How are you doing? How is your organization doing?

As we navigate the challenges of COVID-19, many nonprofits are taking tactical steps to serve and survive: implementing anti-infection measures, working from home, moving programming online, taking a hard look at their budgets, and so forth.

In this new environment – which changes daily, and which we don’t fully understand – how can board members best support their organizations?

Here are five suggestions to clarify and prioritize the work of nonprofit boards, including yours.

1. Be compassionate

This is the first rule. If you’re a board member, be kind to staff. Reach out to your organization’s employees – either directly or through the board chair – and ask what they need.

It might be groceries or childcare or moral support. Do what you can.

Extend the same compassion to your fellow board members, especially if you serve an all-volunteer organization with no paid staff. You are the labor force; take care of each other.

2. Embrace useful technology

Last week I facilitated a board meeting via Zoom – a first for our organization. It was engaging, efficient, and productive. One board member, who hates driving through our Vermont winters, suggested we move all future meetings online.

However, a different trustee struggled to log in, despite coaching from staff, and couldn’t join us. Another – a confirmed techno-skeptic – was notably absent. The meeting proceeded, but we missed their voices.

In some communities, access to technology, including high-speed internet, is an equity issue. (FYI, transportation to and from in-person board meetings can also be an equity issue.) As you move your work online, pay attention to accessibility.

In this brave new world, board members – especially older ones – need to step up. Embrace and master the technology tools that allow you and your colleagues to work together without being in the same room.

3. Lean into the money

In times of uncertainty, nonprofit boards must double down on their roles as fiduciaries and fundraisers. Discuss how to use your reserves (if you have any), strategies to increase revenue, where to trim costs (if feasible), and how to open lines of credit as needed.

Give as much money as you can. Right now.

To survive and thrive, most organizations – maybe yours? – will require a bolder fundraising strategy that better engages your board.

For example, this is a great opportunity for board members to reach out to primary donors – sort the list and make assignments first. Check in with donors by phone or email, see how they’re doing, and discuss your organization’s plans. Be personal and proactive.

Warning: the fundraising-phobic will seize this crisis as an opportunity to throw sand into the gears. Stay positive and don’t panic. To quote the author Kim Klein, “Most people’s instinct is to cut expenses rather than raise money. Resist this impulse as much as possible.”

Here are two previous posts you might find helpful. Stay tuned for more on this topic.

How Raise Money After a Natural Disaster

Asking When Everyone Else Isn’t

4. Build partnerships

In times of uncertainty, we are more resilient together.

As you strengthen partnerships with peers and allies, does your board have a role? What does that look like? Do you have a board-to-board outreach strategy?

5. Ask yourselves: How is our mission relevant now?

When you’re ready and able, initiate a board-staff conversation about how current circumstances:

• Might change the way you think about your mission.
• Expose underlying social issues that affect the people and communities you serve.

Based on this conversation, do you need to think differently about your work?

After any natural disaster – wildfire, flood, hurricane – many nonprofits become informal social service providers, regardless of their normal niche. They help out – and that’s appropriate.

How will your organization show up? How do you engage effectively at this time while still honoring your mission?

Not our first crisis – won’t be our last

After 40 years with nonprofits, I’ve lived through the Dot-Com crash, 9-11, the Great Recession, and various natural disasters that devastate local communities and economies. The climate crisis amplifies many threats.

We are challenged and changed by these events. Yes, some organizations will not survive. But overall, the nonprofit community is really, really resilient. Our work morphs into different shapes. New opportunities open up and somehow we carry on.

I am super-curious to see how we are changed by this moment. What do you see now? What do you anticipate? Feel free to use the comments section below.

Be well, be strong.

With thanks to my colleague Sarah Clark, whose question inspired this post. Sarah works for the Institute for Conservation Leadership and serves on the board of the Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition.