Social Justice Deserves More Than a Volunteer Boss Model, Actually (A Riddle)

Congrats, you’re the boss– or if you’re like my former colleague trying to pay me a compliment: “El Jefe.” (Others just go straight to the tried and true: “Professor Badass.”) How did you get this position and what is it? Well, here are some clues:

• You meet four times a year to make major decisions about the fate of an organization that addresses a vital issue in your community. (Alternatively, you seem to meet all the time and wonder if it’s just too much.)
• Your total time commitment was supposed to be about eight hours annually– or it’s taking over your life. (We love extremes in nonprofit!)
• If you’re balking at the eight hours assertion, try this on: You randomly find yourself sucked into the vortex of the organization when things go wrong and it always seems untenable to keep the position. You’ve lost track of how many hours you’ve thrown at this thing, and a lot of them don’t feel productive.
• You share the job with maybe 12 other people who contribute as they can. You don’t necessarily remember the names of all the other people and you wouldn’t always choose to spend time with them, but here, you are, managing the fate of an issue together.
• Through this position, you recently picked up some new skills that you never wanted. For example, you can now say that the person you supervise asked you to speak to one of the other volunteer bosses about whether he was wearing pants on the last Zoom call. (This is one reason why you think meeting in person might be a good way to go, but admittedly, you’re tired and this job seems to begin at 7pm.)
• You scowl across the Zoom screen or some stale Costco cookies, if you’re meeting in person, about the other volunteer bosses who don’t seem as bothered by this assignment. You’ve heard that 2/3 of volunteer bosses in this role aren’t very helpful. You learned that at the training the others were supposed to attend, but didn’t. You wonder if they read your notes.
• Technically, you manage a person who seems mildly irritated every time you reach out, or who seems to skip ahead to a sing-songy monologue about your “time, treasure, and talents.”
• You’re in charge of strategy, or so you’ve been told somewhere.
• You often wonder if a new strategic plan or comms strategy would really get this thing thriving.
• Every once in a while, the person you manage or someone they manage, asks you for money. You try to repeat that time-treasure-talents song to them but they ask again. You’re puzzled about why that Triple T has no reverse Uno power.
• Your rate of opening emails from that entity is about 50% or it’s 100% but there are so many messages that don’t seem all that helpful. It was in this position that you first really felt the meaning of TLDR deep in your bones. You suggested a way better than email or a calendar to receive information, but you admit that getting it in haiku or by text didn’t make it easier to read.
• You have been accused of asking for more engaging information, less information, no information, or just the facts, ma’am.
• If you founded the thing, you worry about what will happen if you let go. You’re convinced (granted, from the facts) that you’re carrying the effort.
• You have a binder somewhere that has documents in it. You’re not sure when it was last updated. Taking it home seemed like a fine idea at the time. You now wonder if portals are as magical as everyone says.
• Every time you see the person you supervise, you apologize and/or explain. You feel rushed. You meant well. Somehow, you’ve had this conversation for several years. You will do better. You feel it in your bones in summer. By mid-fall, you’re just roasting a marshmallow over the embers of that last confusing meeting. Thankfully, they seem to be doing fine. Or maybe they aren’t doing well, but you’re not sure how to deal with it right now.
• You don’t get evaluated in your role. You definitely feel some judgment, but it’s not like anyone has ever given you a review at this place. Why would they? You don’t make any money from this job.
• You might not have work experience related to the field, but you are here because you showed interest. Alternatively, you do have work experience in the field and you want to just take the wheel because there’s only a certain level of dysfunction that seems endearing.
• You haven’t completed any training like you do at your day job– no sexual harassment videos, no review of your job duties, no orientation to what the entity does. It’s both liberating and probably in violation of your insurance. Oh, do you have adequate insurance? You’ll add that to the list.
• You think about finding other volunteer bosses for this bizarre, high-stakes job-share, but you like your friends too much and you worry that if you invited anyone to this place, they might have more questions than you feel like processing. However, your friends or acquaintances are probably the easiest people to enlist. When you do recruit, you consider looking for people with certain credentials, such as HR, legal, finance, and marketing. Maybe there’s a way to take all the positions you can’t afford to staff in this organization and get volunteers for the roles? Then you realize that once they join you, they’re also volunteer bosses who need to wade through that orientation binder last updated in the 20th century.
• Your intentions were always good. Let’s be clear about that. Somehow, you stayed with this organization and what happens next is you’re the Chair or President. It feels somewhat inevitable, like how my mom told me when I was in middle school that I couldn’t quit clubs until I completed all the elected officer roles.
• You find the binder to see if there are term limits. You look for a chart that will help you remember when you first got involved with the organization. You’re not going to abandon it per se. You just don’t feel great about what was supposed to be meaningful service. There are some good memories when you felt needed, proud, or insightful, but often, you are tired and feel like someone else would do this better.

Congrats, my friend, you’re a nonprofit Board member! We are grateful for your service, but wow, we need to support you better. The examples above are extreme and cheeky, but if one or more of them resonate, you’re not alone. In no other sector besides nonprofits would volunteer bosses be a thing, yet we rest the fates of organizations that can’t meet payroll or have millions of dollars on volunteers who cycle on at different times, don’t often know each other or the organization well, and must balance their service with all the other demands of life. They join because they care about an issue or place, or have talents and skills to share. Often, we don’t give Boards a proper orientation, skills for relationship-building with their executive directors, or milestones for progress. We praise Boards for being in the trenches and also hands-off, yet neither extreme is where nonprofits need their governance to be.

If you’re a Board member– what has saved you from ticking off many of the items on this list? If you have ideas for future posts about how to make nonprofit Board service less painful, reach out to me: carrie@justice-studio.com. I have ideas for WA-based nonprofits which I will share in future posts.

My Disclaimer: Justice, Actually is a blog, not a substitute for legal advice. Given that it is written by an attorney, you can safely assume it’s also a form of creative expression and a bit of advertising.