Determining the best way to structure volunteer workers can be challenging. While standing committees are spelled out in the bylaws, other committees might include Membership, Communications, Advocacy, Governance, Events, Bylaws and Outreach. Unless standing committees, they may be added and unsettled.
Task forces are a good idea for projects or campaigns that have clear goals and timelines. Younger members are more likely to volunteer for task forces because of the short term and clear commitment.
Sometimes board leaders opt to combine committees with the goal of streamlining and requiring fewer volunteers. While such an approach can work, it can also be problematic. Volunteers have to balance conflicting priorities, and that means one area will dominate and needed work won’t get done in other areas.
Staffing support becomes a challenge because it takes a very diverse skill set to provide support to a consolidated committee.
Obviously, when related functions are separated, there needs to be a means of communication between the various related groups. Traditionally this has been done through cross representation and it is actually pretty effective.
As a result of the movement some years ago toward very small boards, committee chairs are sometimes left off the board. The idea of a very small board seems to have fallen out of favor as it does little to encourage engagement and leadership development.
Not including committee chairs on the board is a bad idea. It is critically important to have committee chairs on the board so they can be directly and personally accountable to the board and have communication with each other. They should not work in isolation.
Some boards try to have a level of accountability for chairs by having them report to board members. This is no substitute for actual board participation and engagement by committee chairs.
Some boards opt to have their officers and then make the other directors committee chairs, while others add the committee chairs to the board. The latter option makes for a larger board, but it ensures that the people who are the committee chairs are really interested in the work of that committee. It is perfectly reasonable to have a board that has somewhere between 11 and 19 members.
While committees generally meet regularly over the course of a year and should have a plan of work, task forces are for a set period with specific short-term goals.
Here are a few guidelines for more effective committees and task forces.
- Be sure the bylaws provide for committee chairs to be voting board members with reporting responsibility.
- Make provisions for task force chairs to report to the board.
- Segment committees either by having separate committees for each function or by using subcommittees.
- Resist the temptation to combine committees.
- Have a high level of accountability for committee and task force chairs.
- Recognize committees and task forces when they succeed.
- Look at committees and task forces as tools for member engagement and leadership development.
- Ensure that committee and task force members each have tasks to perform, rather than just attend meetings.
- Look for opportunities for committee and task forces members to collaborate between meetings. This builds friendships and collegiality.
- Understand that staff liaisons will handle organization and logistics, as well as offer guidance, but the work of the committee or task forces should be done by volunteers. This is how the magic of engagement happens.
