Raise Your Voice Blog | Nicole Clark Consulting

4 Jan, 2023

Ask Nicole: What To Do with Ineffective Board Members?

By Nicole Clark, LMSW|2023-01-23T19:53:51-05:00January 4th, 2023|Categories: Strategic Planning & Sustainability|Tags: Ask Nicole, Board Members, Board of Directors, Staff|0 Comments

*Have a question you’d like to be featured? Let me know.*

The board of directors is a governing body for an incorporated organization, consisting of individuals that provide strategic governance and support to an organization’s leader, staff, and stakeholders.

Here in the United States, in order to maintain 501(c)3 nonprofit status, an organization needs to have a functioning board. And, unfortunately, inactive and ineffective boards are pretty common in the nonprofit world.

I’ve experienced various board dynamics, both within my consulting role and as a board member for a few nonprofits over the years. I’m fortunate to have served on boards with members dedicated to serving in this capacity and care about organizational mission. However, even with my personal experiences and my interaction with boards in my projects, I’ve noticed quirks among boards that are confusing at best but can also be detrimental to staff if not checked.

While its considered an honor to serve on a board, the decisions a board makes can positively or negatively impact how staff carry out the organization’s mission.

So, how much of this is the fault of the board, and how much rests on the shoulders of the organizations that invite them to serve? Below are 10 things I’ve noticed, and how to spot them in your board:

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24 Aug, 2022

Try This: Assess Staff & Board Buy-In

By Nicole Clark, LMSW|2022-08-22T13:24:01-04:00August 24th, 2022|Categories: Strategic Planning & Sustainability|Tags: Board of Directors, Staff, Stakeholders, Try This|0 Comments

Try this and let me know how it goes for you.

This post is a follow up to What’s in it for Me? Evaluating Stakeholder Engagement, where I shared, “If [the question] “What’s in it for me?” sounds self-serving, it’s because it is. In order to increase engagement, communities and the people driving the actions to produce change should easily see how their involvement leads to the change they wish to see.”

In other words, what you’re asking them to do not only has to make sense, but has to be worth it for them.

In theory, as their leader, what you should say goes, right? These days, this isn’t without a lot of push back.

In an ideal situation, you wouldn’t have to convince staff and board that what you want to happen matters. I’m sure it’s frustration when you experience the push back.

I recently finished a project where I observed that the executive director cared about that the process than staff and partners did.

Well, I could tell they understood the importance of the project and how it could support their work, but there was major hesitancy.

Let’s explore getting your staff, board (and anyone else that’s important to your project) on board.

This activity is ideal for:

Board of directors, staff, and other stakeholders expected to participate in this project

Here’s what you’ll need:

Schedule time for this activity, where you can work with minimal interruption. Make sure to schedule breaks!
Whatever setup you use to capture your process (laptop, pen and paper, whiteboard, etc.). Make sure it’s kept in a place that you can refer back to

The steps:

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17 Aug, 2022

Let’s Build a Partnership

By Nicole Clark, LMSW|2023-03-22T19:17:12-04:00August 17th, 2022|Categories: Strategic Planning & Sustainability|Tags: Capacity Building, Partnerships, Sustainability|0 Comments

Recently, the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) published data on the 2022 pass rate for the ASWB licensing exam. The analysis concluded major disparities in pass rates for Black test takers, older adults, and other marginalized groups.

The data were published as a result of years of advocacy and pressure from the National Association of Social Workers, schools of social work, other social work organizations, and individual test takers. Previously, data on pass rates were never released.

I’ve shared my experience with preparing for the licensing exam before, and while majority of test takers pass this exam on the first try, questions about the fail rates were enough to warrant looking into this. Lack of social work licensure can result is loss of job opportunities for many social workers, so it makes sense to explore why these disparities continue to exist.

This is an example of bringing together a group of individuals who care about an issue, and work together to address it. Test takers, professors, licensing exam prep experts, exam test question writers, and more were all needed for this process.

Part of my role as a facilitator includes facilitating partnership meetings.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) identifies a partnership as “organizations that share a common focus and combine resources to implement joint activities, avoid[ing] duplication of effort, ensuring synergy of resources, and enhanc[ing] overall leadership.” From my viewpoint, this also includes individuals who may not be part of an organization but hold a significant amount of knowledge, power, and connections.

Partnerships may develop in response to an emerging issue (such as disparities in test taking scores) and ideally, you’re bringing together individuals that care about the impact of this emerging issue.

A tricky aspect of building a partnership includes understanding the partnership’s purpose and selecting the appropriate individuals and organizations. Every entity mentioned in the licensing example plays a pivotal role in how students prepare for this exam and how the exam is written and administered.

Another aspect of building a partnership is understanding that, while everyone cares deeply about the issue, they have their own ideas for addressing it.

So, how do we bring together various important perspectives to reach a common goal? Here are seven questions to consider for building a partnership:

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3 Aug, 2022

Ask Nicole: Trust & the Client-Consultant Relationship

By Nicole Clark, LMSW|2022-08-02T22:35:30-04:00August 3rd, 2022|Categories: Consulting|Tags: Advice, Ask Nicole, Client Relationships|0 Comments

A year or so before leaving my old agency, I conducted an intake assessment with a new client. They were in their early twenties and presented as a young man. They were soon assigned to my caseload, and after a few appointments together, they arrived unannounced to the office and asked for me.

When I got the call from the receptionist, I didn’t recognize the client’s name, and after combing through my electronic records, I couldn’t find them in our electronic charts.

The client somehow knew my name and insisted with the receptionist that I was her social worker. After speaking with my supervisor, we both walked to the waiting area.

As we got closer to the waiting area, I saw a young woman standing at the reception desk. She turned to looked at me and waived.

And I realized who she was.

After we sat down at my desk, I said, “Well…you look differently from the last time I saw you.”

She laughed, saying, “I wanted to get to know you first before I felt comfortable showing you who I really am.”

The client was a young transgender woman, and at this meeting she presented as such and shared her transition story with me.

This was one example of many I experienced, where the key takeaway was understanding that important information may not be revealed at the onset.

When we look at our familial, social, work, and romantic relationships, some people know certain information compared to others.

But at the start of my social work career, this frustrated me, as it felt I had to do a lot of digging in order to provide appropriate care.

But you can’t rush trust building.

How I engage with client organizations today is pretty similar to how I engaged with individual clients.

And as a consultant, you won’t know how the relationship with the client organization will go until you’re on the project. And like the takeaway above, important information may not be revealed initially.

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27 Jul, 2022

A Project is Never Just a Project

By Nicole Clark, LMSW|2022-07-25T13:28:41-04:00July 27th, 2022|Categories: Consulting|Tags: Collaboration, consulting, Staff Dynamics|0 Comments

I’m partnering with a health policy research firm on a multiyear contract to support a philanthropic foundation’s work in increasing its ability to thoughtfully invest in community-driven birth equity solutions.

A month ago, while administering a pre-assessment in preparation for a staff training, my project partners and I noticed how staff were responding to the assessment questions. There were a variety of concerns, mostly around how this initiative will impact their work, addressing power dynamics in moving the work forward, and having more of a voice in the planning and implementation of interventions.

Instead of moving forward, we asked for additional time to develop the training in a way that gives staff the opportunity to address this concerns.

From a project management perspective, you try avoiding delays, but in cases such as this, they’re necessary.

A project is never just a project. It operates under many dynamics, both internal and external, that can impact its success.

Because of this, organizations have to look at their programming within the totality of everyone and everything that’s involved.

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Ask Nicole: What To Do with Ineffective Board Members?

Try This: Assess Staff & Board Buy-In

Let’s Build a Partnership

Ask Nicole: Trust & the Client-Consultant Relationship

A Project is Never Just a Project

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