Organizations are struggling with the challenge of building strong committees. Groups are experimenting with different types of committees and task forces.
The main goal is to get the necessary work done. A second goal should be to increase member engagement.
If a member has a successful and fulfilling experience on a committee, they are likely to stick around. By working closely with colleagues, they develop friendships — and it’s those friendships that truly drive member engagement, which in turn drives retention.
Happy members are the best recruiters of new members. It’s no secret that leaders typically come up through the committee ranks. Obviously, adding new members adds dues revenue. And the greater the membership, the more attractive sponsorships become.
Committees may just be the key to success — but they must be done well.
Here are a few keys to committee success:
1. Be sure there is a standing committee for each core volunteer function.
2. Don’t have committees that replicate staff functions. Committees should be complementary.
3. Consider special or ad hoc committees for ongoing projects.
4. Use task forces for short-term projects with a clear end.
5. Choose strong leaders as committee chairs.
6. Be sure all committee members receive a thorough orientation and know what’s expected of them.
7. Be sure that each committee and task force develops a plan of work for the year and measures progress against it.
8. Maintain a high level of accountability for each chair, one that trickles down to committee members.
9. Ensure cross-representation among committees to promote communication and synergy.
10. Be sure standing committee chairs sit on the council or board, even if non-voting.
11. Require each chair to provide a report at every council or board meeting.
Here are our top ten mistakes to avoid:
1. Combining committees.
2. Selecting a weak chair.
3. Putting too many people on a committee.
4. Expecting a committee to determine why it exists.
5. Building a budget around committees fulfilling unrealistic goals.
6. Appointing two co-chairs instead of a chair and a co-chair.
7. Selecting an inexperienced committee chair.
8. Giving a committee work to do without access to the resources it needs.
9. Naming a president as a committee chair.
10. Letting one member chair more than one committee.
The Case Against Combining Key Committees
It seems so simple: two committees are doing related work, so why not just combine them? Experience has taught us that combining two small, weak committees results in one big, weaker committee. It’s a paradox, because groups want to increase member engagement — but when committees are combined, there are fewer opportunities for members to get involved.
At Next Wave Group, we use the Six Systems operating model: Governance, Finance, Membership, Communications, Programs and Events. These systems parallel a typical committee structure.
Sometimes board leaders decide to merge committees anyway. Here’s what tends to happen:
- Executive and Finance: When a group combines its Executive Committee with its Finance Committee, it loses its checks and balances.
- Membership and Communications: Merging these creates a lack of focus, work overload and difficulty finding a chair and staff liaison with the diverse skill set the combined role demands.
- Communications and Events: Volunteers sometimes suggest this pairing, but communications work unrelated to events suffers as a result.
- Programs and Events: Programs should generally be externally focused — advocacy or public outreach, for example. When programs are merged with events, the programs suffer, because events are demanding by nature and absorb most of the committee’s capacity and focus.
Fewer, smaller, more focused committees create more opportunity for meaningful member engagement. Close working relationships build friendships and friendships drive retention. Consider what happens instead when a member joins a large committee, attends a few meetings, and quietly loses interest.
Organizations today need to be nimble, and quick decision-making is critical. Ideally, a committee should submit its plans to the board, which approves, rejects or revises them. The same goes for task forces.
If you take a key operational function and place it under a committee as a subcommittee, you add another layer of approval and slow things down. It makes sense to have subcommittees or task teams when the work is genuinely relevant to the parent committee — but not when the “subcommittee” is really a major functional area in its own right, or when a task force has a clearly defined need that stands on its own.
It’s important that committees stay connected to each other and to the organization as a whole. One useful approach: designate a member to serve on two committees that need to work together. It also helps when committee chairs with overlapping interests communicate directly, and when staff liaisons do the same. Seating committee chairs on the board — or even the executive committee — can make a real difference in internal communication, synergy and fast, informed decision-making.
Ironically, the urge to combine committees usually comes from a perceived shortage of volunteers. General calls for volunteers can help, but the best results come from individual asks. If the ask list is simply the president’s friends, though, it won’t produce what the organization actually needs. Getting the right chair in place is the most important step — a strong chair can then help recruit volunteers for their own committee. It’s also far easier to sell participation in a small, tightly focused committee than in a large committee juggling a range of unrelated challenges.
