Bridging the Board-Staff Divide: Practical Ways to Engage Your Foundation Board, Nurture Learning, and Build Common Purpose

About

Do you struggle with being “ahead” of your board in knowledge and awareness? Are there shifts you want to make but are unable to act upon, to be more responsive to community needs, focus more, and leverage your resources beyond grants? You are not alone. Foundation staff who dedicate time engaging with the community and learning about needs and opportunities, find themselves isolated from their boards, and unable to take their foundation’s work to new levels of responsiveness and performance. 

Join two experienced foundation staff and your peers to confront the professional and personal challenges of navigating your roles as educator, advocate, and guide.  

Learn practical strategies for engaging your board members in a learning journey, helping them get closer to grantees, priority issues, and the community. Discover ways to help your board understand, with their own minds and hearts, the realities and opportunities that shape the landscape in which your foundation works.   

Two experienced staff from lean foundations will share strategies for getting their boards on board. Following, you will have an opportunity to exchange strategies and tips with peers in small groups. The program will include Q&A and a full-group share.     

By the end of this session, you will: 

• Become more aware that your board members have preferred learning styles, some learning best by reading and research while others favoring direct conversations with grantees and community members. Understand that learning and engagement should be tailored to board members’ individual needs. 
• Name ten strategies to engage board members in learning, from inviting grantees and community experts to talk with the board, to attending lectures and conferences together as board and staff, to board members engaging with trustees from other foundations.  

• Find peers who can support you in embracing your role as facilitator of board learning and engagement and honing the skills to be successful.