We’re smart people, you and me.

If you’ve been a board member or staff executive for any period of time, you’ve been around the block a few times.

You’ve solved complicated problems on a shoestring. You’ve changed lives, and in some cases saved them.

You know things about life that most people don’t.

So why do so many nonprofit organizations reach a plateau and remain more or less the same for years on end?

Or struggle month to month to get by.

Yet others grow, adapt and change. Then do it again.

They evolve into something they couldn’t have imagined 5 years earlier.

Why don’t many of us take more risks and grow?

I can say for sure, it’s not simply intelligence or “rich friends.” They’re plenty of smart, rich people who fall into the former group.

I’ll never forget a small dinner party at my house recently where I was ranting about my favorite hot button nonprofit issue.

I was talking with my successful business owner friend Bob about the age old problem of nonprofits lacking the capacity to grow.

I spoke with great authority, a glass of cabernet in my hand, about the need for nonprofits to become profitable organizations in order to do more good.

Bob was perplexed. Growth is what all successful businesses owners think about and take action on every day. Otherwise, they’d be out of business.

He asked a few basic questions like – how much money would it take to solve the “big problem” or at least part of it?

If the reason businesses exist is to “increase profits”, or in the nonprofits case, change more lives, why don’t they do it?

How to do nonprofits manage to keep going?

If what these nonprofits are doing is valued by their community, what’s holding them back?

He was perplexed. It was clear to him that consumers pay for products they want, and in the nonprofit world, donors contribute to causes that they care about. Because that’s what they want. 

He even went on to say that if his favorite nonprofit made a cogent case for growth that made sense to him, he’d give a sizable amount in a heartbeat

What I have found is that individual people on most boards get it and want to move forward in this fashion.

They have the smarts, ideas, and talent to make something happen.

It’s the collective board that gets bogged down. Somehow, they don’t empower each other or hang in there working through differences to get to the breakthrough.

Think about this: Are the individual members on your board fulfilling their aspirations to create change?

Or are they just hanging out in safe status quo land?

When you recruit people to the board or high-level volunteers, do you look for people like Bob?

And when they get there, are they well utilized and doing the work that is best suited to them?

How can you intentionally build a board that has the ability and desire to grow?

Some action steps at a board meeting – be ready with a call to action (for individuals.)

• When inviting people to join your board, ask them about their personal aspirations? What do they care about most and why?
• Do this with current board members as well.
• Tease out (beyond the obvious) what other experiences, knowledge, and connections they have? Ask them how they would like to use them? Maybe it’s not what it appears to be.
• Establish governance practices that will utilize each person and the collective board. There are loads of resources to help you. Check out BoardSource.

One question to think about this weekend.

What are the possibilities if you better utilize the people you have and recruit new people that will challenge you?