Reflections on Echoing Green’s Direct Impact Nonprofit Board Leadership Program

By Marion Ntiru, MLT MBA Prep (c/o 2006), University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business (c/o 2008)

As part of the inaugural Echoing Green Direct Impact class, I am thrilled to share a snippet of what my experience was, as this is definitely one partnership that MLT should continue to have with EG!

How do you bring to life learnings from 4 workshops, 2 retreats, a site visit, and lots of reading material? By having an improv-style mock Board meeting, of course! This is where I have to admit that improv theatre has never sounded like a fun night out to me, as I simply dread the thought of impromptu speaking… in public. However, I remained open-minded to the challenge seeing that I had no way out of it. As we launched into the “meeting,” I knew that I had to find a way to quickly insert myself into the fast flowing conversation, before someone randomly pulled me into a role I didn’t want.  Our “Board Chair” (who was one of the facilitators) wasted no time in throwing at us all the worst-case scenarios you could imagine at a Board meeting, such as:

• figuring out what to do about a burned out Executive Director who wanted a pay raise;
• succession planning;
• finding new ways to raise funds on a very short timeline;
• learning that we might be losing a key volunteer at one of our strongest programs; and
• a myriad of other problems that we had to tackle in 2 hours!

One of my key takeaways from that exercise and the 4 month program overall was that the ingredients to a high performing Board include trusting relationships among all Board members, open communication lines to the Executive Director, and a strong Board Chair. Having that foundation makes the “duty of care” “duty of loyalty,” and “duty of obedience” a little less burdensome!

Another takeaway was for me to not discount the kind of value I can add to a non-profit Board, coming from the private sector. There are so many metrics I take for granted in my day to day work that are hardly tracked in the non-profit space, so to be able to shed some light and provide some input in that area would be an incredible value-add. Personally, I enjoyed learning from the 10 other like-minded people in my cohort. The level of mindfulness, respect and enthusiasm they all brought to each session was contagious, and something I would love to bring to all of my team meetings! My site visit to El Salvador was memorable, and I enjoyed getting a glimpse of the history and culture of a country I knew little about beforehand.  We spent time with Contextos, and I was especially inspired by the founder, an Echoing Green Alumna who left Chicago to start her own student literacy organization there.

Above all, I learned more about myself in terms of my leadership style, and the causes that ignite a passion in me. I look forward to applying all of this to the next Board that I serve on!