Good board members:

• aren’t ambassadors. Ambassadors wait for people to come to them. They’re zealots. They zealously get donations and zealously get new board members.
• don’t try to get. They work together and with staff and they get.
• personally donate among their three largest monetary donations that year. Not from their company…from them.
• are forensic analysts, (not governors). Remember, the bottom line is “Are we living our mission?  Is the mission working?” They see to it that it does, regardless of the financials.
• insist that board meetings are too important to be reporting vehicles. Productive monthly board meetings can be like having twelve mini-retreats.

Think of it this way: if each board member’s consulting rate is $100/hour and your charity has 20 board members, do you want to spend $2,000/hour talking about the past or the future?