You Signed Up for This

Many moons ago (over 15 to be exact) as a newly hired Executive Director, I struggled to understand why attendance at board meetings was dismal. Leading a faith-based organization, I assumed "let your yes be yes and your no be no" was an expectation. I mean, these were people of faith. People who cared about the mission. People who said yes when asked to serve. And yet… empty chairs. Unanswered emails. Excuses that trailed off into silence.

I was frustrated. And if I'm being honest, I was a little self-righteous about it too.

What I didn't understand then is that board service carries with it a legal and fiduciary responsibility , a duty that goes far beyond showing up and nodding along. When someone is invited to join a board, the ask often sounds like this: "We'd love to have you. You'd be great. It's just a few meetings a year." What is rarely communicated clearly is what that yes actually means.

So what did they actually sign up for?

The Standards for Excellence Institute, whose resources I have the privilege of both writing and working with as a Licensed Consultant, outlines three core fiduciary duties that every board member carries the moment they say yes:

The Duty of Care means showing up - mentally, not just physically. It means reading the financials before the meeting, asking good questions, and making decisions like a reasonably prudent person would. It means you cannot be a passive passenger on this board. Care is active.

The Duty of Loyalty means that when you walk into that boardroom, you leave your personal interests, your business relationships, and your ego at the door. Every decision you make must be in the best interest of the organization and the community it serves - not you, not your company, not your cousin's catering business.

The Duty of Obedience means remaining faithful to the mission. You were not recruited to redesign the organization in your own image. You were recruited to steward what already exists - to protect its purpose and ensure that every dollar and decision moves toward that mission.

Care. Loyalty. Obedience. Three words that, when I look back at my early days as an Executive Director, I wish someone had handed me on a card to give every new board member at orientation.  Don’t worry, I added those as I learned.

In Matthew 5:37, Jesus says simply, "Let your yes be yes." It is one of the most quietly demanding verses in Scripture. No elaborate vow. No performance. Just the integrity of a person whose word means something. When a board member says yes to service, that yes carries weight; legally, ethically, and spiritually. It is a commitment to show up, to act with loyalty, and to remain faithful to something larger than themselves. Board service, at its best, is a form of keeping your oath.

As I grew professionally as an Executive Director, and what I understand now is this: dismal attendance is rarely about laziness or bad character. More often, it is about confusion. Board members don't show up when they don't know why their presence matters. They disengage when no one has ever clearly told them what is expected or what is at stake.

Is this easy to fix? No. Is it worth fixing? Absolutely.

The first step is clarity. Before someone says yes to board service, they deserve to know - really know - what that yes means. A job description with roles and responsibilities. An orientation. An annual renewed commitment. A conversation about the three duties above. And, as I wrote about in a previous post, a shared set of values the board creates together that makes the culture of service something people want to opt into.

When I think back to my early days as an Executive Director and those empty chairs, I don't feel self-righteous anymore. I feel a little sad for all of us; for the board members who never got the orientation they deserved, and for the new Executive Director (me!) and Board Governance Committee who never thought to give it to them.   By my second year, we had that rectified but still...As the Board Chair for World Relief, I get to participate in a Board Orientation training that I have crafted and revised over the years.  Our board attendance is stellar and our directors understand the role. 

Let your yes be yes. But first, make sure everyone knows what they're saying yes to.

Erin

PS. I have the privilege of serving as a Licensed Consultant for the Standards for Excellence Institute, whose framework on board fiduciary responsibility informs much of my consulting practice. I also wrote their Educational Resource packet on Board Fiduciary Responsibility. If your board could use a tune-up on roles, responsibilities, or culture - I'd love to have that conversation.  Over the last 7 years I have worked with 50+ organizations.  Is yours next? 

I am a Stranger in a Strange Land

I am a Stanger in a Strange Land

I am a stranger in a strange land.  We moved to Italy by choice for my husband’s job 3 ½ years ago, but I arrived with no language, no “know-how” of an antiquated system, and no friends.  When Americans hear I live in Italy, they “ooo” and “ahhh” thinking I live in a Tuscan-filled dream with vineyards, amazing food, and welcoming hospitality.  My first response is typically, “Tourist Italy is not everyday Italy.”   I am a stranger in a strange land. 

Last week, I read this post by a World Relief immigration lawyer who was furloughed due to mass funding cuts, “So many people [refugees] we serve…[have] no one to reach out to tell them how to ride a bus, how to control the heat in their home, how to get food to make doctors’ appointments…”  The list went on and on.  

We moved out of choice and with means, and still, as a stranger in a strange land without language and “know-how,” this is our experience.  Daily, after 3 ½ years and a handful of language classes, I still struggle to fully comprehend a conversation, to fill out paperwork, to understand all that is happening in my daughter’s frequent hospital visits, to speak up when I am taken advantage of as a straniera (foreigner…oh do I have stories), and, and…” Some days, the tears flow out of frustration, anger, confusion, helplessness, and loneliness.  

The majority of days, I do not live the Tuscan dream…and we moved out of choice with privilege.  

This morning, I read a short excerpt from Henri Nouwen’s Reaching Out that stopped me in my tracks.

“But still- that is our vocation: to convert the hostis into a hospes, the enemy into a guest, and to create a free and fearless space where brotherhood and sisterhood can be formed and fully experienced.” 

As strangers in a strange land, there have been people along the way who have made us feel like guests, but one in particular comes to mind: our handyman, Signore Pietro.  Our landlord introduced him to us as a person to call in case something was wrong with our apartment.  Neither of us spoke each other’s language, but he was all smiles and taught me to use google translate, brought us lasagna, helped us build an apartment full of Ikea furniture, and still he fixes everything and anything that goes wrong.   He now feels more like family, and I call him my supereroe (superhero.)  He has created a “space for the stranger…a free and fearless space where brotherhood and sisterhood can be fully formed and fully experienced,” as Nouwen calls it. 

All through Scripture, we are told not to mistreat but to love the foreigner (Leviticus 19:33-34) because we, once, were foreigners. We are told to show hospitality to strangers (Hebrews 13:1-2) because we may be entertaining angels.  The entire book of 1 Peter is written for exiles.  Picture yourself reading this book as a stranger in a strange land and reading, “As you come to him, the living Stone -rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him- you also are like living stones…a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession…” (1 Peter 2:1-10).  We serve El Roi, the God who sees me, the foreigner (Genesis 16:13-14).      

This experience as a stranger in a strange land has given me a profound empathy for other immigrants and refugees, who are many times fleeing conflict, war, crisis, and disaster.  They arrive without means, with trauma, and in need of many of the same things I struggle with daily.  Our role, as followers of Jesus, is to treat strangers with hospitality and love.  Our role is to be a “Signore Pietro” to the strangers in a strange land.  

Central Presbyterian Church, my home church in Towson, is doing this very same thing with refugees.  As a Church of Welcome through World Relief, they have shown such hospitality by furnishing apartments, creating a home, providing food, and walking alongside newly arrived refugees to the Baltimore Region, working with them as they also struggle to fill out paperwork, learn language, and live as strangers in a strange land.   They serve as an army of Signore Pietros – superheroes loving well and making it feel a bit more like home.  They have sacrificed finances, time, and conveniences to show the love of Christ in a tangible way. 

Regardless of your politics, refugees deserve “a free and fearless space where brotherhood and sisterhood can be formed and fully experienced.”  

Thank you, Signore Pietro, and thank you, Central Presbyterian, for welcoming the stranger in a strange land and serving as a superhero to someone today.

Erin

PS. I currently have the privilege of serving as the Board Chair of World Relief.  If you want to donate your time or finances or learn about how to become a Church of Welcome, click on any of the links.