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"The board should govern, and the executive director should lead the day-to-day operations. When those lines blur, that's when things get messy."
This episode is sponsored-in-part by Maddie's Fund, The Animal Rights Foundation, The Trapper's Tips & Tricks Workshop, and The Community Cat Clinic.
Strong missions save lives but strong governance sustains them.
In this essential episode of the Community Cats Podcast, Stacy LeBaron welcomes back Tim Crum, CEO and founder of Animal Shelter
Services, for a deep dive into nonprofit board governance. If you've ever wondered what a board of directors should be doing (versus what they often end up doing), this conversation is for you.
Tim breaks down the core purpose of a nonprofit board: governance, not operations. From fiduciary responsibility to strategic planning, he outlines the three legal duties every board member must understand—duty of loyalty, duty of care, and duty of obedience (think "LOCO" to remember them). He also shares real-world examples of common governance missteps, including conflicts of interest, related board members, executive directors serving as voting board members, and the risks of poorly documented board minutes.
For growing animal welfare organizations—especially those transitioning from all-volunteer to staffed operations—this episode offers practical guidance on when to hire an executive director, how to structure bylaws and policies, and why board composition matters. Tim also addresses board giving requirements, succession planning, and how to recruit skilled board members by first getting your "house in order."
Whether you're a founder wearing too many hats, a seasoned board member, or stepping into governance for the first time, this episode provides clear, actionable insights to help your organization grow responsibly, ethically, and sustainably.
Good governance isn't just paperwork…it's the foundation for saving more lives.
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You've tuned in to the Community Cats Podcast.
Ready?
Let's go.
Welcome to the Community Cats Podcast.
I'm your host, Estaceela Baron.
I've been involved helping homeless cats for over 30 years with the Maramek River Feline
Rescue Society.
The goal of this podcast is to expose you to amazing people who are improving the lives
of cats.
I hope these interviews will help you learn how you can turn your passion for cats into
action.
And today we're speaking with Tim Crumb, who is the CEO and founder of Animal Shelter Services.
Folks may recognize Tim's name because he was in episode 6-11 talking about all things
shelter evaluations, working with organizations and helping them grow.
So I highly, highly recommend you go check that episode out if you want to find out more
about Tim and his services.
But today it's going to be all about governance, nonprofit, board governance.
So we're going to talk deep dive around boards of directors and how we can all work together
to make our organizations run better.
So Tim, first and foremost, I want to welcome you to the show.
Thanks for having me.
It's always a pleasure to be chatting with you.
So nonprofit organizations all have to have a board of directors for our likes or our
dislikes.
What is the main role of a board of directors for nonprofit organization?
Great questions to start off with.
So we'll start with a 40,000 foot view.
So the role of a board of a nonprofit organization is, is to govern.
And that entails setting up policies, selecting the executive, hiring the executive, making
sure that you are abiding by local laws and doing some strategic planning for the organization
as well.
So those are from a 40,000 foot view, the things that a nonprofit board should be doing.
Yeah.
And I'm going to throw my treasurers hat in fiduciary responsibility, right?
That is correct.
So there are some responsibilities of a board.
There's actually 10 responsibilities for nonprofit board members.
And believe it or not, there are three legal duties for board members.
So they are the duty of loyalty, the duty of care, and the duty of obedience.
So I always tell people to try to remember it as loco, the Spanish term for crazy, which
is what happens to a lot of us when we serve on a board or we work with a board.
So that's loyalty, care, and obedience.
And each one of them has different legal responsibilities for nonprofit board members.
That most nonprofit board members that I've worked with throughout my entire 30 year career
simply aren't even aware that they have legal responsibilities, let alone just responsibilities
for the governance of the organization.
So now everybody's all scared and they're going to go, OK, legal, I'm going to run for
the woods.
I do know there's what's called directors and officers insurance and maybe I'm jumping
the gun here on that one, but there are certain types of insurance that protect us as a general
business and then also that protect the actions of the board with that being said as individual
board members, we also should be aware of protecting ourselves too.
That's correct.
So when you're referring to the directors and officers liability insurance, a lot of
people refer to that in the shorthanded, which is D&O insurance, and that protects the
nonprofit board members against legal, their legal responsibility should they make a
misstep in the work that they do on behalf of the organization.
So that's something that a nonprofit board member should be aware of.
If you're being recruited to serve on a nonprofit board, one of the questions I would have
is do you have D&O liability insurance?
Because I want to make sure if I'm going to serve in the capacity of a board member that
I am covered for any decisions that I would make.
Have you in your 30 years experience run into a situation where the D&O insurance has actually
had to be utilized?
I have not, but I can certainly tell you that one of the things I monitor about our industry
is I have Google alerts.
So I have 13 different phrases and every morning my inbox gets flooded with news from around
the country in fact around the world with these different phrases.
So although I have not had a client that had to actually use that, I could certainly
tell you that in my time looking at the Google alerts, I have seen a lot of instances for
nonprofit directors who have had a misstep and they've had to tap into that.
And not only do they have to tap into that, but as you could imagine, there is a hit
that the organization takes for decisions that are made and today's day and age when
it's no longer just traditional media which, you know, back in the 80s and 90s that's
what we dealt with.
Now you're dealing with social media and those things tend to go viral awfully quickly.
It's happening in real time.
So if a nonprofit board member makes a decision and it blows up and people are opposed
to it, next thing you know, it's on X.
It's on Instagram, it's on Facebook, it's on Reddit and it blows up.
So as I said, I haven't had a client that has had to utilize that, but I know of organizations
and situations where that has occurred.
You use the phrase, the board had a misstep.
What does that mean?
Like what is an example of a misstep is it taking funds out, giving myself a loan to buy
a house?
What is an example?
Yeah.
So, you know, I'll keep this specific to the animal sheltering field.
So a misstep could be that the board hires one of its own board members to do work on
behalf of the organization and they never disclosed that and that person never recused themselves
from the voting process.
So as you could imagine from an outsider's perspective, they hear that the organization
is now paying one of the board members a quarter of a million dollars, let's say,
to perform work for the organization.
That's not going to go over well with a lot of the stakeholders of the organization.
But if you look deeper, you want to make sure that in the board minutes that it was recorded
that this person made that disclosure to the board and it's also in the meetings that
they recuse themselves from the voting said that there's no conflict of interest.
So this is such an important thing when I talk about board governance.
The board minutes is your written record of what occurs at those board meetings.
So most boards meet either every month or every other month.
And the only written record of what occurs at those meetings is the board minutes.
And that's why it's so critical that the person that's recording those minutes, which
is usually the board secretary, knows how to do proper note taking and is able to
notate those things within the minutes so that if this ever does blow up and somebody
wants to look at the board minutes, that information is reflected in the minutes.
And if it isn't, then that's the first place that those headaches or those missteps
occur.
So I am familiar with a conflict of interest policy that an organization is supposed to
have and many of the nonprofits that I'm on the board of every January or December, depending
on how you want to do it, you have to fill out a new conflict of interest form every
year disclosing any potential conflicts.
And is that part of the minutes or is it like part of that information?
How is that recorded, those conflicts recorded in the minute structure?
Your question is a great one and I'll answer it's kind of a two part order.
So a nonprofit organization should have a conflict of interest form.
And that should be completed by all board members when they come on to the board.
And then it usually should be completed either annually or when their board term is renewed.
So let's say a nonprofit organization has a two or three year term.
You can have them complete that on the renewal of their new term.
You can do it every year if you want it.
But the idea is one to make sure that you have a conflict of interest policy in place and
that it's signed and it's dated and it's stored or secured somewhere so that if you ever
needed to be able to reference them, people would be able to do so.
The second part of that goes back to what I just mentioned, which is within the minutes
themselves.
So if there is ever a discussion at the board level and there is even the perception
of a conflict of interest, that should be disclosed as part of the conversation.
But most importantly, it has to be recorded in the minutes.
So here's a misstep that I see that has actually happened to some of my clients.
They actually have a discussion and somebody is brought it up and they were forthright
about a conflict, but it never made it into the board minutes.
So it's as if it never existed because from a legal standpoint, if there were ever to
be blowback on that issue, the first place you're going to look is in the minutes.
And if it's not in the minutes, then you have an issue because now it becomes, well,
I know I said that.
I declared it in that August meeting from two years ago.
So that's why it's critical that if it gets discussed to make sure that that secret
material is recording whatever that discussion and disclosure was.
So that conflict of interest is kind of a two-parter one, making sure that form is filled
out in two, making sure if there ever is a conflict that it's disclosed.
This actually falls under the legal responsibility of duty of loyalty.
And the duty of loyalty, the summarized version of that is, as a board member, you always
have to act in the best interests of the organization that you serve.
So let's say, for example, you are an architect and you serve on the board and now you're
about to go through a capital campaign, let's say, and you can design a new facility.
So this could create a conflict of interest that A should be, the form should be filled
out.
B, most importantly, that you have to disclose as part of the meeting, hey guys, just wanted
to share that I am an architect.
My company will be bidding on this process.
So I wanted to disclose that and I'm going to recuse myself from the remainder of this
meeting so that there is no conflict or people that can accuse me of influencing the
discussion and or the vote.
And that's how it would be handled appropriately.
And then that person, of course, removed themselves from the room so that they're not present
for the discussion and the vote.
And then again, most importantly, this has to be recorded in the minutes.
So the minutes are their key components, you're just talking about key components of a conversation
is their key structure to the minutes.
I know some people have minutes and it's like reading a diary.
And then there's other minutes and it's like two lines and that's it.
Yeah.
So I'm actually going to reference from my own book.
So I have a book called an Animal Shelter Disguide to Board Governance and this book,
which is a great reference for anyone that's either new to a board has never served on
a board before or even if you've been on a board for 10 or 20 years and you want to refresh
yourself for maybe just understand what are my responsibilities and legal duties.
My book covers all that and actually gives you examples within the books of different
policies.
So in the book, I talk about board minutes and I'll just read off for you what is a best
practice for what should be in board minutes.
So first and foremost, you want the date and time of the meeting, how notification of
the board was given to board members, the names of the board members that were present
and who was absent, the names and affiliations of any guests that are there, whether a quorum
was established because this ties into the bylaws, which we could touch on later because
all bylaws indicate what is a quorum and how many people's needed for a quorum for that
meeting to be official quote unquote, it should also list any board actions or resolutions
that were taken and the votes that were related to that, a brief summary of entry,
ports or information that was presented to the board, any potential or actual conflicts of
interest. So here we come back to that. That should be in the board minutes and of course
the name and title of the person who prepared the minutes. So as I read those out, that should
be a format that people follow for every single board minute collection and how it's recorded.
So even if there wasn't anything that fell under a particular area, you could just have the
header for what it was such as potential or actual conflicts of interest and then you could list
under that none or NA, not applicable. But as long as you use the same format meeting after
meeting, it just becomes easier to read and easier to digest as well as to follow historically.
So if your minutes are the same now in 2026 as they were back in 2022, it's just easier to kind
of follow the actions as opposed to, I've seen minutes where it's just kind of a free flow
thought that somebody's putting down on paper and it's hard to kind of sort through all of that
information. So it's just about being organized and structured. But are your thoughts about
related board members? Wow, Stacy, I have dealt with this more than I care to admit. And I won't
even say in what states this happened most recently. I will tell you that this individual was the
founder of the organization. And this individual had her husband as the board president,
had her daughter as a board member and had the daughter's husband as a board member.
So now you could imagine how many conflicts arise just from that because with that voting block,
they represented three of the five board members. So you could imagine if the executive
director wants to push something through, she has the votes to do so. So whether that's a real
or perceived conflict of interest, it's a conflict of interest. So board members should not be
related at all, just because it creates that situation. So the example I gave is probably one of
maybe a dozen, maybe even two dozen that I've personally dealt with as a consultant.
And so when I do a board audit or a shelter evaluation, that's one of the things that I will examine.
And I have to call attention to it because it can create a lot of problems for the organization
and its reputation and its fiduciary responsibility at some point. And it's best just not to have
those conflicts of interest. So if you're asking me, should board members be related? Absolutely not.
And I'm going to share with you my own personal experience. So when I back in 1996,
when I became president of the Maramack River Feline Rescue Society's board, I was not compensated,
but I played the role of executive director, board president, director of operations, director
of development. I mean, all that sort of top of the house stuff. And I stayed in that role
for 16 years about. And I am sure that probably was not the right course of action. But do you
see this happening often in other organizations? With board members that are related. So board president,
that's also an acting in the role of the executive director. So your board president, I mean,
I would have a conversation, well, what do you think executive director Stacy? And so I'm having
a conversation with myself because I'm the leadership of the organization operationally,
as well as leading the board of directors, which huge conflict right there because I'm supposed
to be, if I'm playing the executive director's role, I'm in essence leading the charge and
hiring myself. So not a great example for success and not a good model, but I feel like it's
something I see quite often. Yes, it is something that we see quite often. And this goes back to
one of the three legal duties, which is the duty of loyalty and not to have those conflicts of
interest. So it actually is a conflict of interest for the executive director or for that matter,
any paid staff person or even a non-paid staff person to serve on the board. It creates a
conflict of interest. It can become a legal nightmare. It's a rare occurrence for that to happen,
but it's still a risk nonetheless. So I advocate that an executive director or shelter manager or
director, whatever title they have, that they should not be a voting member of the board because
it creates those conflicts of interest. So when I started out our annual revenues were $45,000
and then when I wrapped up, we were at around a million dollars a year. So it was kind of like,
well, the trains kind of going along here. And that's what we fall into. I mean, the board
management and the governance, that all kind of ends up being at the bottom of the list because we're
bringing cats in and we're busy developing our programs. And over time, we get to looking like,
oh, we're growing. Maybe it's time to hire an executive director. And that's one of our
main guidelines here as a board is to hire the executive director. At what point in an organization's
life cycle, do you think it is wise to hire an executive director? And how would a sort of a baby
board know how to do this? This is a great question. And I don't think there's a one-size-fits-all answer
to that because within the life cycle of a nonprofit organization, I think it varies. And that
could be nuance, depending on are you urban, are you rural, are you open admission, limited admission,
the type of board members you have. I think there are so many factors to that. Having said that,
I think the soonest that you can hire an executive director, the better off that the organization
will be because there are two parts to leadership. The first part is the board. And they are the
big picture. They govern. They set policy. They hire the executive director. But it's the executive
director who has the task and responsibility to lead the day-to-day operations. And those two
should dovetail nicely at board meetings and work together. But the executive director should not be
doing the governance of the board. And the board should not be getting into the minutia, or would I
say, getting into the weeds of the day-to-day operations. When my company does board audits,
I will sit in on board meetings. And I will tell you probably slightly more often than not.
When I sit in on those meetings, the board is acting operationally not in a governance modality.
And what I mean by that is, I've seen things where they are discussing, well, who should adopt
this cat? We've had three applications on it. And they're talking about each one of the applicants.
And so when they get into that kind of day-to-day operation, that's overstepping their boundary.
And that's where things get kind of ugly. Because I've also seen situations where board members
come in to visit at the shelter. And they're given preferential treatment. And then a board member
says, well, how come you're not doing this? And of course, staff is going to react because they
want to please a board member. But that may be in conflict with what the director has laid out as
the policies internally. So you get into a lot of messy situations and there's power struggles,
conflict of interest once again. So the two should be separated, but work closely together.
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So you've mentioned the words, bylaws, policies, and I am going to come back to executive
director after this, but I want to make sure we get this part of government's under control here.
So we've got bylaws, policies, SOPs, and what I would also say maybe outside the box a little bit
protocols maybe, but maybe not. Maybe it is just the bylaws. We have our articles of
incorporation at the top. Then we have our bylaws. Then we have our policies. Then we have our
standard operating procedures. Is that sort of inaccurate top to bottom listing?
Yes. In each one of those deals with a different part of the system. And so the bylaws are how
the board and the organization operates from a legal standpoint. So an example of a bylaw
would be a quorum. How many people are needed for this meeting to take place and for everything
to be official. So that would be an example of a bylaw. The articles of incorporation are filed
with your local state. So whether you're in Connecticut or Arizona or Washington state,
each one has different regulations. And so those are filed with your state.
So those are two of the I would say top level things because it all keeps coming down to a lower
level as to how the nonprofit would operate. And then policies. So I sometimes find policies and
SOPs get blurred together or get confused. I don't know if you see that.
I do. So let's talk about that because policy is set at the board level for how it's going to
govern itself. So let me kind of tie into something we discussed earlier, which was either an
executive being related to a board member or two board members being related. So that would fall
under nepotism. So one of the policies, and this is a best practice that a nonprofit organization
should enact is what's called a nepotism policy. And so that policy pretty much dictates that we're
we're not going to have two people that are related together serving on the board or one is the
staff member and one is a board member. So that's an example of a policy at the board level.
And those things should be enacted. And that's something that I have in my book incidentally is
not only why you need an nepotism policy, but I also put actual samples of what that policy
looks like. So that if an organization is struggling with, okay, I think we need an nepotism policy
of red Tim's book. It makes sense. How do we write one? You don't even have to go that far
because I've given you a sample. So you could either just take that as it is and insert your
organizational name or you could bring it to the board and say, how can we tweak this? So it
really fits our specific needs. One challenge I find is that, you know, board will approve a policy
or something. And it's in the minutes for that meeting. But then it's really not captured in a
master document. And then it gets revised. And so, but you don't know which version. And then all
of a sudden, like was it last year's version? Is it this year's version? And then we're reading
17 years worth of minutes to try and track. Now, did we do this or did we not do this?
Any tips? Yeah. And so what you've just brought up is actually something I have encountered throughout
my career. And I suspect I will always encounter in my career, which is just you're speaking about
the structure and organization internally for board governance. So the first place is every
board member should be given a three-ring binder that has all of that information in it. And at
the bottom of each one of those policies, it should be dated when that policy went into effect.
So let's say you have a conflict of interest policy, right? And the policy was put into place on
January 1st, 2026. So maybe next year, there's a discussion in that policy gets updated. So what
could then happen is when a policy gets updated, you ask all the board members to remove that
policy from their binder and then replace it with this new policy. So that's the hard copy,
but you also need a place where this exists. So you could either put it on a thumb drive,
you could put it in Google Docs. I mean, we are in the year 2026. So there's a lot of technology
that we could take advantage to keep all of this information compiled in one area. Because when
I do, let's say, a board audit or a shelter evaluation, and I'm requesting all your board
documents, there's like this sense of panic. And I'll get these emails or phone calls like,
Tim, I don't know where this stuff is. So that's, to me, it's the first sign like, okay, this is a
little bit of disorganization. I need to help them get organized so that they could help themselves.
That's the key. Get all of these documents in one place and then make sure everyone
is a hard coffee of that as well. Do you feel that there is a magical number of board members?
I do. And I would say that number is probably between nine and 15. Now I can tell you from my own
experience, I actually served on a board once that was, Kimberly call this 25 or 27 board members.
So from the executive director's perspective, I had 25 or 27 bosses. And each one of those had
a different background, different life experiences, different personality. And so I would talk to them
either on the phone or we would exchange emails. And they have different perspectives and different
ways of viewing that. And that makes it so challenging for an executive director because
you have to change your tonality and even your communication style to deal with different people.
So I feel that nine to 15 is probably a sweet spot because you need board members to help you,
particularly when it comes to a capital campaign. But that's why there are committees that you can
create to help with the work of the board, but not overwhelm the board because when you get that
many people in a room, not only is it a lot of different personalities, it's just a lot to
have to deal with. And you get different voting blocks. So nine to 15 is what I recommend.
Do you feel that there should be a giving requirement? I do. So one of the legal responsibilities
of the board is a fiduciary responsibility. And that's to ensure that there are funds to be able
to keep that organization moving forward. And so as a board member, you are expected to support
that organization. So let's take the perspective of a donor for a second. You're going through capital
campaign, let's say, and you're sitting down to meet with a donor as a board member and you're
asking them for a $10,000 gift. A legitimate question that could come back to you as a board member
from that perspective, the owner is, well, how much of you given? And so if you can't answer that
question, then the daughter's perspective is, here's somebody asking me for money, but they have
a made a financial investment in the organization. So it's like that hot stock tip that somebody
gives you. Well, how much stock have you bought? Well, I haven't bought any. Okay, well, it can't be
that great of a stock tip if you haven't invested. So best practice is for board members to
financially support the organization with a gift. Now that is defined in a board giving policy.
And that could be different for every organization. I was an executive director for a board. This is
the one I referenced earlier that had so many board members and that minimum gift per year was
$10,000. And that's what we call a get or give policy, which meant you could either give $10,000
or you could do a combination of all your $5,000. My employer will give $5,000 or some combination
of that. So it's so important that you're able to demonstrate not just to your donors, but even
foundations, because some foundations will ask, what is your board support? And you have to be
able to say 100% because otherwise, why are these people governing the board if they have
a made a financial investment? So you could have a board giving policy. Maybe it's a minimum of
$50 because we deal with rural shelters that may have a budget of $40,000. So it just it varies
based on where you are and make it so that it's something comfortable and maybe a bit of a stretch
for people. You don't want it to be so overwhelming that you can't even attract board members
because it would be unrealistic, but at least to have a board giving policy.
Well, and that leads me right into board recruitment. So what are the key factors at play
being able to recruit board members? I get probably every week, someone's reaching out to me and
saying, hey, I need to get a new treasure or I'm looking for succession planning or I need to add
to the board. We're all in our mid 70s and there's only so much more time we can do this. So
what are your tips for board recruitment? So let me first begin by saying there are five issues
that most boards suffer from and one of those five issues is board composition and not having
a strong board composition and underneath that is succession planning. So I do deal with a lot
of boards where I've seen board members where they have seven board members, all seven of them
that serve for 20 or 25, 30 years. So they start getting older and they start aging out, they want
to replace that. Best practice is to constantly have this new influx of board members all the time to
infuse new ideas and creativity. So the first place they actually look when you want to recruit board
members, believe it or not, is I'm looking at the internal structure because it's hard to recruit
board members if you're disorganized. So are people coming into a system where there are
minutes that a prospective board member can look at to see historically what has happened?
Is there a board manual? Are there policies that they can read? Do they meet on a regular basis?
So all of those things will indicate to a board member whether or not they want to serve
because I deal with a lot of smaller to medium sized animal shelters that when they hit a certain
point they want to expand and become a more professional board and get into more governance
and the problem or the challenge I should say that they encounter is they're not structured in
such a way that they could attract somebody who is pretty savvy and is very strong in the business
world because they may come in and they'll ask questions like, tell me about your onboarding
process. What do your board manual look like? What are your board policies? And if they begin asking
these questions and you don't have that, it becomes very difficult and challenging to attract
that type of person. So that's actually the first place I look at is your house in order so to speak.
That's great. That's like you're like selling your business and they're not owners of the company
but they're stewards of the company and so it would be the same as saying I'm trying to
get you to buy stock in my company from the nonprofit side of things. I think you should look
at it almost in the same light because it's the same level of legal responsibility almost.
Absolutely. So just having your internal affairs in order is probably one of the more compelling
reasons to attract new board members into the nonprofit. I want to circle back for a few minutes
with regards to the executive director. So should the executive director be a voting board member?
I do not believe that that person should be because it creates a conflict of interest.
And it also goes under the duty of loyalty. And should board members be involved in volunteer
roles like cleaning cat cages, being a foster home, getting items for an auction. Where is that line
where board members are serving the executive director when they're also the boss of the executive
director? Right. So this is a gray area in the world of animal sheltering. So if we look at the
life cycle of a nonprofit, what we typically will see with the nonprofit animal shelter rescue
group is early on their board members will serve not only in a governance mode but also in an
operational mode because you're small, you're trying to get your feet off the ground so to speak.
So you'll have your volunteers come in and clean cages and take cats and dogs to adoption events
and do all kinds of things that board members really shouldn't doing. So let's look at this through
the lens of a hospital, most hospitals are nonprofit, right? How would you feel as a patient if you
walked in to see a board member with a mop and bucket cleaning the floors you would think this is
kind of unusual. And so we are one of the only industries that I could think of where board members
actually take on the role of kind of the minutia the day to day. So I understand that in the
life cycle of nonprofits, that's common for board members to take on the role of volunteers.
But I think if you want to transition into a governance mode of board governance,
then board members should not be taking on volunteer roles because this is where
you get a lot of blurred lines where conflict of interest happens and conflicts with staff occurs.
And there's a lot of nightmares around both of those. So I wish I could give you kind of this
black and white answer. I think best practice is board members should not be in a volunteer role.
But we also understand in this particular industry, we do with a lot of small to medium-sized
shelters that are just trying to get off the ground. So early on in their life cycle,
that does occur. And it has to occur because who else is going to be doing the work? So we kind of
give them what I would say is a pass, but that pass only goes for so long. So it's hard to answer
that question because there's some nuance to it. Well, and I mean, you're accurately representing
the fact that there is a lot of gray area here with regards to our relationship with our executive
director or our staff leadership or getting into the whole compensating staff members, which is
a big move for a nonprofit to go from an all-volunteer organization to starting to hire staff
and understanding those expectations and managing staff and giving them goals and having all
of that HR structure in place, which can be pretty scary for an organization that may be resource
limited in the first place. So there's a lot of strategic thought that has to go on that. And
growing is hard. It's not easy. Growing is hard, but it's important work and scaling the work is
very important and creating an organization that's able to be around, you know, longer than 10 years
is also very important and valuable to our communities and to our cats that are in those
communities. Tim, we're running tight on time here right now. If folks are interested in finding
out more about governance and you have this great resource, how would they do that? So the first
place they could go is online. I have a website for my books. Of course, one of them is an Animal
Shelter's Guide to Board Governance and that web addresses animal shelter guide dot com. So if you go
to that website, you could see the three books. Actually, there will be four books that are available
and you could order the one on board governance. Excellent. Anything else you'd like to share with
our listeners today? If one of your listeners needs help navigating the murky waters of board
governance, my company animal shelter services does deal with this on a regular basis. We have dealt
with a lot of different boards all across the country, whether it's no kill limited admission,
open admission, cat only dog only, horse, weaved it out with everything. Nothing scares or intimidates
me. I would be happy to work with your group. So people could find me at animal shelter services dot
com. Excellent. Tim, I want to thank you. What a fantastic conversation. I do not think I have
talked about governance at all on this show and it is a hot hot topic because what you do at the
board level just sets the stage to crafting an incredible organization. It's so so important and I
just don't think we give it the necessary time. So Tim, I really appreciate you spending time with
me today and thank you for agreeing to be a guest on the show and I hope we'll have you want to
get in the future. It's great to be here. Thanks for having me. That's it for this week. Please head
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The Community Cats Podcast