Boards of Directors are often given the unilateral authority to control an organization, but there is actually a lot more flexibility to determine a board’s responsibilities than you might think. 

As a worker-led newsroom, it was important for our staff to retain the power to participate in decisions that impact their work and their lives. There are some great resources out there from organizations like the Sustainable Economies Law Center and Resist to guide this sort of approach.

We started off by asking two key questions:

Based on our team’s input, we determined that our board should function to:

• Grow a newsroom that serves as a counternarrative force to legacy media, which prioritizes coverage that supports an expansion of the U.S. criminal legal system.
• Help establish The Appeal as a model for worker-led newsrooms dedicated to collaborative decision-making and equitable organization building. 
• Offer support with fundraising and development.

We also determined that we would seek board members who fill the following roles:

While board members are legally required to retain their fiduciary duties of care (pay attention to the organization’s activities and operations) and loyalty (act in the best interest of the organization), there is otherwise a lot of room to determine and delegate the board’s responsibilities.

First, it’s helpful to review a typical board’s powers and responsibilities, such as: 

• Vision Setting
• Strategic Development and Planning 
• Policy Setting
• Raising Funds
• Financial Planning
• Practices for Legal and Ethical Integrity
• Hiring and Firing 

Then, ask your team how they feel about this list and what they would change. We asked three key questions:

Following a team discussion, we developed the Board Decision Matrix that exists in our bylaws and established these expectations for our board members:

As unglamorous as they are, board logistics are important to figure out before you begin recruiting members. When it comes time to start building your board, you will likely want to focus on:

The first question is important for the organization: In order to put together a recruitment list, you need a sense of how many people you envision on the board. What is the balance between putting too much pressure on a small group and inviting too much chaos from a big group? You might want to consider how many staff you have currently and expect to have over the next board term so there’s not a significant imbalance (i.e. avoid having way more board members than you’ll ever have on staff).

We ultimately decided on no less than seven and no more than 13 members, which gave us a lot of wiggle room to allow the board to evolve depending on The Appeal’s needs.

The second two questions are important to candidates: these are basic questions potential members will ask about what kind of commitment they might be making. 

When it came to board terms, we again wanted to leave room to reassess our needs at a later point. We decided on two-year terms but left the number of terms a board member could serve open-ended. On board meetings, we determined that the board would meet once a month for the first year and then quarterly after that. This gave us room to develop a rapport with our board members and time to figure out the best way to work with them.

Once you’ve answered the big questions about how your Board of Directors will function within your newsroom’s structure, what members will bring to the table, and the powers they will hold, you can begin the exciting process of figuring out who you want to recruit to your board. 

We knew we wanted the three people on our Board of Advisors to transition to our Board of Directors, so we had an excellent starting point. Then, using the board roles we established as a guide, we hosted a team brainstorm. 

It was important to us to make room for ideal candidates and not be constrained by who we thought would say yes—this helped us work through other factors, like who would show up, who would collaborate well with other members and our team (dynamics are very important to a functioning board!), and who would champion our work. It was also important to consider the diversity of identity, experience, and expertise we were looking for. 

From this “dream big list,” start whittling down the names using these sorts of factors and begin designing your dream board and your recruitment strategy.

When it came time to begin recruiting, we assembled everything we’ve shared here into a Board Overview document (basically, a job description) that we could share with potential members we were reaching out to. If someone on our team or Board of Advisors had a relationship with a candidate, they did the outreach. 

When you start reaching out, set aside time to chat with each person (maybe several times if needed), making sure to express your appreciation for their work and answer any questions they have. It’s a time-intensive process, but is invaluable in setting your news organization up for success.

Fortunately, everyone we asked said yes! In November 2022, we officially announced our inaugural Board of Directors. It’s important to note that we did not onboard the maximum number of board members we designated, leaving room to add people we felt brought critical skills later on. In September 2023, we added two more incredible advocates and allies to our board.

With confirmed yeses, it’s time to return to logistics and figure out what you need for onboarding. This is not just a matter of what is legally required, but also a critical time to ensure everyone is on the same page about your organization and that candidates know what this commitment requires.

To make it easy for our members, we assembled one central Google Doc that served as an all-encompassing checklist (with hyperlinks!):

Inevitably, you might need to do some chasing down to get everything you need from your new board members, but creating your own checklist of what you have received back from each person makes it easy to keep track of what is missing.

After all the hard work you put into assembling the right board for your organization, you now get to start benefiting from their guidance and expertise. 

Board meetings go by quickly, so to make the most of your time together, here are a few things you can do to prepare:

It may take a while to figure out how to make the most of meetings and engage your board in a productive and helpful way.

Give yourself and your board time to get to know each other and grow together.