Foundation board recruitment has to be based on something beyond finding wealthy individuals to fill seats and attend galas. Serious recruitment focuses on four core questions:
- Will the candidate bring strategic relationships to the organization?
- Can the board member open doors to new donors? In our organization's history, it has been shown that when members introduce us to a new donor, we have a 70% success rate in securing a gift.
- Is the candidate a role model for philanthropy? We require each of our board members to donate to the foundation.
- Will the board member be an ambassador for the organization in the community? Our board members speak passionately about our mission, telling memorable stories about our care and providers' commitment to patients with an authenticity and flair that arises from firsthand engagement.
Organizations also can't leave board recruitment and retention to chance. We strive to ensure our new board members understand our organization and their role, and feel welcome and energized from the first encounter. If we're inviting the community's most successful, busy people, we can't waste their time. We set up one-on-one sessions for a smooth start, and after that each board meeting features not only business issues but carefully chosen, engaging people and topics from our hospitals and clinics.
There's no question that having two boards, however well-integrated, creates more work for hospital executives than one. But a separate, high-performing foundation board is like a booster rocket driving the entire enterprise toward fulfillment of its mission.
