Day of Clarity Board Retreat

Posted by La Salle Nonprofit Center on July 23, 2018

Clarity
Consensus
Communication
Collaboration
Coalescing

“The Day of Clarity helped us professionalize everything we do. We came away with a better understanding of our roles and responsibilities and a strong sense of our duties as stewards. Professionalization and stewardship have been our north stars since. We’ve made important changes in hiring our first Executive Director, in policies and practices. Having a professional teach, challenge and guide us has been crucial. The post-day deliverable has been our to-do list for two years. As we celebrate our organization’s 50th year, the Day of Clarity was a turning point toward a more professional approach to governance from which the camp has benefited greatly, and will positively affect our next 50 years.””

-Mark Christaldi, Board Member, Camp Manatawny

Why a Day of Clarity?

With nonprofits having to compete on so many levels, it is essential that board members be knowledgeable and skilled in fulfilling their legal and ethical governance roles and responsibilities with confidence and purpose.

The Nonprofit Center has used its three decades of experience in the nonprofit sector to create a “Day of Clarity” board retreat that effectively conveys insights and skills to nonprofit boards that enables them to move forward to engage in strategic thinking and prioritizing to successfully fulfill their goals. Without it they are likely to cling to negative patterns, indecisiveness and poor judgment. Clients tell us that their “Day of Clarity” truly is an investment in their organization’s future, continuing to pay benefits even years later.

The Benefits

· The board will thoroughly understand its true roles and responsibilities on a good, better, best continuum

· The board will be able to identify the priority issues on which to move forward

· The board will be in a solid position to mindfully ready itself for strategic planning and other key processes with a greater chance of success and value

· The board will see how consensus will show where the organization is going and the best ways to get there.

The Design

Morning Program: A Foundation in Best Practices for Today’s Nonprofit Boards

The first half of the day takes the board through an immersion into the “good, better, best” model of board governance, guiding them through the steps to becoming an effective board and providing new insights to sharpen board effectiveness individually and as a whole.

Among the essential topics covered are board, staff and volunteer roles; legal liability; financial management and control; policy-making; fundraising and resource development; strategic planning; key organizational phases and their impact on the board; board self-appraisal; and identification of the board’s development goals for the year.

Afternoon Program: Bringing Best Practices to Life

Following the 2.5 hour best practices session, the board is led by the experienced consultant through a “Clarity” retreat facilitated that enables them to use this new-found knowledge, insight and intention to recognize priority issues that need to be addressed in order to move forward – be it engaging in a meaningful strategic planning process, resolving a problem or confronting a challenge.

This 3-hour session, which includes brainstorming, is then transformed into a highly focused targeted discussion, based on the understandings that were reached in the first part of the retreat.

A natural progression of the day brings these practices to life in a keenly facilitated session that gives context, definition, meaning – and clarity – to this knowledge.

At the End of the Day

With a clearer vision and consensus on priorities to address, the board is better equipped and engaged to continue planning and goal-setting to determine mission-guided organizational direction.

We are now organizing board retreats for Fall.

For more information about what a Day of Clarity can mean to the future of your organization, contact:

Terri Clark
215-951-5194
clarkt@lasalle.edu