Let’s Talk About: Leading a Nonprofit By Staff – Pacific Business News Nov 17, 2017, 10:00am EST Interested in becoming involved with a nonprofit or charitable organization? As the sector changes, many local organizations are in need of engaged board members. Pacific Business News recently held a panel event at The Pacific Club in Downtown Honolulu, where leaders in Hawaii’s nonprofit industry gathered for a candid discussion about the challenges in board recruitment, staff retention and fundraising.
How did you get started with your respective organizations? McCarney: I had a very good career, and after retiring I started to think about how I could contribute to my community. One of the things I noticed was how congested Honolulu was with cars, and it wasn’t a good place to bike or walk, so I thought maybe there was something I could do to help change that. Bikeshare started five years ago in planning, and they were looking for an executive director and I thought I could help contribute, and I had nothing to lose. It wasn’t a career move, it wasn’t for the money, it was just something that I thought I had the talent and skillset for, but also passion to help with. Broderick: I was a family court judge for number of years, and I saw themes of drug addiction and homelessness, and the youth were totality disengaged. One commonality was almost all these people had been traumatized in some way. At the same time, I was on the corporate board for the YMCA and I saw the ways it brought prevention to these issues, so I decided for the last 10 years of my career to spend it on the front-end trying to prevent these families from ending up in family court. Munoz: I never planned on getting into the nonprofit realm. I am a nurse practitioner by trade, and I was exposed to the issue of human trafficking of children right here in Hawaii, and I wanted to do something about it. When I started doing this work back in 2010, the reality that children weren’t being recognized as victims of exploitation was very shocking to me, as well as looking at our system and seeing the state of juvenile justice reform — and if we are going to bring reform we have to have diversion programs in place so that kids who have been traumatized can be healed. So, my passion is to create a residential campus where underage girls will find that healing. How do you identify the skills that you need on your board to supplement the skills you have on your staff, and are any of you actively looking for board members?