Building Your Board: Look for Qualities, Then Names

One observation I have made is that many nominating committees go about this in the wrong way: They begin their deliberations with names of possible new board members, instead of ending with that. The very first thing a nominating (or governance, or board-development) committee should do is to start with a blank slate and develop a list of skill sets, personal attributes, and qualifications that it believes the board needs. This will vary somewhat depending perhaps on the size of the orchestra: In smaller ones the board may well be expected to do some of the work (marketing, for example) that larger orchestras assign to paid staff. So here are some of the specifics that such a list might include. This is not meant to be a complete list--I'm not going to do all your work for you--and these items are in no particular order:

Significant financial resources
Access to financial resources
Marketing skills
PR skills
Fund-raising skills
Willingness to fund-raise
Legal experience
Nonprofit governance experience
Musical knowledge
Knowledge of the community
Political connections
Connections to diverse communities
Experience in education
Finance and accounting expertise

And there are others--different orchestras would develop different lists. But the point is that you think carefully about your list, about what skills, experiences, and qualifications you need on your board.

Your next step is to rate every current board member, perhaps on a one-to-five scale, in each of the areas you've developed. The purpose of this is not to make a report card for each person on your board. It is to see where the board has sufficient strength and where it does not. You don't need seven people with marketing skills and no one who is willing to fund-raise!  

Once the nominating committee (and I'll keep using that name, even if yours is called the governance or board-development committee) identifies the areas that need strengthening, only then  is it time to consider the names of people who can strengthen those specific areas. The ideal board is one that has worked hard and diligently at achieving a good balance among all of the attributes that it requires to do its work.

Do board members all have to have a deep knowledge of music, or an ability to identify which Bruckner symphony is playing at the moment? No, although it is surely a good thing if some of them do. Perhaps the most important asset of a board member is a deeply held belief that the orchestra is crucial to your community. A passionate belief in the work of the orchestra is a must.

Along with that belief--and along with some of the skill sets or qualifications noted above--there is one other really important trait required of board members: They work and play well with others. The passionate, dedicated, even generous board member who derails meetings, who cannot join a consensus because he must get his way, or who detracts from a big-picture discussion by focusing on small details--"shouldn't the subscription brochure have been blue? Who decided it should be red? That's the wrong color"--this is not a healthy board member.

The more experience I get, the more I realize that for a board to function well, and to create the climate of success in which the orchestra can thrive, board meetings must be meaningful. They must discuss questions that really matter, and must have about them an atmosphere of constructive work. Anything detrimental to that end--even a disruptive board member--needs to be removed from the board. I have actually been asked, more than once, how much of an annual contribution makes it worthwhile to put up with a disruptive board member who makes meetings uncomfortable. My answer is that there is no financial contribution big enough to compensate for the damage done by such a personality. It takes courage for nominating committees to do their work properly, to evaluate the total picture of a board member's contributions to the orchestra--intellectual, financial, emotional, spiritual. But that is the only way to ensure a well-functioning, strong, healthy board of directors.