Maximizing Your Board Retreat
Board retreats are a common practice for nonprofit organizations. Bringing your board together to determine the strategic path forward is a great practice. However, every organization operates a retreat differently. So, what key things should be accomplished at your board retreat?
Agenda
Before anything gets started, You need to develop an agenda. You should never go into a retreat without knowing how your time will be spent.
Tip: Depending on your board and the time/day of the week you may need to put some time in for breaks. If your board needs to check in with work, respond to emails, or make calls you don’t want them stepping out of important moments. Setting time aside for them to take care of their other responsibilities is a good idea and will shows that you respect their personal and professional lives.
Education
No matter the board, there is an opportunity for improvement. At NMBL Strategies, we like to include some form of board education in the retreat. This may be a more basic education on board responsibility, fundraising, or strategic planning. It may be something a bit more specific like, how a capital campaign works; what a schedule might look like for it; or the value of committees to the organization. Oftentimes, this transforms into a specific discussion relating to the organization we are working with.
Tip: For board education to be maximized it’s important to understand the board you are working with. Some boards are made up of people who have significant experience on a board and some are made up of people with very little board experience. Some organizations have governance boards while others have working boards. To make sure you understand your board’s background, we suggest utilizing this board make up matrix which was developed for board recruitment.
Strategic Leadership
Strategic leadership is the ultimate outcome of a board retreat and really the primary function of your board of directors. Strategic leadership requires that a significant portion of any board retreat is dedicated to the strategy and leadership of the organization. Remember, if your board is a governance board, it is not their responsibility to worry about the details of day-to-day operations. Instead, their responsibility is to set the direction for your Executive Director/CEO and put them in a position to successfully execute it. This effort should be focused on full group discussions as well as small group discussions as well as activities to draw out thoughts and clarify questions. This is a time for board members to speak freely about what they hope to see with the organization, potential issues with it, and what can be done to move the organization forward.
Tip: Don’t use one single practice to draw thought out of your board on a retreat, meaning don’t simply open up a group discussion or only break into small groups. Along those same lines, ask similar questions in different ways to see how the response changes. In many ways, utilize the board retreat as an internal input session focused on developing thought similar to how you might in seeking input for a strategic plan or a feasibility study.
Leading a Retreat
We realize this sounds self-serving, but in our experience, bringing in an outside facilitator of a board retreat is critical and by far the best practice. Having the Executive Director or a Board Chair lead the retreat fails more often than not. Whether people feel less inclined to speak freely, the leader has their own agenda, or simply can’t keep a hold of the board discussion, there are any number of reasons why an internal person should not lead the retreat. In addition, at NMBL our process is to provide a written assessment after the retreat outlining the discussion, takeaways, and next steps, coming at this from an unbiased role is critical. Additionally, this previous service allows board members to settle into the retreat in a greater way without requiring them to assess and outline in the moment.
Timing
Know your audience. If the team will not keep attention for eights hours break it into two - four hour days. Likewise, as noted above, if your board is extremely busy with their own work plan in some time for them to attend to their own business matters. Also, make sure you pick a day of the week that works well for your board, if your board is made up of parents Saturdays are usually pretty busy with kids’ sports. If the board can’t get away from their work during the week for board meetings, it’s unlikely they will be able to get away for a retreat in that same time frame. Finally, make sure you give your board enough time to put this on their calendar, don’t try to spring it on them 2 or 3 weeks before the meeting date. The more time you give them to block the event off on their calendars the better chance you will get good attendance.
In need of someone to plan and lead your next board retreat? Reach out to NMBL Strategies today to find out how we can make your next Board Retreat the best one ever.
