Nonprofit Tech Board Leadership 101 with Board.dev pt 2

Board.dev Co-Founder and CEO Alethea Hannemann on how to recruit tech leadership to join your nonprofit board, and why you should have tech leaders an/or a tech committee on your board helping your organization to grow and thrive.

In part 1, Alethea presents research on the benefits of board members with tech experience and gives two case studies. In part 2, she delves into how to recruit a tech-savvy board member and takes audience questions.

Do you have tech expertise on your nonprofit board?

Board.dev was founded to help nonprofits recruit and engage tech leaders for your board—so you can fully and responsibly harness the power of technology to maximize your impact. Board.dev also helps educate tech leaders from the for-profit world on the benefits of joining a board, and helps train them to help them be effective quickly in the nonprofit world.

Alethea Hannemann is the co-founder and CEO of Board.dev and an architect of the pro-bono service movement, with a career in nonprofits, investing, and advising. She will share Board.dev’s insights into the necessity of having board members fluent in tech and nonprofit needs, and how to build tech expertise on your board. 

Why tech board leadership? Why now?

Technology is increasingly a key differentiator for nonprofit performance, from operational efficiency to better service of the community. Yet too few nonprofits have the technology resources they need to achieve their missions.

Board service is a high-potential lever for tech capacity-building in social sector organizations. By placing a tech leader on your board, you bring a unique technology perspective to board conversations, add to your general business knowledge, and engage a valuable strategic technology planning partner to the CEO. Making technology risk and opportunity a regular topic at the highest levels of leadership can transform an organization, driving mission success and building greater support for the community.

As with all our webinars, this presentation is appropriate for an audience of varied IT experience.

Community IT is proudly vendor-agnostic and our webinars cover a range of topics and discussions. Webinars are never a sales pitch, always a way to share our knowledge with our community.

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Transcript

Carolyn Woodard: Welcome to this Community IT Webinar, the Nonprofit Tech Board Leadership 101 with Board.dev. My name is Carolyn Woodard. I'm the Outreach Director for Community IT and I'm the moderator today.

I would like to turn it over to Alethea to introduce herself and Board.dev.

Alethea Hannemann: I'm the Co-Founder and CEO of Board.dev. Board.dev is here to strengthen nonprofits by bringing tech expertise to the board level. 

Benefits to Board Members

Here you'll see some of the benefits that board members see from serving in a tech board role with a nonprofit.

Nonprofit leaders often ask us, really, does someone really want to do this and what are they getting out of this? Lots is the answer. In the middle, that impact column is the most important thing. That's why it's in the center. 

Tech professionals are really eager to engage in meaningful ways with nonprofits and missions in their communities. And they're excited to connect with your team. They're excited to help build out an organization. And they're excited to really advance a critical issue about which they are passionate. So that's number one.

But people also see really immense personal growth. They are using their skills in a new context. So learning about your business model and how you do what you do can be incredibly rewarding.

They are building strategy skills. There are many really talented tech professionals who will never set foot in a corporate boardroom. And to be able to do that with you is just incredibly helpful for them in building their strategy and their leadership skills. 

And then in terms of relationships, I mentioned connection earlier on. Connection is really important. They love meeting you and your team and maybe the stakeholders you serve. They love having something meaningful to talk about in their communities and really maybe mustering those people to support your mission as well. And they also learn so much and connect with their fellow board members. So just ample benefits.

Board service, when it works, is just incredibly rewarding for a tech professional. 

Focus Areas for Tech Professionals on Nonprofit Boards

So here on this slide, we want to, we are walking through some of the focus areas for a tech-focused board member or a tech governance committee, probably together. 

We recommend that folks build a tech governance committee if they're really serious about diving into technology at the board level. Or you could have an individual kind of steer these things as well. 

Some of the things you're going to be thinking about are the tech strategy, thinking about policy reviews and compliance, doing some risk assessments and cyber audits to make sure that you are all wrapped up tight and secure. 

Definitely going to be thinking about budget and the financial implications of technology.

They're going to help you think about those innovations and, you know, staying ahead, skating to where the puck is going. Knowing what's coming down, coming at you. They are going to help potentially understand the technology needs for stakeholders and help you think about your team in terms of a tech succession plan.

That can be super, super important, particularly when you have a tiny team. And they're going to just help you think about your overall IT governance framework. All of these things can be really useful at the board level.

Again, they're not necessarily doing the things, like they may not create the IT governance framework, but the right professional could really help you develop one that feels really powerful. 

Tips to Success
 

Thinking about how people get started, you know, the first six months is really critical for getting a tech board member up and running.

Here's some of the moments that we recommend, you know, the moments that matter. 

Number one, introduction and onboarding will look similar to what it looks like for other board members. You just want that person to make sure that they understand your organization, they've met your team, and they understand what your priorities are. 

But then these last two bullets are really unique to a tech board member coming on board. 

We have a tool called a technology governance assessment that helps you go through certain key areas of those four tech governance points, including risk management, tech planning, resourcing, and generative tech.

And going through those things, you can figure out what's a hotspot, what's an opportunity. You don't need to be experts in all of those areas, but where are some places you really want to dive in? And then ideally, this person, the tech board member is, you know, putting that together, compiling that report, finalizing it with nonprofit leadership or the tech leadership at the organization, and then presenting it to the rest of the board so that the board is bought in and everybody feels accountable and ready to go.

Case Study 2: LemonTree

We're going to get to how you can define and find a board member in just a couple of minutes, but I want to give you one more case study about how this looks in real life before we get there. 

This is an organization, another organization in the food space, completely different operating model. This is a small organization. They are five full-time staff at this point. Their program is all technology. 

They started out as kind of a Yelp for emergency food service, a listing system. Emergency food is a really hard system to find your way around if you are a person in need. Oftentimes food resources are operated out of church basements and there's no website or the website is out of date or you make a phone call and they're never there.

People sometimes find themselves going from spot to spot, because the place is closed when they said it would be open or they don't have any vegetarian protein or they require documentation that you don't have. Knowing all of these things is incredibly important. 

LemonTree (Food Helpline) started out by listing those resources.

They have since moved to be more of a helpline. They have a chat feature where you can chat in and say text in and say, okay, these are my hours that I'm available to go get food. And this is my location. What's out there for me? And they will counsel you on where to go get food. 

They also do the feedback loop. You can see a picture here on the left, a picture somebody shared of what they found at this food pantry, so that they're helping to increase the quality of those resources as well. 

You can imagine the tech resources that are required for that. 

LemonTree has been scaling really rapidly. They started in one city a couple years ago. Now they're in 18 cities serving more than 10,000 people a day, all of whom, may have spent hours on a bus only to get to a food pantry that was closed. They do really incredible work.

You'll see here that the top row, Alex on the left and Kasumi on the right, those are the co-founders of LemonTree. They are not technologists. They know about technology, but they're not engineers, they're not developers, and they haven't really built any tech tools.

But of course, their whole program was dependent on tech. They knew pretty early on that they were going to need some tech expertise at the board level. So they brought on Ratul, who's in the center at the bottom here. Ratul is a FinTech founder. He's launched several companies, has worked at large enterprises as well. 

When he came on board he really just accelerated them.

He was able to answer basic questions like, as their traffic increased, their website crashed a couple of times in a month. And they said, whoa, how bad is that? And he said, actually not that bad. Here are the fixes you need to invest in, you can investigate, but, you know, that's a common scaling challenge. Great, we're not going to worry too much about that. 

He helped mentor the developer that they ended up hiring to make sure that that person felt like they were learning and also that they were making good decisions.

He was also able to bring general business expertise about scaling and bringing on more clients while maintaining quality. Just really, really, again, I'm going to use the word transformative expertise and counsel that he was able to bring to LemonTree. And as I said, they've scaled immensely and done so in a way that really brings quality food and services to their non-profit, to the clients that they serve.

How to Find a Tech-Savvy Board Member? 

All right, so let's get to the fun stuff. How you find a tech board member. 

Number one, defining the tech leader that you need.

Carolyn dropped in the chat. You can check out our resource page. And that's really where you can find all of these tools.

As we jump into it, we want to hear from you whether you've tried to recruit a tech board member. And if so, how did you do it? 

Carolyn Woodard: Yeah, I'm curious about this too, because it's not like you can just Google them.

Alethea Hannemann: Right, right. “I need tech board member.”

Carolyn Woodard: Ask AI.

Alethea Hannemann: Exactly.

Carolyn Woodard: And I think that's so interesting, that story that you shared about LemonTree, because in the clients and nonprofits that I've interacted with, it seemed that a lot of the nonprofits that are very tech oriented, tech savvy, their founder was in that sphere. So, they were looking at whatever social problem they were interested in, and thinking like, how can tech help me tackle this? 

So that was a really interesting example of the people starting LemonTree, who kind of knew what they wanted to do, but they weren't technologists themselves. That wasn't their wheelhouse. They knew they had to have someone help them. 

Alethea Hannemann: I'll wait just a couple more minutes on the chat question. Nobody is sharing whether they've tried to recruit. So I'm going to...

Carolyn Woodard: Because some people said they had one. So I want to know.

Alethea Hannemann: I know. How did you do it?

Carolyn Woodard: Maybe that person found them.

Alethea Hannemann: Yeah. Well, the LemonTree story is even more interesting because both of both Kasumi and Alex started in the food space, so they were delivering physical meals, I believe through food rescue to schools in New York City. 

And then during the pandemic, they entirely pivoted, kind of closed for a while and then started doing this online tool because that proved way more useful than bringing actual physical meals. 

Carolyn Woodard: Sure.

Alethea Hannemann: So yeah, they started in a totally different domain.

Carolyn Woodard: But still solving a problem, like you were talking about that by the time you get there, it's not open. So trying to maximize for people who need the services, getting to a place that has what they need when it's available.

Alethea Hannemann: Yeah. It really is just a patchwork system. And for people who are low on time and resources anyways, it's really difficult.

All right. So we're seeing, “I've sourced from my personal network” in answer to the chat question about where you recruit tech-savvy board members. I would love to see more answers there. 

However, I will not delay indefinitely. Let's talk about how you can find tech leaders.  

Number one is starting to think about who you might need.

And on the left here, we've got some of the aspects that we encourage people to think about.  

Do you need someone in your area or could you have a virtual board member? 

What's the business stage? Sometimes people really want startup advisors or they want someone who's been in a larger enterprise. That's something you might have a preference on. Maybe they have some specific or they will need to have some specific expertise. 

Often, we don't encourage people to try to find a match with your tools and somebody's skill set just because they're not going to be doing the work. And sometimes having a sort of a helicoptered-up perspective can be helpful, but you might need a particular skill set. 

Their mindset, absolutely, a sort of consulting mindset and a curiosity about understanding your challenges and opportunities and how together you might solve them is really important.

And then of course, underlying this all is the mission match. It’s just critically important that they feel passionate about what you do. 

You are all tech folks, so these typical role tracks will probably sound familiar to you.

Three sort of archetypes that we see are product folks, the CIO (Chief Information Officer) type track. This doesn't mean they are a CIO, but they're on that track and can really help you think about security, for example. 

And then the CTO (Chief Technology Officer) track, which is more generalized. These are some of the key aspects you might think about. We've got a couple resources that will be helpful to you. 

There is a resource, a sample role description that can help you describe more about what you're looking for.

Even if you're not sharing that role description publicly, it's helpful for you to think about it so you can start evaluating folks. 

And then Carolyn just dropped in the link to our LinkedIn guide, which helps you look on LinkedIn to get, you know, beyond your network. You can use second and third connections or even beyond to find folks with the particular attributes that you are looking for. 

LinkedIn can be a great tool, ping someone with a message. You would be surprised how often people are super excited to be recruited for their expertise. 

Another resource I definitely want, you to know, if you're interested in this, is we want you on our roster.

Most of our placements right now are with big companies like those you see listed here, but we are always expanding our kind of roster and wait list of nonprofits, and would love to have you on there. 

So please scan this QR code. We've got a really basic intake form that will tell us a little bit about what you're looking for, so you can be on our list.

And then, here’s just a summary for the key steps of how you might do this. 

·      Number one, define your role as we discussed. 

·      Number two, ask existing board members.

·      You know, this meshes with what Mark said in the comments, that you've sourced from your personal network, people with whom you have worked or local friends. Board members might be able to help you with that as well. We do recommend that you search on LinkedIn.

·      If you've got existing volunteer lists, maybe these are folks who are already involved in your organization. Maybe you can ask them if they've got tech expertise. 

·      And then finally, reaching out to corporate partners or funders to see if there's anyone in their network who might be able to serve as a tech board member for you is a great way to find someone.

Conclusion: Nonprofit Tech Board Leadership 101 

All right, so finishing up, I want to make sure we have time for Q&A. You know, our website has a bunch of information about what we do and more information about how we partner with nonprofits. I’m really excited to hear from you if this feels like something that is on your priority list.

And we'd love to share more stories.

Carolyn Woodard: We're getting to Q&A. If you have a question for Alethea, while we have her and can ask her all of our questions. We do have one from registration, Alethea, I wonder if you could answer. 

How do you convey the opportunity for fractional technology support? My guess would be that means a virtual CIO or a part-time CIO?

Alethea Hannemann: Yeah, so is this kind of how you might source that person, do you think?

Carolyn Woodard: Whoever asks the question, if they're in here, go ahead and elaborate. But I think if people don't know a virtual CIO or a part-time CIO would be somebody filling that role, either outsourced or it could be someone doing it pro bono, but they would act as that chief information officer for the nonprofit, instead of hiring a full-time person. Do you have thoughts on that?

Alethea Hannemann: This sounds like a really interesting opportunity for someone. I should say tech professionals often get really intrigued by the particular challenges of a nonprofit, whether there are resource constraints or not. So I think this could be a really interesting opportunity for someone.

I would absolutely recommend LinkedIn for this. Do a post, see what you get. Try to be specific.

What you don't want to happen is to have a lot of interests and then have people who flake and go away after they've gotten into the conversation. That's the challenge with fractional advisory and certainly any pro bono.

And that's why one of the reasons board service can be really helpful. So you might want to say, just be clear - we're looking for a long-term advisor or something. You want somebody who's going to get to know you so that the recommendations they're making are contextualized for sure. 

But doing all of the same avenues we talked about for posting for a board member, you could absolutely do this for fractional IT support or technology support.

Carolyn Woodard: There also are companies and consultants who do this as well. It's something for if you're having difficulty hiring for that position. 

Because as we know, someone who has experience to be a CIO can make so much more money in the for-profit than a non-profit actually could ever offer them. But there are consultants who will do that. So you might look into that too, if that's something that you could afford better than a full-time person with the road skills.  

This next question, I want to also turn back out to the chat, because I'm sure that people in the audience also have some expertise and might be able to make some suggestions.

But the question is, what are the best resources for continuing professional development and training while in a non-profit IT role?

Alethea Hannemann: I love this question. Yeah, I'm really interested to see what people share in the chat. I mean, I'm a huge fan of organizations like NTEN, for example. 

I also think, yeah, LinkedIn Learning is great. 

This is an interesting case where more funders are talking about technology education for their grantees. So that something like peer to peer research might be interesting. Where are your peers getting their professional development? Or what do they want professional development in? You might be able to go in with someone on a training for your team, for example. 

And, oh, yeah, The Human Stack is also really great.  

But again, I would highlight asking funders for support to do this specifically. We want funders to start to recognize that staying up to date in technology is critical and that nonprofits need resources to do that.

That feels like a really important thing to do.

Carolyn Woodard: And I think with the gaining popularity of trust-based philanthropy, you do have some funders who are really working with grantees to partner with them of where their needs are and what resources they need to be able to address those needs. 

In many situations, if you can be really open with your funder about this need, they may also be able to put you in touch with their network. 

Alethea Hannemann: Yes.

Learning Objectives: Nonprofit Tech Board Leadership 101
 

Carolyn Woodard: I think we can move to go back over the learning objectives, which I feel like we just hit all of these. So, thank you so much, Alethea. 

·      We wanted to increase our understanding of tech governance generally and tech board leadership, which you did a great job walking us through. And I love all that research as well. That was another reason I wanted to have you come on our webinar and just tell us a little bit more about all of that research and data that backs this up. 

·      We wanted to learn how tech board leaders can help increase your organization's tech capability, capacity. 

·      Identify the profile of a board leader you need, and how to find them. You have a lot more resources on your website as well. People can reach out to you for that. 

·      And then learn about the Board.dev of tech governance assessment and how to move forward.

And I think that is the QR code, Alethea. Just get in touch with you.

Alethea Hannemann: Yeah, that's where to start.

Carolyn Woodard: Sounds great. All right, well, I'm going to then let you all know that I'm so excited to invite you back next month for a new cybersecurity webinar on how to do what's called a cybersecurity tabletop exercise. And I feel like this kind of dovetails right in with what we were just talking about, of how a tech savvy board member helping your executives can help them prioritize something like this. 

If you don't know what a tabletop exercise is, it's kind of like a choose your own adventure a little bit. If you have a disaster response plan or cybersecurity, more specific response plan, it's an exercise to go through that before you're having an actual emergency. You go through and you have these scenarios and you try to figure out where you have gaps or risks. Maybe you have a single point of contact and if that person's on vacation, your whole response plan is out the window.

You can do a tabletop exercise annually, quarterly, whatever makes sense for your organization, and it helps just prepare your response to a crisis, which given the way cybersecurity is going nowadays, it might be a when, not if you're going to be a victim. 

Our CTO, Matt Eshleman, who is also our cybersecurity guru, is going to walk through how you do this type of exercise and how to get your board maybe to support you or your executives to make time for it. If you don't know what it is, we're going to go through it. If you're an old hand at them, you've done them before, we would love to have you in this webinar and help share some resources and expertise. So please join us next month. That's going to be on Wednesday, July 23rd from 3 p.m. Eastern noon Pacific. You can register on our website right now. That's communityit.com. You can check out all of our previous webinars at communityit.com/webinars. And you can register for next month and then for all of our monthly webinars coming up. 

So, Alethea, I just wanted to thank you again so much for coming and sharing this presentation with our audience. I feel like I learned so much more about boards and the interaction with them and how this can be just a game changer for your nonprofit to have someone that you trust who has this position of some authority and can talk to your executives, kind of in your corner for IT strategy and cybersecurity and all the other things that we've been talking about.

I just want to thank you again for coming and spending your time with us. I want to thank everybody who joined us this afternoon. It was an hour of your time. We really appreciate it. We know you have a lot of other things you could be doing. So, it was a gift to spend this time with us and we really want to thank you for it.

Thank you so much, Alethea. Thank you. 

Alethea Hannemann: Thank you for having me. It’s really great to learn more about what you do as well. Thanks to all the folks who joined and good luck.

Carolyn Woodard: Thank you. Thanks, everyone.

Alethea Hannemann: Take care.