A worked example

Riverside Housing Collective, from four willing friends to a working board year

Riverside is a fictional but ordinary case: a five year old housing nonprofit with a two million dollar budget, a founder who chairs her own board, and four members who were recruited because they said yes. Below is the whole path through Board Builder and Cadence Designer, ending with the full meeting plan for the year.

Every current member scored 0, 1, or 2 on each competency. Nothing here is a judgment of character. It is a map of what the board can do in a room without outside help.

Finance scores 1 across four people. Legal scores 1. Real estate, for a housing developer, scores 1. Community and program are genuinely strong. Riverside does not need a bigger board. It needs three specific competencies it has never had.

Each prospect is rated one to five on engagement, time, capital access, independence, and mission fit. Independence is where most founder boards fail, so it is scored separately rather than folded into fit.

Grace is the hardest call and the most common one. High availability, real generosity, and a six year friendship with the founder. She becomes a committee member, which keeps her contribution and protects the board's independence.

1. Seat 1: Finance and audit

   0 to 6 months

   Reads statements independently, chairs finance committee, signs off on the audit.

   Alicia Nunez, offer extended

2. Seat 2: Legal and real estate

   0 to 6 months

   Reviews acquisitions and leases, keeps the board inside its bylaws.

   Theo Marsh, offer extended

3. Seat 3: Fundraising and capital

   6 to 12 months

   Opens funder doors, models the one activity per cycle standard.

   Sourcing through the ecosystem map

4. Seat 4: Resident and community voice

   12 to 18 months

   Lived experience of the housing the organization builds, elected by the tenant council.

   Tenant council nomination process opens in Q3

5. Seat 5: Chair

   12 to 18 months

   Runs meetings so the founder can stop chairing the board that evaluates her.

   Elect from seated members once four are working well

• Attend four board meetings a year, two of them in person.
• Serve on one committee and show up to its meetings.
• Read the packet before the meeting, every time.
• Complete one fundraising activity per quarter, defined broadly.
• Make a personal gift that is meaningful to you, in the first ninety days.
• Disclose conflicts in writing and recuse without being asked.
• Give the executive director honest feedback once a year, in writing.

Signed before the first meeting, reviewed every year. The point is not enforcement. It is that nobody joins this board believing it is a name on a letterhead.

Four committees for a two million dollar budget. Each has an owner, a meeting rhythm tied to the board calendar, and work that would otherwise land on the executive director.

Four board meetings, second Thursday of the month, 6:00 to 8:00 pm. Every date on this page was generated backward from those four meetings: packets land fourteen days out, committees meet before the packet closes.

1. 28 days outExecutive committee drafts the agenda and names the one strategic question.
2. 21 days outCommittee chairs submit written updates, one page each.
3. 14 days outPacket goes out: consent agenda, financials, decision memos.
4. 10 days outExecutive director confirms attendance and quorum.
5. 7 days outChair calls two members to surface objections before the room.
6. Meeting dayConsent in five minutes, decisions in thirty, strategic question in forty.
7. 3 days afterMinutes, assignments, and owners circulated with due dates.
8. 14 days afterChair checks in on any assignment that has not moved.

Riverside runs this eight step countdown four times a year. That is the whole discipline. The calendar never moves, and the content of each meeting changes with what the organization is facing.