Berkshire County — Before retiring about a decade ago, Lee resident Karen Richards served in product development and production departments in the fashion industry. A guest at the inaugural April 25 Get on Board! coffee held at Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, she has volunteered with local nonprofits but was seeking a board position, possibly with an arts organization.
“I was curious what people were looking for and what organizations were looking for as far as someone being on a board,” Richards said. “I just think [volunteering] is a wonderful way to meet people in the area. It’s a wonderful way to give back to the community. Nonprofits are such a big part of the Berkshires. I think it’s a big piece of the economy here.”
Hosted by the Nonprofit Center of the Berkshires and Berkshire United Way, along with partners Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation and 1Berkshire, the program was an informal avenue for representatives of the area’s nonprofit community to meet volunteers seeking a board position, matching individual skill sets to board needs.
“We know that boards bring so many things to the organization: They bring perspective; they bring their professional experience; they bring community connections,” said Tom Bernard, president and CEO of Berkshire United Way. “In some cases, they bring fundraising capacity or connection. And every organization is looking for board members to support their work and their mission. So, the opportunity to bring people together and start to make connections is critically important.”
Rather than debating the existence of a shortage of board staff on local nonprofits, he said Berkshire County boasts a lot of nonprofits and they “all want to make sure that [they] have robust, energetic, engaged boards.” The event was aimed at individuals who may be interested in serving on a board but may not know where to start—how do I get on a board, who is looking, what are the things that different organizations do that interest me, he said. “If someone’s interest is in the environment, they’re not necessarily going to be a good fit for an arts organization,” Bernard said. “So this is that chance for them to do some matching, some exploring.”
Given board terms that see members cycling off, ensuring a “strong pipeline of connection” is essential, he said.
Lee resident Mark Williams said he was prompted to speak with Beth Moser, president of The People’s Pantry, by the long lines of people he has witnessed outside a local church seeking resources from their food pantry. “It’s very unsettling,” he said.
Using Google Forms, both individuals and nonprofits complete the documents and report what they want or need, and “then we are personally making the matches behind the scenes,” said Liana Toscanini, the executive director for the Nonprofit Center of the Berkshires. The information is confidential, with project coordinators reading the forms and fitting the two components together, people with skills and organizations needing those skills, she said. Volunteers get in touch with both sides and ask whether they would like to be connected. If so, emails are exchanged, “and they take it from there,” Toscanini said.
During its previous pilot stage, many such matches were confirmed with the in-person event serving as “the official launch of the program,” she said. To date, the overall project has 55 nonprofits signed up and 40 individuals having completed forms requesting to be matched, Toscanini said.
Scheduled to coincide with National Volunteer Week, the buzz of activity and communication in the room was noticeable, with combined volunteers and nonprofit representatives tallying 82 pre-registered and 20 walk-in guests that included Flying Cloud, Berkshire Immigrant Center, Construct Inc., Berkshire County Head Start, The People’s Pantry, and Berkshire Coalition for Suicide Prevention. According to Toscanini, there are more than 1,200 nonprofits in Berkshire County, with 500 of those nonprofits counted among traditional organizations that develop community projects as opposed to municipal departments. One in every four jobs in the county belongs to a nonprofit, she said.
“Board service is a big deal—it’s a leadership position,” Toscanini said. “It’s not just volunteering to pass out brochures, which is important. But it’s actually a bigger job than the normal volunteer opportunity. So, you want personal connections and thought behind where you’re going to volunteer and what you’re going to do.”
As president of the board for the Ventfort Hall Gilded Age Mansion and Museum, Helen Charbonneau attended the event seeking “more hands.” “It’s a big building; we need volunteers to act as docents or representatives, and we need board members,” she said. “We need all levels of people.”
For Charbonneau, the pandemic shut down board involvement, with members either moving away or picking up different interests. “We’re looking for more people who are interested in the Gilded Age, the history of Lenox, the county. It can be any level of skill, people who like to garden, work on restoration projects, greeters, people who do tours, and then the board members who need to be out there, like me, raising money and awareness.”
The program idea began a year ago with Egremont resident Maggie Buchwald touting the project to the Berkshire Taconic Foundation, whose strategic priorities include encouraging volunteerism as a board member, said Kelly Sweet, the Foundation’s senior philanthropy officer. “We feel it’s one of the most effective ways to make an impact on the great work that the nonprofits are doing,” she said.
Buchwald and Sweet had no trouble getting the other hosts to agree to move the program forward, prompted by Buchwald’s experience as both nonprofit staff and a board member. She previously worked with a New York organization that matched volunteers from corporations to nonprofits, proving as the project’s impetus.
“I saw the need up here in Berkshire County because we are so rich in nonprofits and everybody is looking for board members,” Buchwald said. “There’s so much need on the nonprofit side, but also there are so many people who want to serve, not just people who work in the corporate sector but also people who work in nonprofits who want to use their skills elsewhere to serve their community better. It’s really great.”
For more information and access to the volunteer questionnaire, visit the Nonprofit Center of the Berkshires’ website or Berkshire United Way’s website.
