I had the opportunity to interview my good friend Andy Yarborough about his experience as a board member of Trafficking Hope Louisiana. Trafficking Hope Louisiana a nonprofit that provides two primary services. The first is to provide transitional, short, and long-term care for sex-trafficking victims. The other is to educate the public about human trafficking issues. At any given time, Trafficking Hope Louisiana serves five to fifteen women who are referred by Texas, Florida, and Louisiana state officials, as well as, Homeland Security.
Andy chose to be on the board for Trafficking Hope Louisiana due to his passion for its cause. When he was nineteen years old, Andy traveled to India and saw the toxic effects of the international sex trade.
…show more content…
Andy did not have a formal “onboarding” process and would have liked more background knowledge on board functions. As mentioned throughout our course material, it is important for board member to have a solid understanding for their roles and expectations. Andy would have appreciated receiving a board job description or even going through a board-specific professional development. One thing that helped Andy learn board governance was his experience working on the Executive Team for a large mega church. He was had some familiarity with developing long-range decisions and working with the church’s board of trustees. However, as Professor Henderson mentioned throughout the asynchronous material, every nonprofit board is different. Thus, Andy had to learn what worked for his particular …show more content…
For board members, Andy emphasized that they should be passionate about the mission of the organization and be cognizant of their reasons for joining the board. Andy joined the board only because he wanted to serve and further the organizational mission of Trafficking Hope, not because he was looking for prestige. His focus was on serving the clients, not gaining rewards for his board participation. In a similar vein, Andy stressed that executive directors should seek board members who are both committed to the vision and can add value to the organization. Executive directors should resist the urge to recruit individuals on the board solely based on how they could possibly meet a need. This advice helps new executive directors to better understand their boards and helps potential board members decide if they should commit to an organization or not. The nonprofit benefits when the entire board values its mission and its executive director is able to be a key change