The Stretch Assignment | Rosetta Thurman

Life as a New Board Member

November 16, 2007 by rosetta · 2 Comments

This week I was voted onto the board of directors for the D.C. Creative Writing Workshop, a nonprofit that blends my love of poetry and the arts in an afterschool program for African American youth living in the poorest sections of Washington, DC. The mission of the D.C. Creative Writing Workshop, based at Charles Hart Middle School in the Congress Heights neighborhood of Southeast D.C., is to unite parents, teachers and professional writers-in-residence to transform the lives of youth through self-expression and the power of the written word. As a new board member, I’ve already chosen a committee to work on: fundraising, which is what I do in my day job. But the great thing about serving on the Workshop’s board is that I will get a chance to try my hand at individual fundraising, which I have not yet done very much of in my nonprofit career so far. So you know I wouldn’t be doing my board duty if I didn’t encourage readers to support the DC Creative Writing Workshop by donating online or sending a big fat check to: D.C. Creative Writing Workshop, Inc. 601 Mississippi Ave SE, Washington, DC 20032. Bonus if you donate before the end of the year to get a nice tax break from Uncle Sam!

After one board meeting, you can bet my head is still reeling with all of the information presented, but I want to share my observations so far on being a new board member:

Food is a key ingredient if you want people to show up for evening board meetings – the board member who hosted us at her lovely home treated us to a nice catered dinner that made us feel even better about leaving straight from work for a 2-hour meeting
It’s important that board committee chairs communicate about the agenda well in advance of the meeting so everyone’s on the same page and well-prepared during the meeting – everyone has busy schedules so it’s best to request information for reports, etc. as early as possible
Board meetings are a great time to ask questions of the staff that attend, but make sure they have a purpose so time doesn’t get taken away from the agenda – time really flies during the meetings once you get into them
When you agree to do something or send out information to other board members, try to do it right away
Always try to remember what your role is to the organization – as a volunteer you want to help where you are needed and not create more work for the staff
No matter what committee you are on within the board, it is still your responsibility to ask your contacts and friends to financially support the organization

I think this is going to be a great experience in so many different ways and I’ll keep sharing here, especially on the progress in my leadership journey. Want to join a nonprofit board yourself? Here’s how I did it.

Filed Under: Leadership, Philanthropy · Tagged With: Fundraising, Leadership, The Stretch Assignment

Stretch Assignment: Join a Nonprofit Board

November 2, 2007 by rosetta · 1 Comment

Last month, I gave you tips on how to jumpstart your nonprofit career in seven days. Then Michele Martin asked me in the comments if I had done all of these professional development tasks myself, and I realized I had done all of them except one: join a nonprofit board of directors. So I followed my own advice and set out to join a board as my goal before the end of the year. I will walk you through the steps I have taken so far to help you in your own process of developing your leadership skills through board membership. Most of you will consider this a stretch assignment, especially if you do not already play a leadership role in your current nonprofit job. But for young nonprofit professionals, this is a win/win/win: 1) you gain valuable skills 2) you get to volunteer for one of your favorite causes, and 3) you can reap the benefits of the respect from your peers and colleagues that comes with being a board member. So here’s how you can follow the path of what I have done so far to achieve my professional development goal of joining a nonprofit board. I hope it works for you! Let us know about your experiences in the comments, or drop me an email if you are thinking about taking on this stretch assignment.

Make Sure You Know What You’re Getting Into
I reviewed the responsibilities of being a nonprofit board member on the BoardSource website. I was pretty familiar with the duties of board leadership, but I wanted to make sure I was clear that I could sign on to each one of them. Although I know the experience can be rewarding, the truth is that nonprofit boards of directors are not all fun and games. It takes hard work and integrity just like a full-time job. As the leadership body of public stakeholders in a particular community, it is the board’s duty to govern the organization in the best way possible. Among the responsibilities I would have:

Provide proper financial oversight. The board must assist in developing the annual budget and ensuring that proper financial controls are in place.
Ensure adequate resources. One of the board’s foremost responsibilities is to provide adequate resources for the organization to fulfill its mission.
Ensure legal and ethical integrity and maintain accountability. The board is ultimately responsible for ensuring adherence to legal standards and ethical norms.
Ensure effective organizational planning. Boards must actively participate in an overall planning process and assist in implementing and monitoring the plan’s goals.
Enhance the organization’s public standing. The board should clearly articulate the organization’s mission, accomplishments, and goals to the public and garner support from the community.
Support the chief executive and assess his or her performance. The board should ensure that the chief executive has the moral and professional support he or she needs to further the goals of the organization.

Reflect on Your Passion
Next, I thought about which causes I was passionate about outside of the organization where I work. In the Washington DC area, there are over 4,000 nonprofits I could volunteer with. So I came up with a short list of criteria that I felt fit within the personal vision I am developing to merge my personal mission with my nonprofit work. The three criteria I came up with were that I wanted to serve on a board of a nonprofit that a) worked in populations of high poverty, b) served communities of color, and c) was small or start-up in nature or could benefit from my skills in nonprofit management. In terms of causes, there are so many I would be committed to: homelessness, youth and education or the arts, advocacy, civil rights, women’s issues, among others.

Evaluate Your Current Skills
I took a few moments to list the skills I would bring to a nonprofit board. I took a glance at my LinkedIn profile just to remind myself of the various positions I have held and reflect on the strengths I have gained along the way. I decided that I wanted to be able to use my skills in fundraising, human resources, financial management, writing and communications, and education/training to help strengthen a nonprofit’s management functions. I would also be willing to fundraise on behalf of the organization and develop a strong case for support to the community.

Then I also starting thinking about what I could gain in my skill set that I wasn’t already good at. Where am I weak that I could get stronger? One of the things I came up withwas that I would want to enhance my public presence and communication/speaking skills by acting as a spokesperson for the organization out in the public. I would be willing to testify on behalf of the organization in City Council or give quotes to the media on the nonprofit’s issues. I’d also like to write op-eds in the papers to advance our cause and mission.

Put Yourself Out There
The first thing I did was to create an account and profile at boardnetUSA to find listed board opportunities in my area. It only took about 30 minutes to fill-in the requested information, especially since I had already thought about the kind of nonprofit I wanted to work for and the skills I wanted to utilize.

I also completed an application with the African American Nonprofit Network’s Board Initiative. They match board candidates of color with nonprofits who need their expertise. I filled out the questionnaire, sent in my resume, and chose an opportunity from their list of board vacancies.

In addition to these formal application processes, I made sure to let my key mentors and peers know verbally that I’m looking for leadership opportunities on nonprofit boards. My hope was that if something came up that fit what I wanted to do, someone might think of me and send me a tip.

Results So Far
Somebody said that when you take action and put your efforts out there, the universe responds. Within a week after posting my profile on boardnetUSA, I found an opportunity with a small nonprofit working with at-risk African American youth in a creative writing afterschool program. I applied, met with their Executive Director and Board Chair, and have just been nominated to the full Board.

A few months before I signed up for boardnetUSA, I had been approached by the President of a well-respected nonprofit that serves the homeless and provides job-training to apply to their board. I had done so, but hadn’t heard anything back. I received a call from their CEO to let me know he was sending my information to the nominations committee next month.

From my efforts so far, I’m currently in the process of being nominated to three boards in the DC area that all fit my criteria. I’m hoping at least one will pan out and I can begin a volunteer leadership position outside of the organization I work for that will help prepare me to lead a nonprofit in the future. My experience with the process of joining a nonprofit board has been a definite stretch, but I know it will be a valuable learning experience for me. You can be sure that I’ll keep you updated on the process and, when I’m actually serving as a board member, the inside scoop.

Now is anybody stretching with me or thinking about board membership? A little effort goes a long way!

Filed Under: Career Advice, Leadership, Professional Development · Tagged With: Career Advice, Leadership, Professional Development, The Stretch Assignment

The "Stretch Assignment"

October 3, 2007 by rosetta · 5 Comments

“You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing you think you cannot do.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

During last week’s panel on African American Nonprofit Leadership, Patrick Corvington from the Annie E. Casey Foundation suggested that there were two foolproof ways for next generation leaders to get dream jobs and develop leadership in the nonprofit sector: 1) Networking and 2) The “Stretch Assignment”. People talk about networking to death, so we’ll focus on Patrick’s second idea for a moment. Patrick is Senior Associate in the Leadership Development Unit at Annie E. Casey, so if anyone can help young nonprofit leaders find their way in the sector, it’s him!

What is The “Stretch Assignment”?

In a nutshell, the stretch assignment is a task or project that you perform within your nonprofit role that 1) goes beyond your job description, 2) challenges your current skills, and 3) requires you to learn one or more new skills. Another helpful definition comes from ComputerWorld:

A “stretch assignment” is one that requires a worker to take a leap beyond his comfort zone and, in the process, pick up new skills.

Nicole Williams offers some tips on the JobDig website:

Seeking and committing to a “stretch assignment” is a risk – one that is not only well worth taking in terms of the personal opportunity to grow, but absolutely necessary if you are committed to breaking away from the pack.

Take a moment now to think of all of the nonprofit leaders or role models you admire. Chances are, all of them faced significant challenges in exerting leadership when the time came to really make a difference, but you look up to them because they were able to stretch themselves to a higher level so they could impact change. We know of examples from the Civil Rights movement, when students staged sit-ins and boycotts. They didn’t go through a nice and tidy process to develop the kind of leadership that was needed, they just did it. And lo and behold, it worked. But I’m sure the young, courageous brothers and sisters who stepped up to the plate were sweating bullets and nervous about whether the thing would go down they way they wanted. But the point is that they went out and did it, no matter how uncomfortable it was, because it was important to advancing the cause. Jeff Schwartz, an executive coach I really like, is fond of saying “nothing changes if nothing changes”. It’s critical for young people to reach beyond their comfort zones to develop essential leadership skills that can help change our communities for the better. My mom is a personal fitness trainer and her motto is, “no pain, no gain”. We definitely need to stretch ourselves beyond our limits to get to the next level in our nonprofit careers and prepare ourselves for leadership to advance the causes we’re passionate about. Let’s not be afraid to lead. We can be the next wave that inspires change in this country.

OK, So We Need to Stretch. What Are Some Examples of Stretch Assignments That Young Nonprofit Employees Can Take On?

The Leadership Development Centre helps to offer some tangible examples of stretch assigments for public sector leaders:

Leading or implementing a new or important project – a culture change, a new human resource strategy, a new community project or service closure
Organizing a rally or conference
Staffing a Board committee within your organization
Being accountable for managing people to achieve specific outcomes within a given timeline
Taking on a significant project of work that presents new learning and challenges
Completing a qualification or significant learning opportunity
Working or managing a cross-cultural team
Turning around a failing operation
Taskforce assignment or special project that involves an increase in scope (e.g. budget, number of staff or complexity of role)
Leading an important event or meeting
Supervising an intern or volunteer
Getting involved in your organization’s strategic planning process
Joining a Board at another nonprofit

What Do We Get Out of Stretching?

Confidence in your abilities and skills
Clarity of personal passion and vision for social change
Better understanding of how to manage nonprofit operations more effectively
Change management skills
Skills in influencing others
Leadership development by “doing”

Come On, Is it Really That Important? So What If We Don’t Stretch?

No personal or professional growth
Skills don’t improve or stay stagnant
Your boss’ or peer’s perception of you won’t change
Your strategic thinking abilities aren’t developed
Leadership skills aren’t exercised
Fear in trying out new or challenging experiences
Lack of opportunities to develop your own vision for a new future
No sense of the complexities involved in enabling change to happen

Patrick Corvington didn’t say this directly, but it’s clear to me that without stretch assignments, leadership is a long way off for the next generation of nonprofit leaders. What are some ways you have been stretched or wish you were able to stretch in your current nonprofit job?

Image courtesy Bikram Yoga