Building and Sustaining a Board

By Nicole Galase, Friends of Hawaiian Islands NWR (HI)

The Friends of Hawaiian Islands National Wildlife Refuge board is comprised of diverse individuals dedicated to moving the organization forward toward its mission of connecting people with the nature and culture of the Hawaiian Islands National Wildlife Refuge. Backgrounds include biology, political science, coastal planning, art, management, and education, among other hidden talents. Besides being racially and socioeconomically diverse, our board stands out among others as almost every board member is under 40. We do see the advantage of age diversity, though, as our self-proclaimed “ROGue” (Retired Old Guy) is a strong asset to the board and adds knowledge and experience to our team.

How Did We Get Here?

Our board was not automatically diverse and effective from the beginning. Since we incorporated as a Friends group in 2015, we have pruned and grown where needed. Our board started with people who worked or volunteered in the Hawaiian Islands National Wildlife Refuge – biologists and field workers – with a passion to share what they loved. While the passion and intent were admirable, we needed a wider skillset to run the organization effectively. We still value every person who contributed to our organization, but over time we found that we were not moving as quickly as we needed to, and board members were not fully engaged. We needed to get focused on defining what our needs were so that we could fill the board seats to meet those needs. In a session facilitated by a consultant, we developed a five-year strategic plan. This strategic plan is not just a document that lives on our computer – it is what we refer to often and use to guide our actions throughout the years.

As new vacancies came up, we were able to take a closer look at our board with a clearer sense of what we wanted to accomplish and the additional skillsets the organization needed. We found that when members had a clearly defined niche role or were assigned to a specific committee or project, they took ownership earlier on and remained committed to the mission. We used a board skills matrix to analyze what strengths we had available and what skills we needed to seek. Rather than filling board seats with people who were merely “interested in” our mission, we actively sought those who had the skills to proactively move us forward. We invited board members who had never been to the refuge but who could still appreciate its needs and unique values.

How Do We Recruit?

Word-of-mouth recruitment has been the most successful tool for us. When someone who is already on the board reaches out to a potential member, they are able to slowly introduce them to what we do and where they might fit in. This creates buy-in early and (we hope) ensures an engaged board member who will complete their term and perhaps even serve additional terms. The diversity in age, gender, and socioeconomic backgrounds allows us to tap into different perspectives, as does rotating our board members through different officer roles and bringing on new talent and ideas when term limits end.

We recently tried recruiting via LinkedIn to cast a wider net for volunteer board applicants, but the interested parties turned out to have more of a corporate or for-profit administration focus and were not a good fit for us. While our first attempt at recruiting outside of our networking groups was not successful, it did teach us a valuable lesson – whether we are advertising a board position to strangers or acquaintances, expectations and roles must be clearly defined and outlined for each separate role or specific skill set we are seeking.

We realized we had not been consistent in the information we shared with prospects. This meant our expectations were not clear, and we sometimes lost board members because they weren’t able to contribute what we needed from them. The exercise of creating detailed board position descriptions, a description of our organization, and an actual application form made us see that understanding expectations is key to attracting and retaining effective board members. Establishing a formal recruitment process and a “New Member Packet” that includes a board commitment declaration form was worth the effort and will likely remain dynamic as roles evolve. Formalizing our recruitment and on-boarding processes has helped us successfully attract and retain new board members, thanks to clearly defined expectations that better present our organization with the same level of professionalism we want our board members to aim for.

How Do We Evolve Over Time?

Updating our recruitment process has also helped us create a more effective board transition process. We designed exit surveys for out-going board members to tell us what worked and what didn’t, and we used that insight and feedback as a means for improving our operations and board culture. We also designed a succession plan that requires the out-going Chair to mentor their elected replacement during the last year of their term and then stay on as a non-voting Chair Emeritus for a year afterward – a process that has helped us create a more seamless leadership transition.

To maintain a culture of accountability and encouragement, we’ve established annual self-assessments, where board members rate both their personal and our collective practices as a board. We feel that establishing these new administrative policies has helped us strengthen our board and continue to improve our organizational practices. We clearly notice the results when valuable out-going board members choose to become Advisory Council members, who remain involved and committed to the organization and its mission. These contributions, along with the network of Friends groups, give us an opportunity to learn from established institutions and an array of diverse methods to develop and sustain our organization’s human resources, ensuring that an effective board will support the Friends of Hawaiian Islands NWR, its growth, and evolution, far into the future.