The Nonprofit FAQ

How can staff use email for board and committee relations
Ina Frank wrote in NONPROFIT on 3/13/98 on the Subject: Using email to contact donors

Here's another take re the Information & Communication uses:
When interviewing for my present position, "my" prospective Department Chair (volunteer)
announced that if I wanted the position, I'd jolly well better be online
regularly cuz he absolutely refused to respond to any communication *except*
what he got by e-mail. No phone; no mail; no faxes. Doesn't have time or
patience, he said. May want stuff at dawn or midnight and resents the
organization's killing off the entire Los Padres National Forest "every
bloody time there's a meeting or report..." Other interviewers blanched. I
all but kissed the guy!

Age-related? Said person is [ahem...] early 70's I'd guess; retired Chief
Scientist from a defense research facility whose name you'd know and he's
bloody brilliant. And no, 'turns out he's not unique because of his former
profession. Most folks online here are um... older or younger. It's the
40-somethings who are most of the intransigents.

After a full year of verrrrry slow nurturing, we now have e-mail addresses
for most of the Board and use to convey background info plus advance meeting
notices and changes. Will wean from the paper stuff over the next year &
they can print out only what they want.

Plus: *All* of my committees' members appreciate it, and it's allowed us to
get a new department off the ground in rocket time (hint.... hint) instead of
waiting around for reply faxes or engaging in my pet peeve
Voice Mail Tag.

Specifics:
  1. No, I don't think I'll ever use it for solicitation; except perhaps to
    set face-to-face appts w/ those who are already close and part of the
    "family."
  2. Yes, we do use it often for editing documents, scrubbing and polishing
    solicitation letters, testing newsletter layouts, etc. (signers can edit
    online & shoot back... no pun intended)
  3. Drafting or revising policies, departmental proposals or financial
    reports, and now...
  4. Re-working By Laws. (Anybody want a 50-person Board? Cheap??) (See note below on using email for board business. -- Ed.)
  5. The Pest Patrol: Also helpful to remind people of follow-up calls they
    need to make re events, including recipients' phone numbers. Several times,
    if necessary; 'til their internal guilt mechanism takes over. (When it
    does, you're not around to hear them yelling...)


THE INA FRANK RATIONALE: (like, who cares... but here it is anyhow)
I think it's presumptuous to expect volunteer leaders to be available to
speak with me on *my* schedule when it is I who should be making it
convenient for them.

Hmmmph!

Ina Frank

Director - Leadership, Major Gifts, Planned Giving, Non-Cash Asset Donations
& Whatever.. (downsizing does that to yer' business card...)

United Way of Ventura County, California



NOTE: Check carefully before using email or other Internet tools for official board business. State nonprofit laws about board meetings have very specific provisions for when and how business can be done. They may require written notices delivered by mail, face-to-face meetings for certain kinds of decisions, and set many other requirements that limit the ways electronic communications can be used.

In 2003 and 2004, there were reports that several state legislators considered bills to change these requirements in ways that would make it easier to use the Internet for board business but there is no consistent pattern from state to state and local research is required (even more so if your board has members from or holds meetings in several states).

(For a report I prepared on Washington state rules, see http://www.tess.org/ON/0312_ONLINE.html. And to see what the legislature passed, see http://www.tess.org/ON/0407_INDEX.html -- Ed.)



Posted 4/98; revised 1/13/05 -- PB