New Board Member Orientation

Are you conducting a board orientation each year for your new members?

If not, you should.

Each year we welcome up to one third new members to our boards.

It doesn’t take long (three to six years, depending on your board terms) before you have a completely new board (not counting your executive committee).

I believe it’s imperative to keep all board members on the same page and a new board member orientation is a great way to do that.

Your orientation should be prior to their first board meeting and should contain all the relevant collaterals that paint a picture of the chamber and the organizations work. Some of those materials might be:

• Chamber Bylaws;
• Board member job description;
• Board minutes from the past year;
• The chamber’s last annual report and audited financial statement;
• Strategic Plan;
• Dates of all upcoming board meetings and major events for the year;
• A current list of all board members and their terms; and
• A scorecard to measure board member involvement.

These are just a few suggestions. It’s important that you add what works best for your chamber. Setting the expectation up front concerning your board members involvement in the organization is just good business.

An informed board member will be an active board member.

Start that new board member orientation today!

For a list of best practices of board member orientations go HERE.  For an anatomy of a board orientation from Bob Harris, CAE go HERE.

And for one more great resource on board orientations by The Bridgespan Group go HERE.