Brad Rateike: My take on the lifecycle of board service

A friend of mine recently joined his first not-for-profit board. He was excited about a new kind of volunteerism and asked me for any observations about board service. Admittedly, I am probably only a first or second-semester sophomore when it comes to “substantive” time serving on not-for-profit boards. Although I started in my 20s, I feel like I have just begun to have expectations of note placed on me. So I told him to take my advice with a large grain of salt because I could be making it all up.

My hypothesis—again, based on my limited experience—is that not-for-profit board service resembles a bell-shaped curve. For anyone willing/interested in putting in their time, effort and resources, volunteering begins by finding an organization that needs or wants the potential you possess. The challenge when you are younger is that sometimes the organization just needs a warm body, and they believe you are nice enough or appear gullible enough to say “yes.” I know this from experience. More than 15 years ago, my fraternity housing board just needed a warm body, and for three years, I was that warm body.

In your early days of service, no one expects much out of you. Show up to the meetings, feign interest, try not to make the meetings longer, perform some manual labor and eventually sell a table for the annual fundraiser. You eventually take on additional responsibility, maybe becoming a low-level officer or committee chair, or maybe you are put in charge of procuring items for the silent auction. Your opinion matters, but no one really cares. Eventually, the stakes get higher once people see that you know what you are doing. Your opinions not only matter, they are solicited. Now, in addition to selling tables for the gala, you are also expected to invite “suckers” to spend money at that robust silent auction. It is flattering to be sure, but you start to wonder in this stage if you have the long-term stamina to become a “lifer.”

The final three stages, if you stick around, take the longest to complete and are often money-related. First, it starts with a minimum capital contribution that you are asked to give (and eventually expected to give) in order to “lead” by example and show you are committed to the future of the organization. The next stage requires a larger check—and probably a more public one—because you are likely running things at this point. To arrive here, you have the heart of a saint and are truly committed to the cause, you provide irreplaceable wisdom and strategic vision or you stroke big checks and encourage your friends to do the same (these are not all mutually exclusive). The curve concludes after a sustained period of board leadership and can include honors or “emeritus” status recognizing a lifetime of achievement. Whether it is time, treasure, connections, institutional memory, etc., none of these contributions are necessarily more valuable than the others. So it is more than appropriate for “thanks” to be given. Of course, sometimes the followup to the “thanks” is a request for one additional contribution, an estate gift.

This mild attempt at sarcasm aside, philanthropic leadership is part of the fabric that makes Indiana the place we love, so I hope more people step up to serve. However, if you are not willing to serve but want to do something, give me a call and I can direct you to some upcoming silent auctions.•

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Rateike is founder and owner of BAR Communications and served as director of cabinet communications for President Donald Trump. Send comments to ibjedit@ibj.com.

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