Focused on Meaning

“Focus us on the big picture” one of my fellow board members requested of the executive director. “I love your updates and I really feel like I know what’s going on – but what does it mean?”

It’s that step from the accumulation of information to the creation of meaning…what gives order to a set of random (or not so random) facts, so that we can use them to predict future conditions or behavior.

Are summer camp pre-enrollment fees up or down? That’s one set of information. Does the reason behind the rise mean that they will continue to go up or was it a blip due to non-recurrent circumstances? And if the circumstances could be recreated and even maximized further, is the organization planning to put more effort into generating that revenue? And if so what will that do to staffing, and to mission – will it detract from mission to be running more of a “business venture” or will it add to the organization’s ability provide more mission-based activities to those who can’t afford those fees?

You can see that the set of questions generated from a simple fact – registration income up or down – can lead an organization in many different directions. I believe it’s the executive director’s charge to help the board to contemplate those larger questions – and that it’s the board’s job to serve as thought partners to push the executive director, in fact, to ponder those larger questions.

That’s the board at its highest and best use.

And that’s the kind of board conversations, by the way, that keep attendance at board meetings high, and the board jazzed up, paradoxically, to do the “mundane” work of fundraising.

So often these days we see boards who want to be engaged, who understand their organizations are in perilous times – and who are relegated to “Show me the money” directives by the staff. But without ownership, without a sense of “agency” – fundraising is a mandate unconnected to real impact on the world.

As a board member, as a staff member interacting with board, as a consultant brought in to “fix” the board – it’s our job to craft that real job of the board, that of pondering the big questions…by how we shape and context the information we provide them.

The primary question is not: What?

It’s: So What?