This webinar will equip you to feel confident in recruiting, supporting, and retaining excellent board members. The session faculty—Claire West and Mollie Quinlan-Hayes— are on the ground doing this work right now, and bring you practice, not theory, to support you as a board member and executive leader.

This two-hour webinar will be highly interactive, so bring what’s puzzling you about board development. The presentation will include slides illustrating the joint presentation by Claire and Mollie; time for Q&A and the ability to utilize the chat function to share comments and resources with other participants. Slides and tools will be provided afterwards for download. Handouts will be a blend of original material and existing relevant texts with credits.

New techniques for recruitment in pursuit of The Right Board at the Right Time will be discussed including how to determine who is the ideal board member for you to accomplish your strategic plan. Examples will be shared for successfully recruiting stellar board members, implementing the new orientation process, and providing board members with what they’ll need for satisfying service individually and as a body.   Tips will be shared for successfully integrating new voices/perspectives into an existing group of board members, retention basics and new techniques for retention.  Challenges such as establishing and living up to Board diversity as a core value and elegantly managing board members who aren’t contributing will be discussed.

Participants will come away with:

  • Tools and ideas for fearless recruitment,
  • Tools and ideas for updated needs assessment and prospect identification
  • Methods that assure retention of the finest board members through to the conclusion of their terms

About the Presenters

Mollie Quinlan-Hayes is an Independent Consultant, currently located in Marietta, Georgia. She consults widely for major organizations throughout the United States on strategic planning/organizational development, readiness planning, grantmaking and program design. Current clients include NCAPER, the New York Foundation for the Arts, Performing Arts Readiness, and more. She served as the Deputy Director and Accessibility Coordinator for South Arts, one of the six U.S. Regional Arts Organizations, from 2006 through 2020.  Prior to that, she worked with the Arizona Commission on the Arts for over 14 years, At both agencies, Mollie led strategic planning, served on the senior management team; and was liaison with Board/Commission members. Most recently she conducted board development workshops with partner, Claire West, for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Mass Cultural Council.

Claire West is Principal, Claire West – Consulting. The firm delivers non-profit and community-based-organization services for boards and executives. Clients include arts and culture, human services, health, education, faith, environment, and historic preservation.

Claire started her own successful business at the age of 21 and has not stopped innovating since. After working for over 30 years in government, nonprofit management, and small business, as a grantmaker, statewide project manager, business and nonprofit founder, nonprofit fundraiser, and nonprofit advisor, she founded Claire West Consulting in 2014, and partners with top consultants in the field to provide a range of services. Claire serves on five non-profit governance boards and consults with a current portfolio of over a dozen non-profits throughout the nation. Among the services offered is grants consulting, where Claire has successfully raised funds for clients of all sizes and budgets for years.