Managing the board or serving on the board of a nonprofit can be tough. To help, we asked two members of our Nonprofit Group — Lisa Johnson, CPA, and Richard Wolf, CPA — about their experience working on various nonprofit boards.
Meet Lisa & Richard
Lisa Johnson, CPA is an audit partner and the co-director of Gross Mendelsohn's Nonprofit Group. She has 20 years of experience in nonprofit audit and accounting. Her board roles have included Richcroft, Inc. (president) and Community Law in Action (CLIA).
Richard Wolf, CPA, CGMA, CFE, CVA is a partner at Gross Mendelsohn and has worked with nonprofit organizations for 25+ years. Richard's board roles have included Collaborative Professionals of Baltimore (treasurer), University of Baltimore Accounting Advisory Board, Loyola University Maryland’s Accounting Advisory Board, Maryland Association of CPAs and Beth Tfiloh Dahan Community School.
Panel Q&A
What do you wish you’d known earlier as a board member?
Lisa: Fundraising is so important. The board has to be highly involved in fundraising and committed to it, and board members really help the nonprofit through their fundraising efforts.
Richard: Ask questions. It’s really important to ask questions, especially if you are new to a board. You might come into a situation where you don’t have all the history and background, and it’s important if you don’t understand something to ask those questions.
How can a board chair help an unengaged board member?
Richard: Communicating and being up front is extremely important. Why is that person not pulling their weight? Do they feel disengaged? Do they feel not part of the process? Are they not excited about the role they’re in? Do they feel that their skill sets aren’t being used properly? These are all things that really need to come out to understand why an individual is not engaged.
How can board members work better with management?
Lisa: The board needs to govern, and they need to be able to do their job. So they need the information that’s required. They need to be able to ask questions, and the executive director needs to be able to handle the day to day operations and feel like the board is confident in that person’s abilities.
Richard: A lot of times you’ll sit on the board and the answer to a question will be, “Well that’s the way it’s always been done." As a board member you need to push back on that because sometimes the way that it’s always been done isn’t the right way or isn’t the way it should be done going forward.
Build a Better Board
Board engagement and recruitment is an ongoing and major challenge for many nonprofits. For do's and don'ts on board engagement, check out our free on-demand webinar on building a better board. This webinar covers how identify the right (and wrong) board members for your organization, ways to improve board accountability and simple strategies to boost board engagement.
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