When a new nonprofit is created, the founder or founder(s) generally recruit a small group of people they know and trust to help get things going. These people often wear many hats ranging from janitor to baker to teacher's aide to board member.

As the organization begins to grow up, the lines become clearer between serving on the Board and volunteering in the program or office, though people will often continue to serve in multiple roles.

Up to this point the Board typically has 4-8, maybe 10, members and most discussions and decisions are made by the group as a whole or default to whomever is closest to the daily operations. Eventually, the Board realizes that in order to increase the impact of the organization, it needs to extend its efforts beyond its initial program efforts. That generally means more emphasis on fund raising, finances, marketing, and evaluation (proving that the organization is good at what it does).

For many organizations, this is when the discussion turns to recruiting board members with skills that complement the founding group and exploring an effective committee structure. For a small organization, Board committees can support the staff in key roles or actually do the work until funds are available for a staff person.

Committees are great when they work and a terrible burden and experience when they don't. My philosophy on committees has evolved over time – I offer four key insights:

1) Committees should be formed around the current needs of the organization, not out of a Board book that says "every board should have X, Y, and Z committees."

It is too common for a well-meaning board member to use a board book or their experience with another organization to create a board structure for your organization. While there are many committees that most organizations have in common, your first venture into committee work can be overwhelming if you try to catch up with a mature organization too quickly.

I suggest an organization look first to their mission and strategic plan. What needs to be accomplished? Where are you focusing most of your efforts over the next one to two years? Where can the board's work best benefit the organization? Common initial committees might be one that is externally focused - perhaps Marketing, PR, Fund Raising and one that is more internally focused, perhaps finance and developing board policies. This assumes that the Board officers are already acting as, at least, an informal Executive Committee handling Exec Dir evaluation and review and orientation of new board members. Using this approach, each committee can identify what it needs in new members and skills and work with the other board members to find and recruit those people.

The next committee is typically charged with program evaluation or planning and evaluation. This group helps define what "Success" is for the organization and how well you are doing.

2) With the exception of an all-volunteer organization, committees should exist to complement staff roles and responsibilities, not duplicate or mirror them.

For very small organizations, committees may take the place of staff efforts - either until a staff person is hired or for the long-term if the organization expects to remain small. In this case, committee responsibility descriptions may look very similar to staff job descriptions.

But in most organizations, the Board committees play a role in helping the board, staff, and organization become more effective – not to do the work. Board members can help provide objectivity in the evaluation of service delivery or the development of external communications. They can also help connect the organization to people, companies, and resources that might not be accessible to staff members directly.

For example, the Program Committee or Program Evaluation Committee should focus on answering questions like – “What are we trying to accomplish? “and “Are our programs having the impact we want?”. The Finance Committee focuses on ensuring that internal controls are in place to reduce the likelihood of fraud or theft and on identifying the risks to the organization and making sure that appropriate insurance and loss prevention strategies are in place.

Typically, the committee, with a staff member, works to develop a plan and then decide who will turn the plan into action. In an organization with few or no staff, the committee members become the primary implementers. In an organization with staff, the staff often leads the implementation with committee members playing critical roles in reviewing progress, adding specific expertise, and making connections with people, funders, other nonprofits, business, or government that can help the organization reach its goals.

3) Board members aren't truly engaged unless they are responsible for doing something outside the routine Board meetings - so I think almost all boards should have some committees.

An unfortunate truth of board service is that we typically tell prospective board members that we will not expect much of their time and then we are upset if they don't do more than the absolute minimum.

If your board meets quarterly, it can be hard to get board members to think about you more than 6-8 hours a year (when they are sitting in board meetings). If you meet monthly, it can be hard to keep attendance up because so little of consequence happens in the 30 days between each meeting.

If board members can be engaged in a committee that is doing work that they feel is interesting and worthwhile, and that allows them to use their skills in ways they enjoy, you will build bonds between board members, increase buy-in to the organization, and get more accomplished.

4) Task Forces (short-term committees) create energy and work to quick completion of a defined outcome. Standing committees with poorly defined responsibilities frustrate Board members and waste their time attempting to be productive.

I have found one effective way to launch committees is to treat them as short-term task forces with a distinct project to complete. For example, a Marketing/PR committee might start by putting on a new event or getting out a regular newsletter. I have found that efforts like “assembling a 3 year marketing plan” do not create much energy because no one has seen anything actually happen.

After the initial success, the group can more easily define the additional skills and people it needs on the team and who is the natural leader. Some groups might work effectively in a task-to-task basis on an on-going basis. Others, like finance, usually define more of a regular routine to their meetings and schedules.

Bryan Orander is President of Charitable Advisors, based in Indianapolis, Indiana. Following a 12 year career with a Fortune 50 corporation and a 6 year stint as a Program Director for a large nonprofit, Bryan has been a full-time consultant with nonprofits for almost 10 years.