Board Life Matters is a national sounding board designed to inspire and engage the next generation in nonprofit board service.
Board Life Matters
Are you looking for ways to give back to your community? Interested in using your talents and expertise to help a cause you care about? Have you thought about volunteering to serve on a nonprofit board?
With over 1.million nonprofits today, it is possible that one day you will be asked to serve on a nonprofit board. This is a good thing, if you know what to expect.
Board Life Matters is designed to take the guesswork out of nonprofit board service.
Inspired by the call of President Obama to engage more Americans in public service, and dismayed by the lack of visibility for nonprofit board service along the public service continuum, a crew of BoardSource employees and nonprofit board members came together to raise awareness about the importance and benefits of nonprofit board service.
Board Life Matters shows you the perspectives of various nonprofit professionals. All offer a candid reflections of benefits and barriers to board service, along with tips and techniques that individuals need to know (but might be afraid to ask) to get started on the right track as a nonprofit board member. You can browse by topic and search for nonprofit leadership events based on your location or interests. Other bells and whistles will be added over time.
This blog is governed by BoardSource, a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing the public good by building exceptional nonprofit boards and inspiring board service.
How did Board Life Matters get started?
In April, President Obama signed the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act which, for the first time, officially recognizes September 11 as a National Day of Service and Remembrance. When President Obama called on Americans to get out and serve their communities throughout the year, volunteering to serve on a nonprofit board was, and continues to be, left off of the list of service options.
Our goal is to highlight the fact that nonprofit board service is community service. We plan to highlight the significant role that nonprofit boards play in meeting critical community needs, in reinvigorating civic engagement across all levels of society, and in expanding opportunities for young people to participate in service.
Now that we’ve gotten it started, we’re looking to you to help us innovate and grow the site.
Share Your Story
Have you served as a nonprofit board member? What inspired you to serve? How was your service experience? Let us know. We want to hear from you and highlight what you are doing to strengthen your community through nonprofit board service.
Help Improve Our Site
If you have ideas for any features you want to see on the site, please send us your feedback. To share ideas, enhancement requests or technical problems please email us at boardlifematters@boardsource.org.
Spread the Word
We’d love for you to highlight Board Life Matters with your network. Send the link to individuals and organizations and help us lay the foundation for a sustained, collaborative and focused effort to promote nonprofit board service as a way of life for all Americans.
Need help getting started? Email us at boardlifematters@boardsource.org and we’ll hook you up with talking points and a media kit.
Coming Soon: Help Us Build Apps
We also want to encourage you to make improvements to Board Life Matters on your own. We will have a fully open API that makes it easy to build apps using data from the site. We hope that this will encourage you to contribute to the site as well.
Coming Soon: Partner With Us to Share Nonprofit Board Service Opportunities
Board Life Matters is building its capacity to help connect current and prospective nonprofit board members and promote open board volunteer activities on our website and across the web.
We believe that this process works best in partnership. We want to work with existing organizations and companies to gather and distribute nonprofit board volunteer opportunities. To inquire about partnership opportunities, please email us at boardlifematters@boardsource.org.
Contact Information
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If you’ve reviewed this page and want to contact us directly, feel free to email us at boardlifematters@boardsource.org. We will respond to your email within two business days.
