April 23, 2007 | Read Time: 1 minute
Mike Burns, a Connecticut strategic-planning consultant, questions the effectiveness of Web sites that attempt to help nonprofit groups find volunteers who are willing to serve on their boards.
Writing on his blog, Nonprofit Board Crisis, Mr. Burns says building a board is about building relationships. Finding volunteers through Web sites seemingly runs counter to that concept.
“Generally good recruitment for anyone is about networking,” Mr. Burns writes. “And there’s kinda this kind of chicken/egg problem with recruitment. If you don’t have really well connected, rich or smart people already at the table and that’s who you need to begin with, how do you get them and still be the exec doing the work of the exec. And that does suggest then that the work of nonprofit board recruitment is the work of the board.”
Has your nonprofit organization used online tools to attempt to find potential board members? If so, does the practice work? Click on the comments link just below this posting to share your experiences.
