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How to Build a More Effective Board

All theatres have a unique set of challenges. But a common denominator is that they must recruit good board members, train them well and keep them inspired. Here’s how some theatres are accomplishing those tasks . . .

By Steve Hirano

In 1980, the Manoa Valley Theatre in Honolulu was creating more drama behind the scenes than it was on the stage. The theatre’s volunteers, including its board of directors, were at the brink of mutiny and the organization was at a breaking point. “You couldn’t tell the smoke from the fire because people were so emotionally up in arms,” recounts Dwight Martin, producing director of the 150-seat community theatre.

Martin, who was hired during this crisis period, knew that the board needed some emotional nurturing, which is what he gave the members. “Just through showing a kinder, gentler, cooperative attitude, we were able to turn things around,” he says. Twenty-six years later, Martin still has challenges, including an ongoing operating deficit, but his board, the staff and the volunteers are committed to the success of the theatre.

Too often, however, theatre boards are as dysfunctional as an extended family in an HBO drama, resulting in inefficiency, high turnover, lackluster fund-raising and an overriding sense of negativity. Rather than pursuing the goals and mission of the theatre, the board gets stuck in the chronic wheel-spinning of crisis management.

This focus on the immediate needs of the theatre detracts from the board’s ability to look ahead, to create long-term strategies and initiate new programs that will solve many of the existing problems. Although the board may have a five-year plan in place, how much value does it have if it sits on the shelf collecting dust?

There’s hope, of course, for all boards to improve their performance and create an atmosphere in which the staff, volunteers and patrons are happy and eager to be involved in the theatre’s success. The key is to first admit that there is a problem and then to address the problem through board-building basics: proper member recruitment, training and inspiration.

Rules of engagement
The first step in putting together a new board or electing members of an existing board is to determine the skills, talents and connections that will help the theatre fulfill its mission and vision. “Get out a flip chart and start making a list of the skills you need—legal, financial, public relations and marketing, fundraising—and then find people to fill those roles,” says Jean Block, president of Jean Block Consulting, an adviser to non-profit groups on board development and planning.

Of particular importance, Block says, is finding people with financial backgrounds, such as CPAs and others with an understanding of fiscal controls. “There is federal legislation coming down the pike that will affect how all non-profits manage and govern themselves,” she says. “It will be incumbent on theatres to impose incredibly tight fiscal controls. They need to be very aggressive about finding people with a diversity of skills so that the business end of the theatre functions properly.”

Each theatre needs to decide what type of board best fits its unique requirements. Martin says the Manoa Valley Theatre formed its board 38 years ago with artists who were not blessed with much business sense. “As the organization evolved, we tried to load the board up the other way, with business people,” he says. “It’s a much clearer delineation of responsibilities.”

Manoa Valley currently has 29 board members but under the bylaws can have up to 35. With an operating budget of $750,000, vacancies on the board can make a significant difference to the theatre’s revenue base. Martin says board members must make a “meaningful” donation, be season subscribers and purchase tickets to the annual gala. The average overall contribution is about $2,000 per board member. “Adding another five members could be worth $10,000 to the bottom line,” he says.

Martin says the board is encouraged “to make new friends for us.” Profiling helps to define the types of individuals that are most coveted. Maintaining an ethnic strata is always important in Hawaii’s multi-ethnic community, but the emphasis these days is finding young, up-and-coming professionals. “We’re looking for people who are interested in getting involved in the community but are not already CEOs,” he says. Those older, more established types often are already allied with the Honolulu Symphony or the Hawaii Opera Theatre, he says.

The profiling also identifies types of businesses that add strategic value to the theatre, either in the form of corporate sponsorships or other less obvious benefits. For example, finding board members who are hoteliers, restaurant owners or airline executives can help to provide donations to the theatre’s annual silent auction event, Martin says.

Art vs. commerce
In addition to people with business skills and connections, theatre boards can benefit from having members who are artistically linked to their organization, such as directors, actors, set designers and backstage workers. In the case of theatres too small to have a paid staff, the board, almost by necessity, needs to have practitioners in addition to business folks. But the business part of the theatre still needs to be served.

“Because the board serves as the theatre’s staff, the first impulse when filling a board position is to find someone with a particular skill the theatre needs,” says Chris Mackowski, president emeritus of the Bradford Little Theatre in Bradford, Pa. “They’ll say, ‘Hey, we need someone who knows something about musicals’ or ‘We need someone with some tech expertise.’”

Although the theatre certainly needs access to people with those talents, it also needs to make sure that it has people on the board who are “well-connected in the community, who can raise money, recruit donors and volunteers, and open doors,” Mackowski says. When the artistic folks turn their backs on the business folks, they do so at their own peril. “A theatre is a business, and a theatre needs business-savvy people on its board,” he adds. The Bradford Little Theatre, which rents space from the University of Pittsburgh in Bradford, operates on an annual budget of approximately $17,000.

In larger, staff-managed theatres, the executive director needs to be aware of potentially conflicting philosophies (i.e., art vs. commerce) if the board has a mix of artistic and business members. “Both of these backgrounds can cause problems if the board isn’t properly recruited, oriented and trained to understand the role of the board in the stage of development in the theatre,” says Carole Ries, president and CEO of the Topeka Civic Theatre and Academy in Kansas.

Ries says board members who run small businesses, for example, can’t understand why the board doesn’t run the theatre like the bakery or grocery store they’re familiar with. “Those who come from programming understand the organization better than the business people, but may also have strong feelings about why the theatre is managed in a different way than they might, if they were in charge,” she explains.

In a worst-case scenario, this lack of understanding can lead to emotionally charged decisions, such as the summary termination of the executive director. “I believe this disconnect is often the cause of what we in community theatre management called a ‘board coup’ or ‘Saturday night massacre,’” Ries says.

The Topeka theatre has a 24-member board and an operating budget of just over $1 million. Ries says the theatre tries to balance the board based on the criteria of Wealth, Wisdom, Weight and Work. “We try to recruit board members from those who are already connected to our mission, but under ‘weight,’ we consider representatives of the major corporations in the city that have helped to fund us for many years,” she says.

Welcome aboard
Once a theatre elects a new member to the board, it needs to make sure that he or she understands the responsibilities of being a board member.

“Often they don’t know how powerful and important they are,” says Rod McCullough, managing director and director of development for the Des Moines Playhouse in Iowa. “When I was executive director at the Lincoln (Neb.) Community Playhouse, I used to remind the board about once a year that, at any given board meeting, if someone moved to close the place and sell the building, a majority vote could do just that.”

The orientation process is critical to the success and development of new board members. “It goes a long way to getting board members off on the right foot,” says Ries. At her theatre, the orientation is generally set up within two weeks after the election. “It’s usually held over lunch and kept to one hour,” she says. “It includes an overview of our mission and value statements and tries to teach new members how the theatre works and how things get done here.”

The orientation, which also includes a tour of the theatre, is attended by the board chair, the marketing director and, occasionally, a committee chair. “We also talk about what the board members can do to make the theatre more successful and offer an opportunity to go into more in-depth training individually,” Ries says.

Ries says another key to successful board immersion is to get new members immediately involved in committee work. “If we can do that, they will in all likelihood become good board members with a stronger link to and understanding of the mission of the organization,” she says.
At the Hartford Stage in Connecticut, which has an annual operating budget of about $8 million, newly elected board members receive a two-hour orientation that includes a general history of the theatre and background on the Hartford Stage, as well as brief reports from senior staff. “Everyone comes to the board with a different knowledge of the theatre,” says Michael Stotts, who recently joined the Hartford Stage as managing director. Specific information about the theatre, its financials and board responsibilities is contained in the board manual. “That’s really the bible,” he says.

Bored by the board?
Once a theatre has attracted and elected the right people to serve on the board, it needs to keep them interested and involved. Put another way, the experience of serving on the board should never grow stale. It’s up to the board president and the executive director to keep it fresh and interesting. Although board meetings tend to focus on business issues, they can be enlivened with artistic input.

At theatres where he previously worked, Stotts says he would invite an artist such as an actor, director or designer to talk about an upcoming play. “I might have the designer talk about the process of designing a set and go through the sketches with the board members,” he says. “Or we might have actors come in and do a scene from a play with a Q&A afterward.”

At the Manoa Valley Theatre, Martin organizes an annual grounds clean-up party to help clear the acre of land leased by the theatre. “Nearly half of the volunteers show up for this,” he says. “We all roll up our sleeves together.” Martin says these types of activities “break down the barriers in the distant past that have divided people.”

“We want to keep the board invigorated, happy and enthusiastic,” Martin says, adding that he has more than morale on his mind. “If they feel good about what they’re doing, that enthusiasm is going to be conveyed to whoever it is they’re soliciting.”

Jennifer Smith Turner, board president of Hartford Stage, says it’s important for board members to keep a reasonable balance between life and work. “Serving on the board can consume you,” she says. “It’s very easy to give up your nights and weekends.”

Smith Turner, a published poet and writer, has served on the Hartford board for 20 years and is finishing her third year as president. She says her volunteer work on the board is worth the effort, even if that means giving up an occasional night and weekend. “I’m a theatre person,” she says. “The reward is to see great artistry.”

Visit our Web exclusive at www.dramabiz.com to learn of the common recruiting pitfalls, how to audition potential board members and which are the right interview questions to ask.