Drawing on over thirty years experience serving on eleven for-profit or non-profit boards, including start-up and early stage ventures as well as seasoned arts organizations like the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra and Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art, I now serve as a consultant to governing boards primarily in the non-profit sector. While I will generally charge a fee for short-term engagements, I also choose to donate my time to one project every year (or for multiple years) where I can play a significant leadership role from outside the organization.
Some of the areas in which I can assist a young or established non-profit board, working collaboratively with its members and key leadership, include:
- Crafting or refining the organization’s mission, vision and aspirational statements
- Evaluating and amending the organization’s By-laws
- Identifying the skills, behaviors, and diversity required for board effectiveness
- Defining and establishing performance expectations common to all board members
- Identifying and screening candidates for board membership
- Nominating and electing, orienting and developing good board members
- Evaluating board member performance
- Establishing processes to recognize and release non-performers
- Evaluating CEO performance
- Designing effective and motivating compensation for key leadership positions
- Designing effective board meetings
- Strategies for effective program conception, planning, communication and execution
- Fundraising and development strategies including soliciting and servicing major donors
- Strategies for effective fiscal control, including budgeting and preparing for the annual audit.
Please contact me to discuss your organization’s particular needs and the ways in which I may be able to assist in meeting your goals.