Personal Payoff
Corporate Types Help Themselves by Helping Nonprofits

By Amy Joyce
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 20, 2006

Susan Gates had been vice president for public policy at Freddie Mac for nine months when she took on another role: board member for Homestretch Inc., a nonprofit organization that helps homeless people get on their feet. "I work in housing policy and felt that I sometimes lack a real-world sense of what's happening at the ground level," Gates said. "Until I could match the faces and people with the policy side, I was a little detached from that."

Anoop Prakash, vice president of strategic development of LexisNexis, joined the board of Brainfood, a District nonprofit that teaches life skills to lower-income students, at a point when the District-based group was nearly bankrupt. It was particularly rewarding, he said, to take on "the breadth of responsibility" that Brainfood needed. "As I became a mature professional in my own career, I knew there were some skill sets I could use."

And David Park, executive director of mobile and Web strategy with AOL Audience Business, joined the board of Adoptions Together about eight months ago, soon after he moved here from California. He sees it as a useful tool in making his mark at AOL, as efforts to raise money for the Silver Spring nonprofit have forced him to network in other divisions of the company. "It's giving me a lot of different exposure," he said.

Gates, Prakash and Park represent a number of executives who join nonprofit boards not only to give something to the community, but also to take something back to their full-time jobs. They point out that in large companies, even high-level executives may find it hard to see what direct impact their daily work has on their companies. Decisions may take months to come to fruition, and only after multiple meetings and layers of approval. But in the world of nonprofits, one board member can make an instant difference.

"With a smaller organization, you definitely are a contributing member," said Prakash, who says he spends at least eight hours a month working with Brainfood. "Every extra hour you give contributes to the growth of the organization."

Gates said that Homestretch, based in Falls Church, has provided her with work experience she can't get at Freddie Mac, such as helping to find a new director last year. "It was very exciting to begin to think about a strategic plan for the organization. In my position at Freddie Mac, I don't get that all the time," she said. "It's nice to look out the bow of the ship and really think at a high level."

There are about 19,000 nonprofits in the D.C. area, and by law each needs a board for oversight. A nonprofit board keeps an eye on the executive director and looks after the spending and fundraising. It creates a strategic plan and sets a budget. And depending on their individual experience, members offer pro bono accounting, technical, legal and other advice. Boards are "where the power really resides," said Christopher Fay, Homestretch's executive director. "They are my boss. They make sure I'm steering the course properly."

The problem on a lot of nonprofit boards is that members often don't have the most useful expertise. Many join mostly to do the founder a favor, or with the vague idea of supporting a generous cause.

Prakash, though, attended a training session in board leadership sponsored by Greater DC Cares, an organization that helps get volunteers to work at nonprofits. In mid-2004, Prakash heard Paul J. Dahm, the executive director at Brainfood, describe how the group uses the experience of planning, buying and preparing meals to teach teenagers skills in nutrition, math, science and workplace strategies -- and he heard that the organization was struggling to survive. Prakash almost immediately decided to join the board (he is now the chairman); within 24 months, he had used his experience as a strategic consultant and a sales professional to help turn its finances around, shore up its flagship center in Columbia Heights and open a second center in Chinatown.

In the seven years it has been in existence, the Greater DC Cares Board Leadership Program has trained 500 local executives from nearly 100 companies. About 250 of them have joined 137 nonprofits. Other groups in the Washington area, such as BoardSource, offer similar training.

"From a local nonprofit perspective, it's difficult to expand your network of potential board members because most form out of people with specific interest or 'friends of founder,' " said Jennifer Lindsay, the Board Leadership Program manager. "They don't necessarily have the business skills nonprofits need to accomplish things like branding or buying a building."

Nonprofit board members are not paid for their work, in contrast to corporate directors at for-profit businesses. The average compensation for directors in the manufacturing sector is $109,000, according to the Conference Board; it is $83,000 in the financial services sector and $81,875 in the service sector.

And the work is hard, Prakash said. Not only do executive volunteers work with fewer resources than they may be accustomed to, and often with smaller professional staffs; they also have to work extra hours at night and on weekends after they've put in time at their paying jobs. It can be exhausting and tedious, he said, and it has driven some board members Prakash has known to quit.

"It's much more of a working board . . . than a celebrity board," he said. "We always feel like we're certainly working, but there's always more to do. It can be daunting."

The vision of board meetings held around a glossy mahogany table with technology that beams in other members from around the world is pretty much the opposite of what many nonprofit board members experience.

At Brainfood, board members cram into the one room where three staff members are also working at the Columbia Heights headquarters. They sit around tables and grab chairs "wherever we can find them," Dahm said. If they're lucky and a meeting is held after a class, the board members may get a little treat the students made that day. "It's very low-frills," Dahm said.

Homestretch has filled its board with people with very specific skills. The chairman is a vice president at Capital One, with obvious resources when it comes to finance and loans; there are two lawyers who can guide the nonprofit on legal matters and refer clients when they need legal assistance; there's an accountant to help with financial responsibility, and a builder who can advise on acquiring and maintaining properties.

Park, the AOL executive working with Adoptions Together, said most of the help he provides is on technological matters. But he has also used his background in marketing, sales and technology development.

Mike Schwartz, director of community relations at Freddie Mac, is a member of the board of the Sexual Minority Youth Assistance League. On another nonprofit board, he said, he once had to help hire a new executive director. Five people had volunteered to read résumés, but none had any experience in hiring. "They felt bad asking questions. But if you had never interviewed someone for a job, you don't know what to ask," he said. Luckily, he did.

Freddie Mac and AOL have been corporate sponsors of the Greater DC Cares leadership training program since its inception. Freddie Mac has sent 123 employees through the training, 58 of whom were placed on boards. Richard D'Amato, vice president of community investment at AOL, said the company has sent 180 people at director level or above through the training, and that there is a waiting list. Not only does it show "another level of volunteerism" among the employees, he said, but "they come back to the company as better leaders. They come back as a more self-actualized person."

And it's good not only for the executive and the nonprofit. Service can actually help the business, Prakash said. Serving on the board of Brainfood, he reconnected with an old business contact. That led to several meetings between the contact and LexisNexis, he said -- and now they're planning to work together on a government contract.