Archive for May, 2009

I have sponsored our Divisional Commander in our Rotary Club which consists of over 500 members, the 5th largest Club in the world.  I take every opportunity to sit with her and introduce her to other Club members.  Most of the business and community leaders in our city belong to this Club so it is excellent exposure and a good way to develop relationships.  It is also good to include your Officer in any community events you are attending. 

Go through your rolodex and see who you might be able to set up an appointment with to make introductions.  We just had one last week with a person we had never before met with.  We sat around the table just to talk.  I told this philanthropist we wanted to get to know her, we wanted her to know us and also to know what we were doing.  She was shocked to learn that we administer 26 programs with an annual budget of $35 million.  We had agreed to a one hour appointment so at the end of the hour I thanked her for her time and she willingly agreed to a second visit. 

Try it, you’ll like it!  And you may even make a new friend for the Army.

I’ve been very blessed in being able to serve on the San Francisco Advisory Board for the past 12 years, including 5 as chair; and on the National Advisory Board for the past 7 years, where I chair the Advisory Board Development and Human Resources Committee and serve on the Executive Committee.

Local service provides the opportunity to plan and achieve goals for programs best fitting your own community: working on a capital campaign to expand facilities; ringing bells at Christmas; helping gather and distribute toys and food during holidays; supporting back-to-school and camping program assistance; and of course representing your community to the Army and the Army to your community to bring them into closer alignment.

Nationally, we have the chance to look at the “big picture” across communities, to strategize on ways to help the Army as whole Do the Most Good everywhere. Our Advisory Board Development and Human Resources Committee looks at Best Practices across the country to help different locales learn about and replicate ideas that have been demonstrated to work well. Currently, for example, we’re looking at how the Army and other organizations are getting youth involved, to help make sure that these new generations look to the Army to fulfill their desire to serve others. Other committees help the Army communicate its message efficiently and effectively across the country, in such efforts as the adoption of “Doing the Most Good;” work on helping the Army make the best use of technology; oversee the Army’s finances and tangible resources; and, probably most familiar to Advisory Board members nationally, produce the quadrennial National Advisory Organizations Conference (NAOC).

The one constant across both levels of boards is the incredible importance and effectiveness of Strategic Planning. Having a strong strategic planning process in place in San Francisco enabled us to respond to the opportunity to open the first of the new Kroc Centers built from Joan Kroc’s generous bequest. Nationally, we’re currently in the midst of an extremely far-reaching Strategic Planning process that we hope will help the National Board support the Army in continuing to serve as “the most effective organization in the United States” well into the 21st century.

Perhaps the most personally satisfying aspect of service on the National Advisory Board is the opportunity afforded by each of our three annual meetings being held in a different community — being able to see first-hand the incredible diversity and adaptability of the Army’s service in each site we visit. The ability of Army corps to be able to provide the services best meeting their own communities highlights the genius of the Army’s structure: with decisions on services devolved to the Officers on-the-ground, all clearly and strongly united in Mission.

There are many possible answers to this important question.

May I suggest just two of them to get you started, we can discuss these in more detail as you wish.

First, we must make sure that the board clearly understands exactly who (and what) is the Salvation Army.  In our initial training of new board members we immediately indicate that the Army is actually a church; an evangelical, Wesleyan, Protestant church. 

We then go into a very brief discussion as to the overall structure of the Army, how this filters down through the Territorial level, then the Divisional level, and finally to our own corps.  Next we explain to the members exactly what programs we provide, and how we implement these.  We walk them physically through the various programs and introduce the program directors.  At each monthly meeting we have a 15 minute summary presentation detailing one of our local programs.

Having accomplished at least a minimum background into the Army, global and local, we are ready to put the member into action.

That brings us to the second part of the answer.  We immediately assign the new member to a committee (or committees) and we get them involved physically and emotionally in the work of our local corps.  We also emphasize multiple reporting from board members at our monthly meeting.  There is nothing more boring that listening to 90 minutes of dialog between the corps officer and the board chair.  Everyone needs to get into the loop.

I think that these two simple solutions will help you get your board into a more active and effective role. 

An active, informed and energetic member will serve you well, for years to come.  A member that simply sits and listens will not be effective for the Army, nor interested in continuing on your board.

Please give me your thoughts or questions so we can expand on these and other ideas.