Build your Best Board Spring 2024

Great boards aren’t created overnight. The board-building process involves careful recruitment, focused orientation, ongoing training, and a process for dealing with directors who are not meeting expectations. At a time when people are busier and boards are under increased scrutiny, board recruitment needs to be intentional, well-planned, and aligned with your strategic plan.

How do you work towards finding and retaining board members who have the skills you need and reflect the community you serve? It’s critical for your board to deliver on their responsibility to equity and ensure it has the right representation amongst board members to support your organization’s mission and future planning.

This session will help you plan a board development strategy.

• Board Recruitment and Succession Planning
• What do you need?
• How can you reach diverse candidates and ensure representation?
• How would you recruit for your board?
• How would you successfully retain board members?
• Embedding equity and inclusion
• What is the board’s role?
• How can you reflect your commitment to equity and inclusion?
• Onboarding
• Board orientation
• New board member engagement
• Retention
• How do you continue to engage and demonstrate appreciation for board members?
• The importance of mentorship and continued learning
• Annual Reviews and Evaluation
• For both the board and Executive Director/CEO

LEVEL: Intermediate

WHO SHOULD ATTEND?
Board Members, Executive Directors/CEOs, board support staff, and those interested in becoming volunteer board members who want to learn best practices around board recruitment, onboarding, retention, and how to embed equity into these processes.

Dharshi Lacey, Director of Inclusion Diversity Equity and Anti-Racism at the University of British Columbia; and

Mariam Waliji, Vice-President - Equity, Impact & Governance, Pillar Nonprofit Network 

​​Mariam Waliji is Vice-President - Equity, Impact & Governance at Pillar Nonprofit Network. She is passionate about connection -- whether with people, places, or the community. Her years studying evolutionary genetics and ecology sparked questions about how local food systems and restricted access to well-grown food impact society in multifaceted ways; this encouraged her to work towards addressing inequities and barriers to access more broadly in our current systems. Mariam’s work with Pillar Nonprofit Network, and specifically past work with WOSEN (Women of Ontario Social Enterprise Network), allows her to reframe the definition of success for social impact organizations while creating space to explore what it means to have an intentional, meaningful impact in the community in long-term and viable ways. Mariam’s experience and leadership as a Director of Urban Roots London uniquely equip her with the knowledge and skills required to understand nonprofit governance, social enterprise models, and community development work, a lens she brings with her to her work at Pillar Nonprofit Network.

Thank you to our 2024 Learning & Development Sponsors:

Western Continuing Studies and Fanshawe Employment and Student Entrepreneurial Services