Board Recruitment with Social Media

Growth for Good provides consulting on board development and we were recently asked how individual board and staff members can help recruit with outreach. Here are our tips on using digital media and your social network to strategically build a pipeline of board prospects:

First, post your board job description on your nonprofit’s website and in your e-newsletter.

Then, here are a list of actions your current board and staff members can take to make their personal and professional networks more aware of your nonprofit and encourage them to help recruit new board members:

• Use your elevator pitch text – Sample: “I’m on the board/staff of ABC Nonprofit, the best community-based services organization in NYS. We provide a wide array of services to help people… We are looking to recruit a new board member with [finance, marketing, philanthropy…] experience. If you are interested, please come with me to visit ABC!”
• Add your board/staff title and/or committees to your resume, bio, and online profiles.
• Share your board job description with select prospects via email (*i.e., link to webpage or forward enews with posting and link).
• Post on Facebook to reach friends and family (adapt pitch above to include “Please share” and link to the board job description).
• Post on LinkedIn to reach colleagues and acquaintances (adapt pitch above to include “Please share” and link to the board job description).
• Tweet on Twitter: “Best agency in NYS, ABC Nonprofit, is recruiting board members. Volunteer and retweet to help NYers! #ABCLeadership” (link to the board job description).
• Reach out to your corporate connections and ask if they would host an employee volunteer outreach “meet-n-greet” (could include an ABC site visit).
• Reach out to your college alumni network(s) and professional associations to ask if ABC’s board position could be promoted in an enews, social media, and/or an employment and volunteer “job” posting message board (link to the board job description).

Free Resources: Growth for Good’s Board Job Description Checklist and list of public Board Recruitment Websites. Hope these tools help your nonprofit build a best-in-class board!