicited that you have done way more than most board members. So you don't have to do the soliciting. You just have to create the conditions for fundraising success. Oh, that's
Christina Edwards 18:50
so good. I call that like a warm intro. Just give me a warm intro then Put me in coach let the IDI let the Director of Development let whoever take over right. And that warm intro has so much value. But yeah, I think that that that that idea is so good. And what I'm hearing is a couple of things. So I'm hearing we can inject the board agreement. And then at anytime, so we add that then we add the layer of like pick your three things, pick your three things, there is something that happens behaviorally, when you write it down. You claim it you own it, you're doing it. So now I'm going to paint the picture that is also common. Can you or what should you do? Let's say you've done these two things, although when I say this is also common, they haven't done step one and two. So we'll we'll see where this goes. How do they have a hard conversation with a disengaged board member at the point where the board member says you know what, and this has happened recently, thinking of one organization particularly the board member says I got you you know we're doing the big I'm doing a big outreach for you and I've asked my friends and family to give $50 This month I'm asking 50 people and then they just don't and the IDI follows up and then they just don't. What's the next best step there. Are,
Sean Kosofsky 20:00
you have to put, you know, we tend to think I'm assuming the person we're talking about here is like the chair or the executive director in this role, because we want to be liked, we are in this role because we have to get results, executive directors, managers, we are hired to get results not to be liked. We have to figure out mission attainment, I am here to achieve the mission, I can't achieve the mission, if I don't have resources, board members saying, Oh, I pay, I get I donate with my time well, when bills come, I can't pay them with your time, I need to pay them with cash. So everyone needs to raise money. So if a board member says and promises, they're going to do something, you're going to start making expenditures based on that promise. Right? So if a board member doesn't honor their promise, you're now in the hole. So that's that is that is an absolute abdication of their responsibility. And in a way, it's a little bit of malfeasance, not just laziness, it's malfeasance because we may have started spending stuff based on the fact that that money was going to be there not because some donor back down, but a board member back down, right? That is not acceptable. What you're doing, this is not some community garden, we're all doing work that's changing lives, right. So most of our nonprofits are not just little small community garden projects, they're really important things. And when you are asked to be the owner of a corporation that comes with responsibility. So in the board agreement, there is a line in there that says and I understand that if I do not honor, my obligations, I will have I will need to I will be approached by the chair in the IDI about whether or not board service is right for me. Right. So it's just really easy. You're not honoring your obligations, I think you know that there's no hard feelings, it just means that this might not be the right role for you. How about we put you on a board committee, or we make you a volunteer or make you on the board of advisors, there's plenty of other ways for you to participate. But we do need our board of trustees to actually be doing the things they said they did, or else it's going to trickle out to other bad morale and bad behavior. So if you're okay, having difficult conversations, and that's part of the difficult part of leadership is engaging people, then you need to do this. But I think having the board agreement, having it really crystal clear, when you join, please read this last paragraph, if you don't honor these things, we will come back to you and ask you if you can make room for someone who can do this. But there's language you can use to make those conversations so much easier with no hard feelings.
Christina Edwards 22:16
Oh, that's so good. And my big takeaway that you said from this, too was it doesn't mean where the fire dead done never to be seen and heard from again, right? It's not it's not this charged, I'm mad at you. It's, this might not be the right role for you. Right. So I love that is this may not meet mutually beneficial for them right now, it may be a time thing, it may be overwhelmed, it doesn't matter where else but they may still have the desire to serve. So it's about approaching the conversation with that lens to. And the other thing that I'm really hearing is this really is like an internal cultural shift for each ed to make with their board. And this may be a way that they've, they're they're leading with their board that they haven't before. I really saying because what you said, I know a lot of people are listening and going, Oh, right. You said this is your responsibility. Like you, you had a lot of like, this is clear. This is firm. And the next piece is how in the world do we get this board agreement? Where is it in your course what tell us about that? I want to make sure that we just will link to it in the notes. But this is inside one of your courses, right?
Sean Kosofsky 23:26
Yeah, the board agreement is for sale on my website. However, the best deal actually is to get all in like 35 of the tools that I give away in this other course, I have a number of courses on my website, little mini courses. But the premium course the doozy, the one that has everything in it is my builder, Rockstar board, I just wanted to give people a link to that. And, you know, if you sign up for the builder, Rockstar board, I have put all of my best stuff in there, there's like four to five hours of on demand content like little 10 minute sections, you can just go in and go to the lessons that you want to learn everything from how you recruit, retain and remove board members. And a lot of that module is based on the board agreement and how powerful it is and how it has saved my career in so many organizations. I call it the Swiss Army knife tool because it helps with recruitment. It helps maintain attainment for good board members. And it helps you help remove board members who have themselves select off. It's just the most powerful document you can have. It is inside the builder Rockstar board course too. I will say that in addition to that you'll get some of the free documents I give away. But also I have infographics on getting your lane like what each role of each person is and isn't. I also have sample scripts and committee structures and all of these things. But most importantly, in addition to the tools and the On Demand training, is that you get to join my Facebook group for a year so I can answer all these questions for you live. Like I'm not live necessarily at Facebook, but in real time. I'm usually in there answering questions for folks. So you can get that deeper level of support all of these great tools, including these documents in editable format will come to you if you join the course.
Christina Edwards 25:05
Amazing. So this works perfectly into that last chorus question, which is, I know I hear it a lot. So I'm curious where you land specifically to boards and approving an expense. So I'll get an ED who's like, oh, my gosh, I want I want your I want to join your program. I want to do this, I want to do that I have to get Board approval, where do you land on what the board should be approving for those types of support, continuing ed consulting, coaching, whatever you want to call it expenses.
Sean Kosofsky 25:34
This range is based on the size and sophistication of the organization. In general, the minute the board has, if you're a good executive director and a good chair, you construct a budget that basically has broad line items, like here's the line item for staffing. And then once the board passes that line item for staffing, I as the IDI get to choose that staffing, district distribution, my salary five people three people, I get to decide all that the board does not get into the minutia after they have approved, they can ask all the questions during the budget. And then once they vote, it's my decision, I would include in my budget a line item for the things I can pay for for professional development. So every year, you want to pass a line 5000 20,000 for your whole team for professional development, and you get to decide how you allocate that. So some organizations, though, have have limits, like anything over 5000, you need to come back to the board for if it wasn't in the budget. In those situations, I generally think those tend to be smaller organizations. But if it's, if it's a really large thing, like an accelerator of 10k, or 20k, you might want to go to your board for cover. You know, that's a pretty big expenditure. But I do think that the Board should just pass a budget and then let the staff run it. And then if there's any issues, you can ask questions throughout the year, but you have to trust your executive directors judgment on what are the most important uses of these funds during the year and the opportunities that come up the deals the offers that come up that you might not have if you miss it. I
Christina Edwards 27:00
totally agree. I think there is that oversight piece. And that makes a lot of sense. But I've literally had Edie say to me, let me see if I can get this $200 Spend approved. I'm like that is a terrible use of everyone's time. So terrible. Yes, yeah. So that is another cultural shift that you can make and your board if you are in that current dynamic, there is a way out of it. Right. And I would guess that maybe your board is also like, why am I looking at this on a Tuesday afternoon? Like, why do I like go forth, spend it, I believe in you, I trust you.
Sean Kosofsky 27:31
Yeah, part of this is training, we need to remind our boards and train our boards that their role is governance, the minute they hire an executive director, that person is doing implementation and execution, they are there to govern, to supervise, they are not there to pick up the color color of the napkins at the gala. That is not what the board should be doing. In order to condition our boards for what their role is and to train them and educate them about what their proper role is, you should say to them, I don't want to be coming to you every time I have a $200 expenditure. Let's just take care of all of this right now. Obviously, if it's not in the budget, then you might have to come back to them. But if you should try to go to your board and say none of us want to waste our time and energy on these little minutia details. If you trust me, I wouldn't come to to expend something that we couldn't afford. I'm gonna stay within our budget. And encourage your board once a year to have a line item for things like professional development or things like travel, all these things should be in that budget. Give yourself some padding and some comments and some breathing room there. But yeah, having to constantly go back and forth for something as small as 200. It's just it doesn't really help anyone no one's happy in that situation. Boards that love those little decisions need to just back off and realize that the best use of their energy is to govern. Yeah. Oh,
Christina Edwards 28:44
so good. Is there anything else that you would like to share about nonprofit boards, whether it's from the ed side, from the board engagement side, what comes to mind that you'd like to give us? I
Sean Kosofsky 28:54
think that, you know, some boards get a bad rap. I think that they really are. I love boards because they are made up of like, we have like 1.5 million nonprofits in this country, which means there's like, whatever, 10 million people that are serving on boards, if not, like 20 million people serving on boards in this country, that level of volunteerism, like really touches my heart if you know, being on a board can be the most thankless and certainly the most, you know, least compensated forms of community service that you can possibly do. So I just want to throw a lot of affection and love at your listeners and people that are doing this who have been on boards. It can be so thankless. So thank you, thank you, thank you for all the people that have never said thank you. But at the same time we have to hold high standards to our board. So the number one thing is just let's just let go of this idea of like a minimal attendance minimal work giving of my time, no, see abundance, not scarcity, see all the things you can be doing to contribute. And there are ways to do it and just a few hours a month but we need to be smart. I think that people should be engaging consultants, not because as it serves me, but because I think organizations are stuck in a rut, and you can get out of that rut by engaging a professional, it really does. You can cut corners, you can, whatever I say you can get a shortcut without cutting corners, right, you can actually get to the front of the line. But as a consultant, we'll give you a shortcut to where you're trying to do
Christina Edwards 30:18
150% Totally agree. So we ask every single guest on the podcast to share with us a thought that you'd like to think on purpose. So this could be like a mantra and affirmation, just something, would you share your go to thought for other changemakers?
Sean Kosofsky 30:37
On purpose thought, yes. I think one of the things that's been on my mind a lot lately is I do study a little bit of Buddhism, and I do have a mindfulness practice and a meditation practice. And one of the things I think about a lot and is sitting with me right now is that we are sometimes all of our suffering in this world, like 90% of our suffering in this world is us resisting what's happening to us, right? It's not like, oh, there's this bad thing happening. It's like, it's actually my reaction. I don't want this thing to be happening, and therefore I'm resisting it. So so much of our unhappiness, it's not the kid making a lot of noise. It's our it's the fact that we are resisting the fact that this child was just being a child, right? So I think about this idea of how do I be more at peace? How do I slow down and my work and be appreciative of the moment I'm in, if you're a nonprofit leader, you are, you are just spinning every plate, and you're trying to do it all. And I really think if we can just sit down and just really think about our board is doing this horrible thing to us, or this funder didn't fund me and just really just sit back and just have some gratitude and some joy. And, and instead of like, seeing everything as like happening to us, like this huge, stressful thing, decide to engage the work with abundance, decide to engage with joy, or else we're gonna end up getting burned out. And we really do have more control over our joy in these organizations than we let ourselves believe.
Christina Edwards 32:01
So good. How can everyone find you follow you? Where are you hanging out these days? LinkedIn, YouTube, where are you? Where's, where's your preferred platform?
Sean Kosofsky 32:10
You know, Facebook is definitely where I hang out. The LinkedIn is also pretty big. And so that's there. But my website is nonprofit fixer.com. And that's where everyone can get all my resources and tools and trainings and blah, blah, blah, yeah,
Christina Edwards 32:23
perfect. And we'll link to the course. And we'll link to a couple of your freebies as well. This has been such a fun conversation, you got me from feeling a type of way about boards, I'm feeling more motivated, I'm feeling better. And I liked that you just had a minute to like, honor the boards, because you're right, this work is some of the most safe think less work. I'll never forget when I was voluntold that I was going to be on the event committee. That's hard. That's hard work for the auction, you know, that was like, Oh, this is hard. And we're doing this work. We're doing this work as a collective, because we do want to see the world change. We do want to see our community better than we left it. And so it's like, instead of fighting against what is coming together and grabbing that board agreement and like getting some momentum around your board, I think everybody will leave much more motivated to make that happen. So thank you. Excellent. Thank you for having me. All right. See you next time. Yep.