Two weeks ago, I exhausted myself writing about board recruiting. (It’s an epic 5,000 word guide. Check it out if you haven’t yet.)

I decided it was time to put the shoe on the other foot. So you’ve been recruited for a board! That’s great. But just because you like the mission of the organization doesn’t mean you should automatically agree.

Here are six really good questions to ask the board member recruiting you to help you decide.

1. When are the meetings?

This is a basic question of whether you can join a board. If the regular monthly meetings are a direct conflict for you, you can’t join the board in good faith, no matter how much you want to.

2. How long is a board member’s term? Are there term limits?

Many boards have a term of service that is renewable at least once. Terms are often between two and four years, and are often renewable once or twice. This protects the nonprofit from having a board stagnate, but also gives the volunteer board member a clear expectation of their window of service. In other words, it gives them an out. Six or eight years on a board can burn out a volunteer. Terms and term limits let them exit gracefully.

Many boards don’t have term limits, which is not the worse thing in the world (in fact, it’s pretty common). But a board that doesn’t have any terms at all should be a red flag to a new board member.

3. How I am elected?

Many boards elect new members at the last meeting of the fiscal year, and then the new members attend the next meeting. There’s nothing unusual there. You’re elected, and you’re on.

Sometimes, though, members are elected only at special annual meeting with other “members” of the organization (as distinct from board members) who elect the board. Knowing whether you will need to be elected by the membership is useful. Knowing if this election is “competitive” is even more important. It’s good to know if you stand a chance of standing for the board and losing to someone else. Maybe you’ll want to run anyway, but this should not be a surprise. Ask.

4. Do you have D&O insurance?

Most nonprofits, even small ones, carry director and officers liability insurance on behalf of their board.

D&O insurance protects the board members from liability that might arise from doing their duty as a board member. If someone sues the nonprofit, and the nonprofit loses, instead of each board member having to pay their equal share, the insurance company steps in. The main exception is usually negligence.

Very small nonprofits may not carry it, though, so it’s worth asking about.

5. What documents can you give me to review before I decide?

It’s good to get your hands on whatever documents you can. Ask for the current budget, the most recent financial report given to board members, the bylaws, a strategic plan (if it exists), and the minutes and agendas from the last meeting or two. You’ll get a good sense from those documents of the business of the board and the nonprofit.

From those documents, here are some things to look for:

• How much money is in the bank? (This is on the balance sheet.) You can compare this to the monthly expenditures on the profit and loss statement and get a rough idea of how many “months of reserves” the nonprofit has. For example, a nonprofit with $20,000 in the bank and regular monthly expenses of $7,000 has slightly less than three months of reserves. This is a useful number to know, as it will give you a sense of how much time a nonprofit has to adapt to changing revenue or other surprises. At least three months of reserves is a good number to see. Less than a month should merit more questions. (There might be a good explanation.)
• Is there a strategic plan? Does it make sense to you? Many very small nonprofits might not have a strategic plan in writing, and that’s probably nothing to worry about. But the larger the nonprofit, the more you should expect to see one.
• Do the minutes and the agenda show that the board is doing work you are interested in and that a board should be doing? If the minutes shows that they spent a lot of time discussing and approving the design of the most recent marketing booklet—something that is pretty clearly not one of the primary tasks of a board, and likely shouldn’t even make it onto their agenda—then you may want to give a second thought before joining. It’s possible that the board doesn’t know what their primary tasks are. Again, ask for more information.

6. Do you like going to board meetings?

This is a sleeper question–whoever is nominating you won’t see it coming. You can tell a lot about how a board works together by the pause before the answer. A long hesitation, and that might be all you need to know about whether to join.

Except in very dire circumstances, being on a board should be enjoyable. There is a real camaraderie that can develop between board members. You have a common interest, and together you are forging a common vision for the nonprofit’s future. That will help you form new relationships that might last well beyond your term on the board.

If the work is good, and the people are good, being on a board can be a very rewarding experience.

I sincerely hope that the questions in this chapter will help you determine whether a particular board is the right place for you to experience that, and understand your role on the board. If you’d like to learn more about boards and nonprofits, please consider signing up to receive emails about For Small Nonprofits on topics like boards, fundraising, and marketing.