Picking your board of directors is one of the most important decisions that you will ever make as a nonprofit leader. It's the decision that will decide whether you succeed or fail. There are many characteristics that you need to look for in members of your board, and I have outlined the five most important below.

Diversity Your board needs to have diversity.

A great board has several members that all have different backgrounds and ways of thinking. This creates checks and balances for your board that will help with making decisions.

Wealth An important component for a great board is that it has some wealthy people on it. Rich people hang out with other rich people, and this can come in pretty handy when you need to raise a lot of money for your cause, especially at the beginning.

Passion A great board is not just wealthy, but they have a lot of passion and belief in what your nonprofit does. They need to believe in your cause as much as you do. They must know that what they are doing is making a positive difference in the community and world.

Networking This goes back to what I said about how rich people hang out with other rich people. You need to make sure that your board members are great networkers. They need to be able to go to make good contacts, build rapport with people, and make friends. This seems easy, but not very many people have this ability.

"Can Do" Attitude And most important of all, they need to have a "Can Do" attitude. They need to be positive, optimistic, and enthusiastic about your nonprofit. They must be able to look at problems and challenges and be able to find a way to overcome them.

These five characteristics all seem pretty simple, but to find a board of directors where every member has all of these is very rare. An important point about finding people who have these characteristics is that you first have to be a person that has them. You aren't going to be able to recruit these people for your board, if you first don't practice them yourself.

I will leave you with this:
"Be the change you want to see" - Gandhi

Learn more about this author, Christopher Scott.
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