Personal Action Plans for Board Members

16 Jul Personal Action Plans for Board Members

16 July 2024

By David Allen, Development for Conservation

I just got back from an engaging land trust conference hosted by the Coalition of Oregon Land Trusts and the Washington Association of Land Trusts called Land Camp. I go to conferences as a presenter, to see and be seen as a consultant. But I also go to LEARN. And I learn other ways of talking about old ideas as often as I learn new ideas.

This week’s topic comes from one of the workshops at Land Camp presented by Marc Smiley from Solid Ground Consulting. In it, he talked about Personal Action Plans for volunteer leaders. Marc’s premise was that we should be engaging up to fifty volunteers in the leadership of our land trusts – some as Board members, some as non-Board member committee members, and some as individual Advisors or Trustees.

Marc said that each one of these volunteers should have an annual Personal Action Plan containing a short list of items they have agreed to do within the following year. The Action Plans should be developed with and monitored by a Board committee – the Leadership Development Committee.

I have been advocating for something similar for years without calling it a Personal Action Plan, so Marc’s workshop really resonated with me.

Think about it this way: the better HR performance appraisal systems recognize that every employee has a set of ongoing “duties,” defined in the Job Description and a set of annual work objectives – discreet, measurable objectives s/he is responsible for accomplishing during the year.

Board members have a Job Description, too, or at least they should have. Personal Action Plans mean that they are also explicitly responsible for delivering something more tangible. An engagement event, perhaps. Or researching how other land trusts measure their outreach strategies.

It doesn’t matter how many items appear on the Personal Action Plans. It matters that they are specific.

What’s different about Marc’s idea is that the Personal Action Plans also apply to committee volunteers who are not on the Board and to Advisors. It’s a way to keep them engaged and interested.

I love it!

I have advocated for years that Board leadership should meet individually with every Board member at least annually. (For a practical guide, see Board Campaign Mechanics.) Holding ourselves accountable and fostering a culture of integrity are two sides of the same coin. The Personal Action Plans and sitting down at least annually with Board leadership are two tools for accomplishing both.

If you develop this idea further at your land trust, keep the following ideas in mind:

1. The need for clarity: Events need a date. Tasks need a deadline. Teams need to meet and communicate. Whatever the commitment is, it needs to be specific.
2. The need for support: Just because I am responsible doesn’t mean that I am operating alone. We need to support each other.
3. The need for training: Part of the fun in volunteering involves learning new things. The promise of access to on-line resources, webinars, workshops, and even mentors can help some volunteers take on larger levels of responsibility.
4. The need for feedback: Someone paying attention before, during, and after an event can serve to encourage participation, while meeting with a Leadership Committee member at least once a year can help capture the learning from each activity.
5. The need for a strong Leadership Development Committee: Organizations are only as strong as their leadership. The Leadership Development Committee might be the most important committee, because they are responsible for self-replication – bringing new people into volunteer leadership, getting them appropriately on-boarded, securing training and mentorship, and cultivating their interest in assuming greater levels of responsibility. This doesn’t happen by accident.

Does your land trust work with Personal Action Plans? Do you apply them to volunteer leaders other than the Board members? If so, I’d love to hear of your experience, as well as any samples you might be willing to share.

Cheers, and have a great week!

-da

PS: Your comments on these posts are welcomed and warmly requested. If you have not posted a comment before, or if you are using a new email address, please know that there may be a delay in seeing your posted comment. That’s my SPAM defense at work. I approve all comments as soon as I am able during the day.

Photo by Frauke Riether courtesy Pixabay