Building a High Powered Program Board, Part One

Posted by: Del Suggs - Saltwatermusic.com

For the next several columns, I want to address developing your program board.  Even if your board is functioning well, there is nearly always room for improvement.  Perhaps you’ll get some ideas here that you can use to take your board to the next level.  Strive to be a High-Powered Program Board.

 

Plain Vanilla Organizational Structure

Let’s begin by looking at the organizational structure of program boards.  Most of them follow the “SGA” Model.  You know what I mean-- there is a President or Chair, Vice-president, secretary, and treasurer.  Maybe committee chairs, “at-large seats,” or otherwise designated additional members of the Executive Committee.

Why do we organize like this?  Because it’s what we know.  It’s familiar.  Is it the best way to organize a Program Board?  Maybe, or maybe not.  Let’s consider some other options.

Every organization needs a Presiding Officer.  You can call it President, Chair, or Grand PooBah, but it simply identifies the person who chairs meetings and heads the organization.  You also need a Vice President or Vice Chair, to take care of business when the President is absent or unable.

Next, you must have a historian or archivist to capture all the important actions that take place during meetings.  It can be the Secretary, or Recording Secretary, or General Note Taker.  But you must-- you must-- maintain accurate records of your meetings.  These are called the “minutes.”

There may also be an officer responsible for keeping tabs on the budget.  This can be the Treasurer, the Financial Officer, the Budget Director, or some other title.  Often Program Boards skip this officer, because the budget is kept mostly by the Advisor and so the Treasurer’s job is unnecessary.

How about the members who actually do the work, who are in charge of specific areas or events?  They are generally known as Chairs, a non-gender specific form of Chairman or Chairwoman.

 

What’s In A Name?

Does all this sound familiar?  It also sounds dull.  Why should a High-Powered Program Board-- in charge of FUN on campus-- be this boring?  After all, you’re not passing legislation.  You’re creating exciting co-curricular events on campus!

Look at some alternative structures and titles.  Consider borrowing a page from Corporate America.  Change your “president” to “Chief Executive Officer”.  Make your vice president the “Chief Operating Officer.”  The treasurer becomes the Chief Financial Officer, and so on.  The executive committee becomes the Board of Directors.

Perhaps you could borrow the structure from the entertainment industry.  Name your president the “Executive Producer.”  Name your committee chairs “Producers,” who then answer to the Executive Producer.  Call your members “Directors” or members of the Creative Team.

  Don’t just change the titles.  Consider the entire “chain of command,” who answers to whom.  Keep the levels as simple as possible.  You don’t want too much confusion. Information gets filtered by each person as it’s passed along.  Keep the command structure as simple as possible.

 

Members and Officers

One major, recurring problem with program boards is recruitment.  Either you can’t get enough members, or they are all from the same clique.  The current members recruit their friends, who recruit their friends.  Often, program boards consist of a group of 19-21 year old students, programming for themselves.

Diversity is vital, and I don’t just mean ethnic diversity.  Certainly, you want the ethnic make up of your board to mirror the campus.  But does your program board really represent your campus?  Are there freshmen and sophomores, or just juniors and seniors? Are there non-traditional students and traditional students, both younger and older students?

  You can solve the need to diversify by actually creating positions in your bylaws or constitution that must be filled .  For example, amend your bylaws to require four members of the freshman class on your board.  That will make you recruit freshmen.  Or you could call for the Freshman Class President to appoint a certain number of members.

Consider reaching out to other organizations to help you broaden your Program Board. You could stipulate in your bylaws that you have a representative from each active club on your campus-- whether it’s the Chess Club, the Black Student Union, or the Spirit Squad. It’s always a good idea to bring in new people and new ideas to your program board.  If you can’t just find them, create a structure that will bring them to you!

 

Who’s Responsible?

Define the duties and responsibilities of your officers.  Spell them out clearly, and make sure that everyone is aware of their obligations.  And not just for your officers and executive committee.  Make sure the regular members are also aware of their commitment.

But take it a step further.  Draft a contract for your officers and members to sign.  If “contract” sounds too legal and scary, then call it an “agreement.”   List the responsibilities for each officer.  For example, the President must preside over meetings, appoint committee chairs, and more.  A general member of the program board might be required to attend meetings, serve on a committee, assist at events, and the like.

Having a signed agreement serves a multiple purpose.  It will define the duties for each member.  It will make each member aware of their duties.  It will also add a sense of obligation, even though it’s not legally enforceable.  You obviously won’t be able to force a board member to come to meetings or help with events.  But if he or she signs an agreement that lists attendance as a duty, then you know that they are aware of that obligation.  It does take things a little more seriously.

 

Office Time

Back in the day, Program Board members actually had to physically be in an office to answer the telephone and reply to correspondence.  Today, with cellphones, computers and the Internet, you can do all of that work and more without ever setting foot in the office. 

But you still need to set office hours. 

The problem with working away from the office is simple:  procrastination.  It’s too easy to avoid doing your job if you’re away from the office.  Most successful professionals such as writers, composers, and other artists, have offices and studios other than their home.  It is more conducive to doing productive work.

If you set hours for the officers on your program board, then they will have to be in the office taking care of business.  It’s not a time to do homework or surf the Internet or play video games.  It’s the time to review CDs and DVDs of new artists, to create promotional materials, and respond to program board emails.  Setting aside just a couple of hours each week to focus on your program board duties in the office-- and nothing else-- will result in an enormous increase in efficiency.

Next, we’ll deal with time management tools, conflict resolution, and some branding and marketing ideas.  If you have any questions or comments, I’d love to hear from you. Just drop me an email, and I’ll get back to you.