Developing business leaders through nonprofit board service

By Michelle Xiarhos Curran Essex County Community Foundation

There’s nothing quite as powerful as partnership. We see this here on the North Shore and across Essex County, where cross-sector collaborations are having a big impact on our region’s major social challenges – like food insecurity and the digital divide – and fueling innovation and progress.

Deepening and broadening these cross-sector relationships, particularly the ones between the for-profit and nonprofit communities, is good for many reasons. It creates a sort of synergy that is not only mutually beneficial, but also meaningful and long-lasting.

For businesses, one way to achieve this symbiotic relationship is to encourage employees, particularly the emerging leaders of your company or firm – who are eager to learn, develop and innovate – to volunteer on a nonprofit board.

Supporting Your Community

Essex County is home to more than 4,000 nonprofit organizations, which work hard every day to support worthy causes in our communities and create equitable opportunities for all. Most of these organizations rely heavily on volunteers for critical activities such as fundraising, strategic planning, advocacy and more.

But a recent study by the University of Maryland School of Public Policy’s Do Good Institute revealed that nearly half of nonprofit CEOs say that securing volunteers is a “big problem,” with more than 35 percent reporting a dearth of volunteers with the right skills.

Local nonprofits need business leaders’ skills and talents. And when your business encourages employees to serve on a nonprofit board, whether through formal board placement programs or more informally through conversations about the value and impact of board service, you are leveraging your most valuable asset – your people – to support life-changing work in our communities.

Supporting Your Employees

It goes without saying that board service, if the nonprofit is chosen carefully, can be fulfilling work that leads to personal satisfaction and purpose. But research and data also reveal board volunteers experience personal benefits far beyond that.

Board service introduces people to new perspectives, particularly if the chosen nonprofit is committed to board diversity and onboarding members with lived experience. It can also increase an employee’s capacity for collaboration, empathy and healthy debate. And serving on a board exposes people to aspects of organizational development – like finance, fundraising and governance – that they may not be exposed to at work.

A 2018 study by Korngold Consulting, LLC, found that after just one or two years of nonprofit board service:

 69 percent thought they had become better leaders.

 65 percent felt ready to take on more work responsibility.

 69 percent felt more useful at work.

 64 percent found more meaning in their work.

 55 percent said they were better qualified for a promotion.

Because of the breadth of opportunity nonprofit board service affords, it helps your employees – particularly emerging leaders – develop new talents and strengthen foundational skills such as confidence, critical thinking and dependability, that are necessary for future leadership.

Supporting Your Business

Encouraging nonprofit board service not only supports your community and your employees, but it also directly impacts your business.

A 2021 study by the Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship found that of the 51 percent that measure the connection, 96 percent of companies find that employees who volunteer, and this includes board service, are more engaged than peers who do not.

Here are some of the ways this engagement can show up in the workplace.

single day for your company’s future.

Expand Your Network

When you join a nonprofit board, you’ll likely meet professionals and leaders from a wide variety of sectors and industries who will introduce you, your employees and your business to new ideas and opportunities. You might connect with a new vendor or potential client. Or perhaps you get the chance to participate in an event or initiative that creates new pathways for your business to increase its involvement in the community, leading then to more opportunities.

is still much work to be done when it comes to matters of equity and diversity, research indicates that elevating its importance in the workplace expands access to talent and skills, boosts performance, increases innovation and leads to better, more efficient decision-making.

Attract And Retain Talent

Encouraging and supporting opportunities for employees to give back to the community while developing skills that promote career growth helps businesses attract and retain talent. According to a 2022 Deloitte survey, millennials and Gen Z’ers say a sense of purpose is critical – along with a positive work-life balance and pay — when choosing new employers. Nearly two in five of the younger generations, and nearly half of those in leadership positions, have rejected a job because it didn’t align with their personal ethics.

BOARDCONNECT, A PROGRAM OF ECCF

Empower Strategic Thinking

Nonprofit board leaders are expected to work together to make decisions that guide and direct a nonprofit towards a singular mission, often under budgetary constraints.

Coming through the other side of a collaborative decision-making process in which “the big picture” is always top of mind is a valuable experience to bring back to the workplace, where critical decisions are being made every

Benefit From Diversity

Because of the nature of their work, nonprofit organizations are increasingly looking at every aspect of operations through an equity lens. Introducing your business’ emerging leaders to this way of thinking increases their capacity to listen to the perspectives, opinions and life experiences of people from different backgrounds.

Why does this matter? Though there remote or hybrid workers makes this challenge even more difficult.

Lastly, almost every CEO — and team leaders at all levels — face the problem of team member motivation: According to recent Gallup research, only 36 percent of U.S. employees are engaged in their work and workplace.* Having

Harvard Business School professor, Teresa Amabile, in her book, “The Progress Principle,” explains how to improve motivation. Her research shows, if you encourage leaders throughout your organization to recognize the progress team members make, their motivation and productivity will take a giant step forward.

“Actively recognizing progress is almost always inspiring and will have everyone pushing even harder.” (After Denzel J. Wellington, author of “Goal Setting”).

This brings us to the best management principle I ever heard, and it encompasses most of the others in this article. I even include it in the title of my book, “The Universal Management Principle Workbook, How to Motivate Your Team Better.”

At Essex County Community Foundation (ECCF), we believe in this power of partnership. This is why ECCF hosts BoardConnect, a program that leverages training resources from the United Way and connects talented area professionals with nonprofits seeking new board members at fun, causal meetand-greet events. Information on the next BoardConnect event will be available in the early fall. If you have questions about the program, contact Carol Lavoie Schuster at c.lavoieschuster@ eccf.org. I partners.” I made it a point thereafter to visit every one of them. I always learned something about how our company could save money, do things better, or grow our business. And I built valuable relationships that could help us in future crises.

The saying, first attributed to Teddy Roosevelt, is: “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”

Always keep this one front and center. I

*https://www.gallup.com/ workplace/352949/employee-engagementholds-steady-first-half-2021.aspx