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Recruiting, Interviewing and Auditioning Board Members
A continuation of “How to Build a More Effective Board,” Get the tips you need to make sure you pick the right board member.


Common recruiting pitfalls
Bringing the right people into the fold requires common sense and sensibility. For example, “friends” of the managing or artistic director should not be given any special preference. “When asked, I am always happy to listen to names and give my input, but I have always felt that it was important for the community to feel that the board was selected by the ‘community’ rather than the ‘staff,’” says Timothy Jebsen, executive director of the Midland Community Theatre in Texas.

Jebsen, however, will get involved in recruiting if the process needs some shoring up.

“Certainly, if the board is heading in the wrong direction with their selections, there should be a meeting of the executive director and the nominating committee to discuss the overall goals and direction of the organization and how the board can work with the staff to accomplish these goals,” he says.

Jebsen’s organization has three theatres—the Davis Theatre 1 (485 seats), Mabee Theatre II (155 seats) and the Yucca Theatre (500 seats)—with an annual operating budget of just over $1 million. The bylaws state that the board should have between 13 and 19 members. “We generally try to keep a full slate of 19, but don’t panic if we lose one in the middle of the year,” Jebsen says.

Mackowski advises against allowing married couples to serve on the board concurrently. As you might guess, his recommendation is based on experience. “Several times I’ve been on boards where there have been married couples,” he says. “We had that happen twice with BLT (Bradford Little Theatre), and we’ve made it unofficial policy not to let it happen again. For some reason, things just spiraled downhill in both cases because the spouses would stick up for each other out of loyalty, and it made it nearly impossible for any sort of rational, logical discussion to take place.”

Auditions for members
Rather than inviting interested parties to join the board directly, some theatres prefer to give the person a tryout by first appointing him or her to a committee. The Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., used this strategy to find and qualify a board member with marketing expertise.

Mark Shugoll, who’s now president-elect of the board, says he was first invited to sit on a committee that oversees marketing and communications. Shugoll, chief executive of Shugoll Research, a market research firm in Bethesda, Md., says the committee experience was a positive one. “My background in arts marketing and marketing research proved beneficial to the theatre and, after a few years, I was asked to join the board,” he says.

Not only did the committee experience provide the board with an idea of whether Shugoll was right for the board, it also provided Shugoll with an idea about whether he wanted to join the board. “This tryout was particularly valuable for me, because it helped me decide whether I wanted to have a deeper relationship with the theatre,” he says.

Another theatre that will put potential board members on committees is Portland Center Stage in Oregon. Prospects are interviewed by at least one governance committee member accompanied by either the artistic director or managing director. Edith Love, managing director, says board requirements and expectations “are carefully described to each potential board member.”

This careful rendering of expectations can help reduce the number of board members who quit in mid-term. “Too often, they didn’t know what they were getting into,” says consultant Block.

Prospective board members who aren’t tested on committees should undergo “auditions” for a position on the board, says Twink Lynch, an expert on board development whose book Boards in the Spotlight is an indispensable resource for community theatres (available for purchase at www.aact.org). Lynch recommends that prospects undergo two interviews: the first for preliminary determination of possible mutual interest and available skills and the second for an invitation to serve.

The exploratory interview, Lynch says, should solicit answers to the following questions:


Lynch says the nominating committee members who conduct the initial interview should also be prepared to answer questions from the prospect on the general financial condition of the theatre, the fundraising program, the role of the paid staff and long-range plans.

To read the whole story, “How to Build a More Effective Board” click here.

 

 

 

 

 

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